Avianca’s LifeMiles program allows you to redeem miles for Amazon purchases. Reader Edwin redeemed 80,000 miles for $500 in Amazon purchases after learning that Avianca would be filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Avianca has previously stated that “LifeMiles is a separate business from airline partner Avianca, remains well capitalized and is insulated from Avianca’s reorganization process”. Despite this reassurance from Avianca Edwin was notified that the payment of Avianca miles was declined and Amazon charged a credit card on file.
0.625¢ per mile isn’t a great redemption, but I can understand why somebody might make it depending on their unique circumstances. It’s possible that this decline has nothing to do with Avianca filing for bankruptcy, but it certainly isn’t good news. I didn’t even know this was an option with LifeMiles.
i’m trying to spend my lifemiles and cancel my card before I’m hit with an annual fee and I’m having recurring issues in trying to redeem them at Amazon. anyone have any tips in resolving this? by the way, I called Avianca and was surprised that they were not willing to extend for another year without incurring an annual fee (like they did for me the year before).
Worked for me. Pop-up showed a one-time use credit card # that I had to put in as payment then click Place Order. Only use the LifeMiles check out button once to generate yourself the card #.
The Chrome add-on is a little maddening. The biggest gripe is you can only buy 1 item at a time with Lifemiles. No big if you have Amazon PRIME, but if you don’t…and don’t want to pay for shipping, makes it a little limiting. Went ahead and bought 1 item so far. Worked fine. Got the 0.0055 value. So roughly half of what I paid for the miles. (140% bonus when I did, and 1-2k miles from flights, etc…) Still coming out ahead from original expectations, as bought those miles for an Asia-USA ticket redemption, which went on sale, so didn’t need to use these extra $200 USD worth of miles (Rest came from C/C bonus). Deep down, I think Avianca will survive and so will Lifemiles, so maybe I should of just kept the miles, but prefer to be “safe than sorry” or rather “get something – $100 worth, rather than nothing / $0.” Besides, don’t see myself using Lifemiles anytime soon. Have other miles to use elsewhere.
Strange. I had three items in my cart and it worked fine. All three were in the same “bucket” of being delivered together.
Went to Avianca website and booked myself a One-Way ticket to Europe in mid July (got a EU passport so no problem in regards to entering).
Flight is with United via StarAlliance for 30k Lifemiles.
Received a confirmation number and the booking shows up under ‘My trips’.
Then read this on flyertalk:
“The operating airline is not required to honor the ticket issued by a carrier that cannot compensate them when they present the ticket to them after performing the flight.”
Can I still be denied my flight by United (esp. given the current Avianca situation)?
Also, if they present the ticket to them after my flight and Avianca can’t pay, what happens?
Thanks in advance for anyone who has an educated guess! 🙂
I’ve tried redeeming Lifemiles for an Amazon purchase 3 times in the past 24 hours. Each time it deducts the miles from my account but then says the credit card is declined. It seems Lifemiles has a card on file with Amazon that is supposed to be used in these situations – maybe the bankruptcy means it isn’t going through? Luckily, getting the miles back is a simple process online.
How are you getting the miles back online. Same thing happened to me.
this has nothing to do with lifemiles or avianca itself. they use a rewards company called re.wardsweb who is the one that run the amazon purchases with miles while profiting from the service. They era very sneaky and represent themselves as life miles without providing their name, not even in emails they answer you with (nor they give you the name of the person writing the email)
I have had several instances where Amazon charges my own personal card due to the master card generated number for the purchase is declined and then you have to request your miles back and this is like pulling teeth.
Interestingly, the number of miles required on Amazon are reduced after applying any of the offers from Amex, Discover, etc. Yet, these offers require that you pay with your respective credit card points.
Can anyone with previous order experience share how the Lifemiles are applied at checkout? Were any other pre-tax discounts honored in reducing the number of Lifemiles required?
I know not many here entertain the thought of using Lifemiles for Amazon, but this may still be of interest. Sometime, about a week ago, Lifemiles went from having a value on Amazon of just over .65 cents per mile to just over .55 cents per miles. I experimented and saw the required points on the identical items I had looked before (at the identical cash price) go up almost 20%.
I emailed them Tuesday and ask if there had been a devaluation? Still no response. I did get one item using points about two weeks ago (partially as an experiment of how it works as much as anything). When I had some problems with that they responded to my email in about 36 hours.
Again I know most won’t use points for Amazon, but if there is devaluation for that use (and there seems there to be) it may portend something for other uses
Man I hope Lifemiles makes it too but I’m highly doubtful at this point. Colombia extended their international travel ban to August 31st. Possibly the most intense travel ban on the planet alongside Argentina who started it. That’s going to crush the airline who’s already hugely in debt if Colombia’s government doesn’t step in.
This is a BAD deal. You can use 80,000 miles for one way ticket on partner airlines. For example take united one way newark to tokyo if you have to pay for that ticket it is well over $2500, many other options are better then using on Amazon.
You could, and if you aren’t a Japanese citizen or special permanent resident (a subclass of Japanese permanent residents consisting of descendants of Koreans brought to Japan to work during the colonial era as well as certain other Korean immigrants to Japan like North Koreans who made it out) you’d be turned back on arrival in Tokyo. That’s the issue, and why people are turning to this.
I checked, it’s coming out to 0.0055 value for me as well now.