LifeMiles Award Chart Changes Make Redemptions More Valuable

It’s high time we had some good news in the world of points and miles redemption charts.

Colombian-based Avianca has unveiled a new distance-based award chart for its popular loyalty program LifeMiles.

The new award chart is for flights within Canada, as well as transborder flights between Canada and the U.S.

What’s particularly interesting is that these changes are actually good news for travelers, especially those who like to redeem LifeMiles on North American Star Alliance airline partners, such as Air Canada and United.

Let’s see what this means for North American travelers.

Table of Contents

LifeMiles’ New Distance-Based Pricing
- Within Canada
- Between Canada and the U.S.
Final Thoughts

LifeMiles’ New Distance-Based Pricing

Introducing distance-based instead of zonal pricing can sometimes mean bad news for travelers, but not this time.

LifeMiles has scrapped its flat-rate redemptions of 12,500 LifeMiles for an economy one-way and 25,000 LifeMiles for a one-way in business class.

The changes will apply to award flights within Canada and between the U.S. and Canada, mainly affecting Air Canada flights.

Air Canada Rouge and United planes — Image Credit: Tomás Del Coro via Flickr

Passengers redeeming miles on certain routes could benefit from a reduction of more than 50% compared to the zone-based pricing.

The new charts look like this:

Within Canada

Distance in Miles	Economy	Business
0 to 500	6,000 LifeMiles	15,000 LifeMiles
501 to 1,500	10,000 LifeMiles	20,000 LifeMiles
+1,501	12,500 LifeMiles	25,000 LifeMiles

Between Canada and the U.S.

Distance in Miles	Economy	Business
0 to 500	6,500 LifeMiles	15,000 LifeMiles
501 to 800	7,500 LifeMiles	16,000 LifeMiles
801 to 1,200	10,000 LifeMiles	18,000 LifeMiles
1,201 to 2,000	12,500 LifeMiles	20,000 LifeMiles
+2,001	13,500 LifeMiles	25,000 LifeMiles

Looking at an example, a one-way flight from Newark (EWR) to Toronto (YYZ) will now cost 6,500 LifeMiles instead of 12,500 LifeMiles — that’s a reduction of 52%!

The only negative impact the changes have are on redemptions on flights in economy between Canada and the U.S. of over 2,001 miles or more. Redemptions on such routes will increase by 1,500 LifeMiles from the previous rate of 12,500 to 13,500 LifeMiles.

For all other domestic travel within the U.S., redemptions will continue to use the zone-based award chart.

Hot Tip: Are Avianca LifeMiles the best use of your miles or points to fly from the U.S. to Canada? We take a look at a few other programs that are also competitive!

Final Thoughts

LifeMiles has shown that it really values those who use its program by making redemptions cheaper for certain travelers.

It would seem that LifeMiles has been able to reach a happy medium whereby while passengers can redeem for less, LifeMiles will still earn enough from the redemptions to keep the program profitable.

Travel within Canada is notorious for being expensive, especially cash tickets. So, it will be interesting to see what impact these reductions in award redemptions will have on the spending and redeeming of flights within Canada and to and from the U.S.