Lifemiles – The Ultimate Travel ‘hack’

Want to travel luxuriously on a budget via business or first class on various airlines? It is NOW or never. I wanted to introduce Lifemiles in my blog at some point until I was alerted to this AMAZING Black Friday Sale for travel: aka “Cyber Week” Sale.

In a nutshell, Lifemiles is part of Avianca’s miles programme (like Krisflyer), which is also part of Star Alliance.  But what makes this deal so amazing is that a discount like this has NEVER happened before (A bit on past discounts later).

For this week only, from November 20th to 27th, you get 145% more miles in addition to every mile you buy. So if you buy 10k miles, you get 24.5k . The cost of each mile is about USD 1.35c or ~ SGD 1.82c

BUT it gets even better, for readers of OMMAT, which you can easily sign up here , you get access to miles at 150%. That is absolutely EPIC. This brings the cost to about USD 1.32c or ~ SGD 1.78c per mile. I know this is just confusing numbers at the moment but bare with me, and I’ll help you make sense of it.

The big question is, why would anyone buy miles? Simply put, for some of us, saving up enough miles for business or first suites is painfully long. This hastens the process by allowing you to buy business or first class at a fraction of what it would originally cost.

Furthermore, Lifemiles is offering a discounted star alliance partner redemptions (SIA is part of Star Alliance), which would allow you to travel to certain destinations at a discounted rate. Here’s a look at the table for certain destination/major areas at a glance:

2 way business class to Europe for just $1388 x 2?

My favourite destination (Seoul) is going at a discount right now! Economy (Krisflyer = 25,000, Via Lifemiles: 17,500). Business (Krisflyer = 43,000, Via lifemiles: 36,000)

These photos are just a snapshot. It still isn’t cheap but you can forgo pealing off the metal foil during mealtimes, and lie on a flatbed at a much more accessible price.

In addition, buying miles on Lifemiles count as Airline spend on most credit cards and utilising the DBS Altitude credit card gives you 3 miles (1.5 DBS points) for every dollar spend.

However, there is a caveat to buying miles on Lifemiles, as my ‘guru’ often points out:

1) Miles are worthless currency and should only be bought if you want to use them.

2) Certain destinations need to booked way in advance, sometimes up to a year.

3) Check for availability before buying to avoid disappointment.

Finally, you need to register yourself with Lifemiles (register here). If you want the 150% bonus, you need to additionally register on OMMAT , like NOW (24th Nov), because it takes 1 day for your account to register and you’ll be left with about 1 day to make a decision.

If you miss this deal, you’re not at a total lost as Lifemiles often carry out deals from time to time (125% to 140% bonus). However, you must register yourself to be alerted.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and as usual, I aim to alert my readers only to the very best deals or “lobangs” as it is colloquially known in Singapore!