Other North & South America Frequent Flyer Programs - Lifemiles shenanigans

There was an infamous discussion about the bmi call center shenanigans. I guess we need also a discussion about the Lifemiles shenanigans.

After my horrible experience with my first ticket bookings I am even more annoyed about Lifemiles shenanigans.

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I booked three one way tickets from ZRH to DXB with LX in C.

The website said yesterday, at the time of booking:

Cash US$: $ 689.04
Travel taxes US$: $ 129.24
Total US$: $ 818.28



Today, after three calls (one of them took me two hours!!!) and three contacts via online chat, I got an email with the booking receipt. That says:

Cash US$: $ 778.62
Travel taxes US$: $ 129.24
Total US$: $ 907.86



I wanted to double-check the price on the Lifemiles website and it says today for the very same flights:

Cash US$: $ 689.04
Travel taxes US$: $ 129.24
Redemption fees US$: $ 75.00
Total US$: $ 893.28


We have three different amounts here.

First of all, I had on the booking screen $ 818.28 and I was now charged $ 907.86. That makes a difference of $ 89.58 :mad:

Second, it seems that they introduced a booking fee of $ 25 per ticket over night :td:

I saw that redemption tax of $25 per pax I think it's only in the past 24 hours .

Are you using the TACA call center or the Avianca?
I'm calling the TACA one and the recording is fuzzy and horrible. Once I try to enter my FF number, it gives me a busy tone.
The hours are supposedly 24hrs (it says on their site), but ...

In fairness I did warn all you ex BMI types when you got all excited about LifeMiles that it is the shonkiest FF programme out there.