Originally Posted by
skimthetrees
Had this happen to friends. LifeMiles locked their accounts from purchases but failed to notify them they did it. Same symptom as yours - try to book a flight and it fails on the payment every time no matter which card is used. After calling they were informed they had been locked out for suspicious activity on the account - without saying what the suspicious activity was. The phone agent forwarded their case to the account security department who emailed them a couple of days later with a request to send a photocopy of their ID to confirm they were the owner named on the account. At some point later their account was released for purchases again.
I had a similar experience.
My story is as follows: Had a bunch of Avianca flights planned from 2024-2025, so I figured I would upgrade to LifeMiles Basic from Lite to get the refund-ability (I get Lite free with the Cardless Avianca Elite credit card). I put the charge on my Avianca credit card.
2024-Nov: elected upgrade, charged $30. Status didn't change, though. Called LifeMiles and they said to wait 30 days to reflect in the system before opening a case.
2024-Dec: Status didn't change.
2025-Jan: Opened a case with LifeMiles. Was told there was a huge backlog of cases, it may take months to hear a resolution.
It was around this time that I couldn't charge anymore with my credit card on my account - I had to make all redemptions by calling them.
2025-Mar: Opened a dispute with Cardless for the $30 for status not received.
2025-Mar: After 2 weeks, Cardless ruled in my favor and gave me a $30 refund.
2025-Jul: I tried re-engaging again to get the card charging issue resolved. In their infinite brilliance, LifeMiles resets my account and wipes out my Silver status (Silver status comes for free with the Cardless Avianca Elite card). So I open ANOTHER ticket with LifeMiles to get this fixed.
2025-Aug: LifeMiles finally gets back to me about the LM+ upgrade case, and confirms that I did not properly receive the status. They give me 3,000 bonus miles.
2025-Aug: Big back and forth between LifeMiles and Cardless to get my silver status (LifeMiles says Cardless has to do it, Cardless says LifeMiles has to do it). Eventually Cardless takes over and works with LifeMiles behinds the scenes and it gets resolved.
2025-Nov: Tried buying a ticket for my mother-in-law, whose LifeMiles info has been in my saved list of passengers for many years. Still fails.
2026-Feb: Tried buying a ticket for my mother-in-law, still fails. Decide to re-engage with LifeMiles again because now LifeMiles won't let me see 10% discount on Star Alliance partner flights saying my LM+ subscription doesn't have a payment method setup. Try adding card but can't save cards to my account (this has been part of the issue since Jan 2025 as well as being unable to complete charges).
2026-Feb: Fiiiinally get someone competent who says my account was restricted for 5x attempts at buying miles in November 2025 and if I don't reply within 72 hours my account would be "temporarily suspended". I respond saying that I have never bought miles in my account. He clarifies saying I did 3x failed attempts for the ticket for my mother-in-law, which I did confirm. He asks for my personal info and a picture of my photo ID which I send. A day later he confirms my identity and unlocks my account. Now, I can save a credit card to my account. I have to assume with this new ability to add saved cards to my account that I can buy tickets again (I have not yet attempted any purchases).