nz09

Where is this information sourced from? Is this confirmed, assuming this works Europe to Australia as well?

RTW1

It's not really that hard to read this whole thread is it?
The answer is in post #19 (and before).

nz09

Your answer is somewhat understandable due to lots of unnecessary questions being asked. I did read the whole thread btw but posts 16&19 include a chart asking if this is the new chart hence I asked if this is confirmed.

"So is this the new chart? It doesn't seem to make sense in some places:

https://www.lifemiles.com/eng/inc/starredawardsrow.aspx"

RTW1

What kind of confirmation are you looking for then? We got an-email from LM with changes (mostly increases) and the new chart that is on the LM site fits those changes. Nobody from LM will post in this thread...

nz09

I guess exactly the kind of explanation/confirmation you (as a probably more senior user of LM than me) have just given me. Sorry if this seemed a silly question to you but I never received the email in the first place and am way more familiar with m&m an DM programs. So thank you for confirming that LM is still very useful for my purposes.

djjaguar64

This is a good move by Avianca. I think its great.

KenInEscazu

Welcome to Flyertalk! The diplomacy in your posts is a great example for many members here who seem to be easily irritated by questions they deem to be unnecessary.

If you continue to manage to avoid taking responses personally, as represented above, you will learn a lot here and rattle very few feathers. More calm contributions like yours are desperately needed here.

IMHO, the fact that LM can be purchased at least 3 times per year (more if you have a trading partner) for half price makes them a continued good value for many. Those of us who use them almost exclusively within Latin America are not affected at all.

Just a guess, but I'm betting that the real culprit behind the perceived need to adjust the redemption rates is Venezuela. For those who haven't kept up, the Venezuelan government has frozen over $300,000,000 US in AV assets. I'm sure that Fabio Villegas is looking for any way possible to make the airline financially sound, and this is one of the adjustments that will help.

AA_EXP09

Avios is a better use anyhow for that route as AA has more frequencies and no YQ applies exBrazil so there is more use out of the Avios.
(also for revenue bookings but from a search AA is more expensive than AV.)

AA_EXP09

which seems to always have been the majority as the majority (>90% of facebook posts) are in Spanish and the #1 city for likes remains Bogotá.
(also true for AV's page itself.)
(also from another sample as many people I have met in SIN do not even know this airline exists.)

Kacee

Devaluations are never happy events for frequent flyers.

But this is nothing compared to what UA did.

demue

I'm not sure anyone has posted this award chart already. It seems to be the complete one.

I'm SIN based so any of the Americas changes that were spelled out in greater detail in emails that other posters received did not apply in my email. The link in the email takes me to a landing page:

https://www.lifemiles.com/eng/tra/pro/proredenrow.aspx

After getting there click on the hyperlink in the text 'here' and a pop-up launches showing the full chart as of Oct 15 2014.

On routes I'm interested in - SE Asia to Europe or US - I can see a 26K mls increase in Business for a RT (was 130K mls and will be 156k mls). Not great and makes it more expensive to redeem in Business for SE Asia - Europe versus SQ KF (136K mls assuming 15% online redemption discount) as well as LH M&M (135K mls) which are my other two main programs for redemptions.

Value wise it is still okay, but borderline depending on carrier and product. Of course what is scarier is the 'calculator' and the whole statement about "The amount of miles required could vary depending on the date, route and redemption product" .

EDIT: Sorry I just spotted the link in the other discussion thread. Maybe best to merge both threads.

SingaporeDon

SQ KF online redemptions to Europe at 136k business RT versus Lifemiles to Eurpe at 130k business RT do make SQ look a lot more attractive, given:
a) much better availability on SQ using SQ KF miles
b) Lifemiles cost going up soon from 1.5 U$ cents per mile to U$ 1.65 cents = S$ 2.06 cents per mile, versus usual acquisition cost of S$2 cents per mile for SQ KF miles via credit card annual fees, spend etc. for SIN based members like us

On the negative side, SQ KF charges hefty YQ and taxes etc on award redemptions, whereas Lifemiles has minimum YQ and taxes

Interestingly, with AI in the picture now, I see a lot of the Lifemiles redemptions to US are showing up SQ/AI redemptiosn (via DEL/BOM) so wonder if SQ availability on Lifemiles will also go down even more with the AI option available to Lifemiles.

demue

Yup - you are right. I will just burn my LM stash on SIN-US-SIN redemptions which I hope to make before the changes kick in on Oct 15. Then I will just have a more modest 5 figure mileage amount left that can be used for some Miles + Cash redemption if needed and decent value.

AA_EXP09

even then I have been able to get SIN-USA for S$1400 or so on UA in K class (admittedly, it did get delayed by more than 1 day thanks to a 7h delay on SINHKG and a missed cnx in HKG.)

Moderator2

Upon request of board users, I have combined three related threads:

• Mileage Changes Effective Oct. 15 - Americas
• Mileage Changes Effective Oct. 15 - Europe
• New Star Alliance Partner Chart

This will hopefully improve housekeeping and make it easier for FT'ers to gather info.