MARIP

Dear Mods, this is my first proper post so please let me know if this infringes on any board rules.

Had quite the experience changing flights on my LM ticket. Hope this resource will be helpful and encourage others to share tips as well.
To those who I have the honour of sharing this nightmare with, please do share your experience.

First, this only applies to INVOL (i.e. when airline cancels your flight).
I don't know how strict the rules are with voluntary changes, but presumably stricter with miles/tax difference and the usual drill.
Pay attention to the "Booked a flight" section at https://www.avianca.com/us/en/experi...asflexibilidad to see if flexibility measures apply to you.

Second, the experience here involves schedule changes (i.e. cancellations far ahead of departure).
If the departure date is near, agents at the airport/canceling airline may be able to better serve you (this generally applies to t-48/t-24).


OPTIONS

Now, if you are lucky to have a flight cancelled, here are your options for a LM ticket:
1. Refund miles and taxes less the $25 *A booking fee (if applicable) - INVOL call centre offered to negotiate with LM on my behalf, untested (contact listed below)
2. Rebook (nightmare)


CONTACT

-Whatsapp +57 3114006797

The agents here are generally clumsy. Wait times are around 2h after 04:00 Bogota time.
They may offer help, but complicated scenarios are generally best left to those at the call centre.


-Phone +001 800-284-2622

Talking to a human may be stressful, having the same agent after you HUCA may be embarrassing and problematic if they leave weird notes on your booking,
they may be hard to hear with all the muffled signals and everything, but they still seem to be your best shot at getting anything done.
Those at the call centre below are still your best shot at reissuing your ticket.

Select language (the following procedure applies to 2/English, your experience may vary),
(optional) enter LM number, and select 2 for changing flights, then 1 for INVOL cancellations.

Unfortunately, the hold times are very long. Thankfully, the number is toll-free, so the long hold will not cost you much.
VoIP may be useful here as well. Consider the time in Bogota when calling to get your call through quicker, normal office hours and common sense applies.


HARD RULES

While AV agents can be inconsistent, I have found them to be rather consistent with some rules:

a. They will only reissue your ticket. The rebooking has to be done by the partner airline (if flight is not cancelled by AV).
b. New ticket can only have connections (i.e. flights within 24 hours of each other).

(a) is really problematic. From what I understand, the airlines that issue your ticket should be the one modifying it in the event of a schedule change.
You WILL have a hard time convincing a partner airline to change the booking for you. You will also need award space on your new flights.

The following may help persuade them:

A. set up a conference call with AV agents and the partner's agents and have them work it out
B. stress that you only need the partner to rebook the ticket and AV has agreed to issue the changes,
you just need them to change the itinerary/add flights/confirm the spaces etc.
C. have the new itinerary ready with award spaced verified beforehand so you can just feed them the new flights

Remember that they don't have to do this for you. This is AV's responsibility and not theirs.
So be very, very, extra nice, and be sure to thank them for the favour.


SOFT RULES

AV may also tell you the following:

i. The new flights can only be on the same airline as the original.
ii. The new flights must maintain original routing.
iii. The trip duration (from origin to destination) has to be maintained.
iv. The class of service needs to be maintained (i.e. downgrades not allowed)
v. The lockdowns around the world are preventing them from reissue tickets. Contact again when world reopens. (disregard this, try somebody else)

If you can, doing so would make reissuing easier. If you cannot, don't fret. These rules are not consistently applied.
HUCA (try another agent) and you may have better luck getting it issued.
Telling them about what previous agents have said may also help.
If you find an agent who is lax about these rules, it may pay to hold them on the line by stalling for time or other means while you make the changes they ask you to.


SUCCESS

Don't relax yet. Once your ticket is reissued, you should receive an email with the new itinerary and a new ticket number. If you didn't, then double check the booking.
A confirmed space means nothing if you don't have a valid ticket. It will just be voided before you board. A check now will save you quite some time and hassle later.

Lastly, best of luck to all who are reading this. You will probably need it.


MISC

The AV manage my booking page seems to have an American Express logo next to the site header.
Potentially useful way to check booking since Saudia's site won't load 134 tickets?

The AV site does not seem to offer receipt download. That's one way of checking your e-ticket gone.

AV agents are generally inconsistent. That said, they are still only on a job.
Keep that in mind when you are mad at them for being a royal pain in the butt.
Try not to take it out on them.

ewoo

Good advice for those who have already booked.

For those who have yet to do so, my advice is much shorter.
1. Never fly Avianca.
2. Never fly Avianca.
3. When in doubt, see numbers 1 and 2.

RememberTheConcord

To circumvent all of this, what I would would recommend (and what I do myself) to handle INVOL tickets has been to email LifeMiles support ([email protected]) requesting cancelation.

Simply send them a short email containing the booking confirmation number that explains that the flight has been canceled by the operating carrier, and that you'd like a refund with the cancelation fee waived. They will email you back (generally in around 24 to 48 hours) to confirm what you're requesting, and explaining that your request will need to be forwarded to a supervisor. They will also note that while they can waive the cancelation fee (the $200 fee for long haul premium awards), they cannot refund the $25 partner award booking fee you already paid. Email them back confirming that you wish to escalate your refund request. Finally (in around 24-48 hours), the supervisor will email you back confirming your miles redeposit and refund. The miles generally show up back in your account as soon as you get the email. The cash refund of your taxes and fees will take several months to hit your credit card with Avianca's current bankruptcy. That said, with patience and no further follow up, I have always gotten my refund EVENTUALLY.

The only major downside to this approach is that as you call out, you will not receive your refund of your $25 partner award booking fee. Given that this approach only takes a few minutes of mental energy compared to hours on the phone, that's a trade-off I'm willing to take.

66Traveler

I agree that emailing LifeMiles support (or on occasion, I've had success with LifeMiles chat) is the best way to interact with LifeMiles to deal with partner award cancellations and mileage redeposits. Calling into the service center is a nightmare. Refunds of taxes and fees take months to be posted in my experience. As to "The only major downside to this approach is that as you call out, you will not receive your refund of your $25 partner award booking fee. Given that this approach only takes a few minutes of mental energy compared to hours on the phone, that's a trade-off I'm willing to take" - Personally, I have never been successful getting the $25 booking fee refunded. LifeMiles may refund it sometimes to some customers, but I've never been successful in getting it refunded. I always accept that fee as a possible loss as soon as I book the original ticket, so buyer beware. Some folks may have been able to get LifeMiles to refund the $25 fee, but in about 10 plus booking/involuntary cancellation attempts I have never been successful. So I clearly don't know the trick to doing that part of it.

demue

Same here, no luck with the 25$ (ever). I'd consider myself lucky to get the taxes back, but mainly am content already when I get miles redeposited in a few days without having to argue about a cancellation fee .

66Traveler

One additional thing, and it's probably been mentioned numerous times before on flyertalk, but I suppose one more time can't hurt. LifeMiles, in my experience will not contact you by email (or by any other means) if a partner award flight has been cancelled or changed. If someone has booked a partner award flight using LifeMiles, inside of two months of the scheduled flight, in my opinion it's best to constantly be checking the partner airline to check if the flight will be in fact be flying so that you can try and get your LM miles back and fees paid refunded in case of cancellation, less the nonrefundable LM $25 fee. Point being - LifeMiles in my experience does not proactively tell you of partner schedule changes or partner flight cancellations, unlike many other programs, so you need to monitor this yourself. LifeMiles is very much a "hands on" FF program which usually requires heavy phone or chat involvement (virtually nothing can be done online) with regard to changes/cancellations - take nothing for granted and constantly monitor your flights. My 2 cents.

bostontraveler

I'm impressed that you have managed to do this. I have had 6 tickets cancelled by the airline and each and every time I tried to email them they told me "the only channel that can help with operational changes is our phone line"...

MARIP

So true. I don’t even remember why I logged in to check by the time I was done with the reissue. Definitely check periodically. The Checkmytrip link in the bottom of their emails might actually be useful in terms of notifying you about changes, at least more reliably so than Avianca or Lifemiles. Checkmytrip seems to be from Amadeus which means they probably take the information directly from their GDS. The downside being that if something really weird happens to your reservation, such as the entire thing being deleted from the system, then your information there will also vanish without a trace.

MARIP

I would note that depending on the whims of the system, you might not be able to find the award space again after you refund your ticket, since Lifemiles availability fluctuates more often than the seasons change, and they might block a different partner’s awards from one day to the next, I would not count on them being the same in the months between when I booked the tickets and when (I find out that) my flights have been cancelled. My advice is check before you cancel. It can definitely save you time, but you may never see that beautiful itinerary you crafted to perfection ever again, because having the stars aligned still won’t guarantee you that Lifemiles is aligned with Starnet.

bostontraveler

Add to the fact that you don't know whether your ticket will be honored anyway...

Does anyone have any updates on Star Alliance carriers not honoring LM tickets? I know there was a time when TK was regularly cancelling them for non-payment from LM...

(I am SO SHOCKED! Non-payment from LM?? I mean, how many of us have been financing their operations for the past year, interest-free??)

HenrySu1220

The 25 dollars refund is like YMMV things, I have a dozen of tickets cancelled last year mainly between US and Asia, I would say 3-4 times they refund the 25 dollars as well then the rest of just no matter what you say, they just refused, it is really hard to make additional calls for only 25 dollars as it is really painful to call AV, I would just eat these 25 dollars, not really a bit deal, to be honestly.

demue

You got refunds of taxes and sometimes even incl. the 25$? You are a lucky person, haha. Still waiting for taxes to be returned for ~7 months and counting.

66Traveler

Same here. Months have gone by and zero refund of taxes, and that's on flights that were cancelled by the partner airlines that I had to call in and ask for the LM miles reinstatement. I probably should just assume it's a non-recoverable write off at this point. AA miles and fees/taxes have been refunded within a week on multiple cancelled flights the past year, but LM? Months to wait and receive, if ever.

bostontraveler

Don’t wait, dispute it with your credit card. Only thing that works.

HenrySu1220

it do take several months for them to process the refund, like 3-4 months generally speaking, I mean they are not a huge amount of money, majority of them are like 10-80 dollars, so I would rec just checking with them next time when you need to call them to cancel another ticket. 7 months are a bit long, I believe they may just forget it. My average is like 3-4 months.

Yes, some representatives will just directly say as this is the involuntary cancellation, we will waive the 25 booking fee, some you need to tell them it should be refunded, but majority of them just refused refunding the booking fee, only agree to refund the tax.