epw

After much research in to how get the most out of our Venture X credit card points for a trip to Europe, we saw nothing but good things about how far they go by transferring to Lifemiles to fly business class. We are now 18 days from our intended departure date and still see nothing for the days we want to fly. I login to the site to see if there are any business class seats available on any day between now and then and nothing on any airline. Did we make a huge mistake in trusting advice from travel blogs? It just doesn't seem possible that we'll make it to Europe or if we do, what are the chances that we'll be able to use the points to purchase as return flight since round trip tickets seem impossible to book given the very small window when flights are released. Anyone have real success stories to put my mind at ease that we won't be booking these tickets a day before we actually want to fly out?

Details of what we're looking for:
Round trip (or 2 one way tickets) in Business class from San Francisco to Germany, Austria or Switzerland. December 17-January 1st for 2 people.

guv1976

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Finding low-tier, Business Class award seats (the kind you need in order to redeem LifeMiles) is always going to be challenging when you want to travel during peak periods. Lufthansa has a history of releasing more award seats close to departure date, but whether they will do so for your particular travel dates is anyone's guess.

It's best to be very flexible on travel dates when seeking to redeem any program's frequent-flyer miles.

epw

Thanks for your response. I guess at this point I'm dubious as to whether any flights will be available so was hoping someone could at least say they were successful in booking flights through Lifemiles. All the documentation about Lifemiles never really indicates that flights are few and far between so it just feels like a more honest review of the program is due for those of us new to using points programs to book flights.

guv1976

The LifeMiles availability finder, developed by a fellow FTer, can be a useful tool. Look here, and from the menu in the upper right corner select "Routes."

https://seats.aero/

epw

Thanks, I've been using that tool. Hopefully it works out remotely close to how we want it to.

view-with-a-room

The scenerio as described is typical of all airlines loyalty programs, not one airline loyalty programs. Multiple tickets are inheritantly more difficult to find than singular tickets. The airline bloggers travel with me, myself and I for just that reason. The airlines increase availability during non-peak travel, not during the peak of Christmas travel. No good reason to hand out the premium fares for free when people are lines up at the counter with cash in hand to actually purchase the ticket. With little if any flexibility award tickets should be acquired 12 months out, not days or weeks out.

Price the noted itinerary on United and the end result is 300,000+ miles per ticket. Economy tickets price out at $2,000 and business class ticket at $6,000. Not the cheapest time of year to travel, regardless of how you acquire the ticket.

No clue which blogs you are reading, but the overwhelming majority of the blogs have endless warnings about the issues with booking flights with LifeMiles.

erik123

Extremely unlikely they will release seats as Saturday the week before xmas is a prime travel date. I would check if you can find a flight anywhere in Europe and fly/train the last leg. Also check availability from other sources - Aeroplan, United, etc. so you get an idea if anything is available as all.

epw

nerdwallet
thepointsguy
theglobetrottingteacher

All of these point out quirks of using the actual website for Lifemiles but I don't see much text on actual flight availability for reward points. This is the first time I'm using award points to book a flight (I've only ever just purchased flights) so perhaps my naivete is the true source of my frustration. I didn't think it would be this difficult to book a flight using points but life lesson learned. I understand we're flying during peak travel season but thought there would be something showing at this point.

Still waiting for someone to say they've actually successfully used Lifemiles to book a flight haha

Beltway2A

I've successfully used Lifemiles to book LH F and LH J 14 days out. It was not, however, during the busiest travel period of the year.

Edit: Back in late 2019 I had booking for LX J ~6 months out. Ultimately had to cancel that due to COVID.

jebr

I've booked a couple of economy tickets with LifeMiles. Booking an Air Canada flight never worked for me (which means until I hear a bunch of data points where it has worked, I'm avoiding anything on Air Canada metal through LifeMiles,) but United's been working okay when availability allows.

But yeah, business class with LifeMiles is likely to be tough. Maybe not as bad as Turkish in terms of booking, but pretty close. I will also say that booking partner rewards via transfer partners is often a bit of an asterisk-ridden process with exceptions galore and lots of caveats that make things interesting. There's great value to be found, but also a lot of time, effort, and flexibility in getting that value.

erik123

Many. At very good value. Sometimes too good to believe. Also with the whole family. My kids still wonder why we had to travel to SAW via LHR.

Again, if you are flexible there may be some limited options. But likely you will need to use the miles for a different trip.

bludgeon29

This was pre-covid... successfully used Lifemiles for JFK-HND-BKK in First (ANA+Thai), FRA-PHL in Biz, and SGN-DEL in Biz... all booked abt 1-2 months in advance, in peak or semi-peak season. Cant comment on post-covid state... from what i can see, award redemptions have become harder across the board.

demue

Just a few weeks ago I booked LH intra-Europe Biz as well as BR (Eva) Europe-SE Asia in Biz too. These were booked ~4-5 days out only though because availability (not just with LM, also other programs) was super tight.

Booking, payment and ticketing worked well enough after I managed to find the flights. YMMV.

mlqsko

I've actually successfully used Lifemiles to book a flight just a month ago. 3 pax BRU-JFK in business class for 25.5k+tax each. No complaints here.

I've actually booked many tickets before with even better route:miles:class ratio iykwim

justforfun

I would start looking for alternative arrangements. I've redeemed dozens of premium tickets using Lifemiles, but it's always a crapshoot and can never be counted on. Add peak travel season, and you're asking for trouble. Any blog that recommends Lifemiles is being reckless and purely looking for clicks. It's a very temperamental program. I never mention it to friends or family, because I know they're going to have issues with it.