hajvan

I'm very new at booking international travel with miles so go easy on me, up to know I've only done Southwest within the US on points.

I booked a one way flight in Business class from STL to Lisbon on Lufthansa with a stopover in Frankfurt for late May 2024. 70k points + $120 on Air Canada Aeroplan which I transferred from my Capital One - so far so good. I felt that this was a pretty good deal.

Now in searching for a return one week later. Air Canada doesn't have anything under 27h of travel, United has a few options but it's at least 70k in Economy and 200k+ in Business. So I heard about Avianca as an option and created an account.

The issue is when I'm in the app and go to book flights - the origin/destination search bar will not find either STL or Lisbon as airports. When I go on the website it gets even weirder: I can select either STL or Lisbon under origin or destination so it finds it, but once I've selected one then the other one doesn't show up. Hope this makes sense. So I can search for flights from both St. Louis and from Lisbon, and search for flights TO St. Louis and Lisbon, just not from Lisbon to St. Louis!

Any thoughts?

arfaczar

Which website are you searching for awards on? Avianca.com OR LifeMiles.com

josephniezbedny

Lifemiles will not show you anything more than aeroplan or united for 80k miles in bussiness. All those programs operate on the same inventory and avianca have the least options from all of them.

view-with-a-room

Search LifeMiles dot com NOT Avianca dot com for award travel. 27 hours of travel each direction isn't out of the ordinary for award travel. LifeMiles isn't the best option for the uninitiated. May 2024 is in the very distant future as it relates to award travel. The best time to book award travel is 330 days out, 2-4 months out, or 2 weeks out. Consider booking a paid ticket in economy on the return if the hours of travel is a concern. United has a direct flight to EWR from LIS and a direct flight from EWR to STL with a 2 hour layover, as an example.

I would be inclined to take a cheap flight to Madrid and fly back from Madrid on American via PHL for 77K...

The mistake with your logic is you assumed you would find the return flight without issue...

guv1976

I had no problem entering LIS and STL on the LifeMiles app, after logging into my account. But I'm not seeing Business Class award availability around your desired travel period, even though that's what I searched for; only a double connection in Economy:



(The cash component is ~ $38.00 USD.)

hajvan

I didn't know they were different. I was searching on Avianca.com when I couldn't select the airports

hajvan

Like I said, new to this international award travel thing. And new to Business class. Last resort I'll just pay for a return with a single stop. This is a Sunday and I have to work on Monday so if I can keep it to 13-14h instead of 27h it'll be a win.

So there is a chance that more award seats open up as it gets to about 2-4 months out?

Also, this first leg I bought on Air Canada for 70k was 85k on United for the identical flights. So I thought I'd search other Star Alliance programs to try my luck for the return.

Oh and by the way I found the airports on Lifemiles.com. just no availability. Thanks fellas

DrMEB

I've booked plenty of award flights (economy and business) on Lufthansa and United. I've typically booked through United transferring from Chase. I've recently been keeping an eye using Lifemiles as everything is cheaper (and AMEX has a bonus 15% transfer rate until tomorrow!!!!) for travel in October. As most report and I can confirm, United and Lufthansa award business and first class is typically only released about 30 days before, and more likely 14 days before. The past week or two has shown little availability, but I'm really hoping that improves.

What I've done is book a refundable placeholder flight as a backup so I don't get completely screwed (Condor premium economy booked via Alaska) with the hopes of being able to snag a business or first class Lufthansa (connecting through SFO) or United Polaris by checking Lifemiles religiously every day from 14 days out.

Best of luck to you! (And to me )

scubadu

I don't think your worry should as much be will availability open up close in (it likely will). A review of this thread:

Lifemiles serious booking problems - Beware (from January 2022 onwards)

over the last month or so, should probably shift your concern to "will I actually be able to ticket/book the award that is showing available?" That seems to be a very real and ongoing challenge. I'd be very hesitant to preemptively transfer a large slug of points to this very unstable program and then risk having them stranded if you can't actually ticket the availability you see.

I count roughly 50+ active airline forums on Flyertalk. I can think of no other single FT airline forum that has a thread literally titled "<FFP> serious booking problems - Beware..." That right there says something for sure.

That said, I continue to be intrigued with this program given that Aeroplan seems to have pulled much of the partner award availability. But I'd be pretty hesitant to head off somewhere without a return flight (which obviously you've covered with your back-up plan) and just assume I'd be able to easily ticket an award that popped up on Lifemiles...

Regards

DrMEB

I really appreciate you sharing that other thread! I haven't been too active on flyertalk lately so that info is quite enlightening. Luckily I have some flexibility with respect to return date and location. I cross-check with United award offerings. If I end up transferring to and trying to book with Avianca I'll now how lower expectations. I did a quick search on feasibility of a points transfer refund back to Amex Platinum and while it's technically "impossible", it has been done. Just not something you can count on. If I try and there's nothing to be done, I will at least give that a shot:

I can't post the link, but if you do a web search for refunding_lifemiles_to_amex, that's one example.

josephniezbedny

All issues with this program make is really hard for non-pro travelers to use it. This is actually a good thing for pros. I personally spend 800k miles in last 16 months on lifemiles. Mostly on United and Lufthansa flights beetwen hubs. I always combine my lifemiles booking with either cash for return/outward flight or book through Miles and more as it has pretty good avalabilty.