Following an unofficial devaluation where the award prices for business class were raised 2,500 per segment and first class 5,000 per segment just last december, Lifemiles has just again “enhanced” its award chart.
The new figures are as follows:
New Award Chart
This is actually really ridiculous, given that their original chart less than a year ago was something like this:
Old Chart (June 2012) from Loyalty Lobby
So a redemption like North American – South Asia has gone from 65/120/140 to 65/125/150 and now to 65/130/165 for Y/J/F. That is a pretty hefty increase. Luckily Europe and North Asia has stayed the same, but here are the increases for North America:
To Middle East:
80/125/160 to 80/130/175
To South Africa:
80/125/125 to 80/130/175
To Central Asia:
80/125/170 to 80/130/185
To South Asia:
65/125/150 to 65/130/165
To Others (Oceania):
80/135/170 to 80/135/180
Other regions remain unaffected. Almost all award from the above regions have been devalued.
However it seems like some of the devaluations haven’t been implemented yet, so book now if you need something.
Sample Result
Hopefully it’s like that T&C during the 2×1 buy miles promotion where even though it said miles were 3.54cents each they were still sold for 3 cpm.
In any case, the awards have gone up departing North America since when they joined star alliance by at least 25% if you average the increases for each region out. This is also why I disagree with Gary Leff in that this program is clearly not a stable backup, especially since they’ve devalued twice in the last year, each without any advance notice. What are they going to do next? Fuel surcharges? No more cash and points? (purely speculation). I just feel it’s a very slippery slope.
Here is the link to the new award chart if anyone wants to see it. Time to burn my lifemiles!
HT: Loyalty Lobby
They must have had a spy at FTU…Gary/Ben were huge fans and told the tricks of buying miles cheap. Go figure this happens. Glad I didn’t invest too much time in it, but at least its not a Hilton like deval.
I’m just glad the redemptions I want ex-NA, North Asia and Europe haven’t been touched. Still offers good value if you know what to look for.
You know when they use the word “enhanced” that it’s not going to be a good thing for miles junkies.
I hate how award programs have twisted the use of that word.
The following statement is incorrect:
“So a redemption like North American – South Asia has gone from 65/120/140 to 65/125/150 and now to 80/130/185 for Y/J/F.”
Oops, fixed!
Spoke with someone in the know there not long ago. Hinted that the program of selling miles is profitable for them, but that a minority of redemptions that involve multiple segments were less so, and they were planning on ‘adjustments’ to help compensate.
Looks like this is what those are. These regions tended to involve multiple carriers / segments, vs a traditional Europe award that will be just one carrier long haul.
Avianca was never very good with multiple segments, but that could definitely be the case. Thanks for your comment.
I wish they would have “enhanced” the program by allowing multi class booking.
I wish that too!