EXPIRED - Deal Alert! One Way Business Class Flights JFK to LIS for $473

From now until 12/5/23, Avianca LifeMiles is running a promotion for purchasing miles where you receive 2x1 plus a 60% bonus. While LifeMiles often runs sales on points purchases, this is typically one of the biggest bonuses they offer. This means you can take advantage of one of LifeMiles redemption sweet spots on flights from JFK to Lisbon which prices out at just 35,000 miles (Typically LifeMiles business awards to Europe are 63,000 miles), by purchasing 14,000 miles from the LifeMiles program and receiving a bonus of 21,700. The total cost to purchase these miles is currently $462 with the promotion. This in combination with LifeMiles low fuel/tax charges of $26.70 to $54.60 means you could be flying business one way to Europe for less than $500 cash. If booking for 2 people, the miles purchase bonus is actually slightly higher, so you could purchase 27,000 miles and receive 70,200 miles for $891 bringing the price down to $445.50 per person plus taxes. The cheapest cash price on these same flights right now anytime in the next year is $2,397 and the cheapest round trip is around $1999. Flying within Europe is typically quite inexpensive, so you can utilize this promotion for a cheap flight to Europe and if Lisbon is not your final destination just find another flight from LIS to wherever it is you would like to go. Unfortunately, this rate only works on the Eastbound flight, whereas return flights to the US price out at the standard 63,000 miles which could also get you from most origins in Europe to most destinations in the US, purchasing points for the return would cost about $825 + around $120 in taxes and fees.

See below on how to find availability and how to book this deal!

The first step to finding availability on the LifeMiles website, is creating an account and logging in. From the travel dropdown, you want to use the smartsearch tool and search one way from JFK to LIS. You also want to select the number of passengers as well as the business or first search.

Once you search, you will see a calendar that should display availability with a blue line on the date. This is a good quick start to try and find availability, but from my experience, it is not always correct, and dates that do not have a blue line do not necessarily mean there is no availability.

In this example, if I click on January 14th, I see there is availability on TAP Portugal at the rate of 35,000 miles plus $26.70 in taxes.

On the other hand, if I search on January 24st, which does not show availability on the search screen, all of these options will show up for economy flights, but the direct TAP flight does not have seats available.

If I click the drop down on each flight, economy space shows in the left column and business availbility shows in the right column. This is why it is always best to check manually as not all availability shows up on the award search. This is an example of a connecting flight on 1/21/24 via Brussels on Brussels Airlines that also prices out at 35,000 miles + $51.50 in taxes.

Here is another example via Swiss Airlines via Zurich (with second leg in economy) on 1/21/24 that prices out slightly higher at 36,610 miles + $54.60 in taxes.

Finding availability before purchasing miles is very important, as with any points redemptions, availability is limited. But when you are ready to purchase miles, you can go to the main LifeMiles landing page where you will see the pop up for the current bonus.

On the next screen, you can chose the amount of miles you want to purchase. In this case, a 14,000 mile purchase will net you a total of 35,700 at a cost of $462.00. This amounts to .0129 per point.

The total amount of miles with the bonus is not displayed, until you get to the next page, so you may need to try a few different amounts to get the exact amount of miles you are looking for.

If purchasing 27,000 miles, you will receive a total of 70,200 miles, maximizing the additional bonus amount for a total cost per point of .0127

Not everyone collects points and miles for traveling and deals like this can sometimes make it worthwhile to purchase points for specific redemptions and still get incredible value. This is certainly a huge sweet spot for Europe and can be a great value when transferring points, using points you have earned, or in this case, purchasing points. Let us know in the comments if you have ever taken advantage of this or other points purchasing options to save on booking business class flights for way less than cash!