The Offer
- Cardless is offering increased bonus on the Cardless Avianca Elite card
- 20,000 miles after first purchase
- 80,000 miles: upon spending $10K in the first 180 days
Card Benefits
- $249 annual fee
- Silver status
- Card earns at the following rates (double miles, up to 1,000 miles per month):
- 3x On all avianca airlines and lifemiles purchases
- 2x On travel and restaurants
- 1x Everything els
- Complimentary lifemiles+ membership
- Get 10% miles back on Star Alliance flight redemptions
- Up to 25% redemption discount on avianca airlines flights
- Up to 40% more miles on lifemiles hotels and lifemiles cars
- Up to 10% discount on lifemiles cars
Our Verdict
Not as big as the previous 120k offer, but the spend requirement is lower this time. Cardless only lets you have one Cardless card.
Hat tip to Robert W
OK, I got 21 upvotes for the card review (much appreciated), so here ya go. A full review of the card with breakdown of LifeMiles and Avianca:
https://sites.google.com/view/avianca-cardless?usp=sharing
The TL;DR of this write-up is if you can do $10,000 of spending in 6 months AND either fly a lot to the Americas, or want to get better miles rates on Star Alliance partners knowing the limitations of redeeming flights via a partner’s website, yes, get the card and make sure to spread out the spending over the 6 months to maximize the monthly 1,000 miles bonus. If $10,000 is too steep, wait until June for this offer to expire and return to the normal 60k for $4,500 in spending, or wait until it gets bumped up again for a more favorable offer (maybe a return of the Black Friday offer?).
As an aside, you don’t need to wait until June to apply to get the standard $4,500 spending offer. If you apply through Cardless website you can get it: https://www.cardless.com/cards/avianca/compare. The elevated 20k/80k offer is done via applying through LifeMiles website: https://www.lifemiles.com/discover/landing-page/avianca-lifemiles-creditcard
I’ve never seen a business model where every existing customer must NEVER return. Truly remarkable.
I have a different viewpoint on point value over most. Like others in this hobby, I acquire points via credit card sign ups so the actual cost per point can range from free to about .0016 (typical 60k sign up for an airline travel card with a $95 AF). I do not offset the AF simply by the retail value of the points as I discount that figure by the opportunity cost of bypassing other card offers and having to spend on a new card that may not be the best choice for a particular spend category. Unless you are a heavy user of Avianca, I only see the value for this if you acquire a cache of Avianca points that you have an immediate redemption in mind for. The annual mileage bonus just isn’t that attractive to me after you discount the value of the points.
“Unless you are a heavy user of Avianca, I only see the value for this if you acquire a cache of Avianca points that you have an immediate redemption in mind for”
Yes, mostly, however LifeMiles has some of the best miles costs for Star Alliance partner flights. The schedule available is usually limited, but compared to United and Air Canada miles costs for the same flight. LifeMiles with the LM+ sub will save a lot of miles – it also helps for we Capital One miles users who need the ability to redeem miles for Star Alliance partners.
I will say this. Earlier this year LifeMiles devalued the cost of a mile with respect to European flights. But, the cost for Avianca flights didnt change.
.
Regarding AF’s, people should just add them into their travel budget for the year, less any hard cash credits (e.g. Venture X $300 travel, CSR $300 travel, CSP $50 hotel). If you spent $1000 on cash flights, $300 on taxes for rewards flights, $500 in AF’s, then had $100 in hard cash credits, then you spent $1700 in the year on travel. I keep a separate column in my budget spreadsheet that says how much flight VALUE I’ve saved, but it is just that…value since it is not putting cash in my pocket, just saving me from spending cash.
one Cardless card at a time or as some have said, one Cardless card bonus per lifetime?
anyone?
Before I write some long-ass post that goes on deaf ears, and loses all the nice formatting making it look like one huge mess, would anyone like a no-BS honest review of the Cardless Avianca card? I’ve had the $249 Elite card since it came out last year.
Hey TDD, Go ahead with your honest review.
What was the main benefit? Did you have to cancel any award flights on Star Alliance and if so, what was the refund process like?
You don’t get free changes with this card, but you get $20 off the $50 membership that allows free cancellations.
IDK it kind of worked out for me in Japan. Booked/cancelled a LM award and rebooked with 10% savings when preferred time slot opened up. As a family of 4 it worked out, but it is like paying $400 (net of value of points) a year to have booking insurance to cover you on Avianca’s only insane cancellation policies. If you have a planned Avianca trip or 2, it is probably worth it. If you are just chasing high SUB with no plans, the subscription isnt worth it IMHO.
“Complimentary lifemiles+ lite subscription
Unlock the lifemiles+ lite subscription and enjoy valuable travel perks, including up to 25% off on avianca redemptions and a 10% discount on redemptions with Star Alliance member airlines through lifemiles.com Plus, earn double miles up to 1,000 miles each month and receive an additional 500 miles bonus every month. See more‘
The main benefit of the Elite card is the complementary LifeMiles+ subscription with the 10% discount on both Avianca and Star Alliance partner tickets.
Before it was called Club LifeMiles. The lowest level cost $12/month and gave you 600 miles/month for free. Club LifeMiles was discontinued in late 2024 and now it is LifeMiles+ with the lowest tier costing $20/month and giving you 500 miles/month for free. The 10% discount with Club LifeMiles was exclusive to Avianca flights. The discount with LifeMiles+ now is billed as “up to 25%” (which is BS, by the way) and is extended to cover Star Alliance partner bookings.
I had actually signed up for Club LifeMiles back in April 2024 because I wanted the 10% discount on some Avianca tickets I wanted to get with miles. The requirement (for both Club LifeMiles and LifeMiles+) is that you have to pay for 6 months of Club LifeMiles before you can cancel (of course you get it for free with the Cardless Elite card). I did the math and determined the 10% savings plus the 3,600 free miles was worth the $72. When I got the Cardless card in May I was actually earning 1,100 miles/month from the active Club LifeMiles account and the included free LifeMiles+ account. I was able to cancel Club LifeMiles in September at the end of 6 months.
It seems like a raw deal having to pay $8 more per month to receive 100 fewer free miles per month, just to get the same 10% discount. Well, the 10% discount now extends to Star Alliance partner bookings. And NOW, if you upgrade to the Plan Basic for an additional $30/month you get the free refund-ability on all tickets (previously no free refunds were offered). That didn’t exist with Club LifeMiles (admittedly all airlines reward programs should offer free refunds on miles tickets, you shouldn’t have to pay for this right).
So that $249 for the Elite card on paper is more like $129 when considering the LM+ sub value, and then you can add in, on top of that, the value of the 6,000 free miles you get every year.
Just to give you an idea of how much you can expect to save with the 10% discount, if you compare Avianca miles cost to cash cost (when searching Avianca.com) you can probably get like 2.5 CPP and save around $275 in value per 100,000 miles. This is an overestimation, though, because Avianca lets you BUY miles very cheaply with their 150-200% promos, getting as low as 1.11 CPP. That would make the 10k miles you save on 100k of reward flights worth only like $111ish.
Hey TDD, thanks for your honest review. If Lifemiles had more rewards availability for my trips to Central and South America, I would probably pull the trigger on this offer. Availability on Lifemiles is a big YMMV depending on your flight origin and destination.
I would be interested. I got this card when it was released last year. Then instantly regretted it because of a waste of slot. But now thinking of getting it for my wife since she we might fly them 2x in the next 18 months.