Citi has announced a 25% transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou Rewards to Avianca LifeMiles, from March 22, 2026, through April 18th, 2026. This means that Citi Strata Elite, Citi Strata Premier®, Prestige®, and AT&T Access More Cardmembers will receive 1,250 LifeMiles for every 1,000 ThankYou Points transferred.
We’ve got all of the current transfer bonuses covered in our ThankYou Points transfer bonuses article.
Quick take: Best option for getting LifeMiles today
Aaron Hurd
Executive Editor of Cards and Points
As of when I’m posting this, the 25% transfer bonus that Citi is offering is the best transfer bonus available among the major transferable points programs, so if you need LifeMiles, Citi is your best bet.
However, I would not recommend transferring LifeMiles speculatively. LifeMiles has a relatively short expiration window for its miles—12 months. Sure, you can top up your miles to keep them alive, but the bonus isn’t so good that it’s worth locking up your points in LifeMiles.
How I’ve used LifeMiles
I’ve used Avianca LifeMiles for Star Alliance flights in business class. Because of the way Avianca prices awards, it can be a great program for booking a mixed cabin award, since it will prorate your ticket according to the portion you flew in each cabin. (Think flights to Europe where intra-Europe “business class” amounts to a blocked middle seat.) You can save a ton of miles by just booking your intra-Europe flight in coach.
The best part of Avianca’s program is that the airline doesn’t pass on many of the fees that airlines tag onto their award tickets. This can save you a ton, depending on the airline. But there’s as Mr. Hyde to this Dr. Jekyll…
Everyone has their horror stories about LifeMiles customer service. The program is kind of like Google. If you’re on the happy path, you are fine. But Lord help you if anything unusual happens to your ticket. Flight cancellations, reschedules, or other irregular operations will often land you in airline purgatory, where Avianca and the airline you’re flying on will point fingers at each other. I’ve had this happen to me…and it sucks.
If your flight departs as planned, you make all of your connections, and there are no schedule changes, you’ll be happy you booked with Avianca. If not, you will forever curse the program.
Finally, Avianca’s award search engine is quirky… If you spend time to learn how to use it, it can be a powerful tool, but it has a steep learning curve.
