Avianca LifeMiles are easier to earn than ever thanks to the Avianca Vuela Visa that was introduced at the end of 2016.  In light of that fact, today I'm going to go over strategies for maximizing your LifeMiles.

Best Ways to Get Avianca LifeMiles

The new Avianca card issued by Banco Popular comes with 40,000 Avianca LifeMiles after your first purchase on the card and a $149 annual fee.

Update 1/18/17: A reader reports that he tried to book San Francisco to Boston Virgin America First Class award space with Alaska miles--he tried various summer dates--and every time received an error message. When he called Alaska, a representative confirmed that there was no award space on the days he checked. Who knows if that will happen to you, but beware that the Virgin Atlantic First Class award space displaying on alaskair.com could be phantom. 

Alaska Airlines and Virgin America merged earlier this month, and it's now possible to redeem Alaska miles on Virgin America flights.

This post is part four of a series about how to maximize value when transferring your Chase Ultimate Rewards to loyalty program partners. 
Maximizing Your Ultimate Rewards Series Index

Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: United MileagePlus
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Singapore Krisflyer #1
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Singapore Krisflyer #2 
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean SkyPass #1 (this post)
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean Skypass #2
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean Skypass #3
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: British Airways Avios 
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Flying Blue
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club #1
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club #2
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Southwest Rapid Rewards
Maximizing

Arrival miles never expire as long as you hold your Barclaycard Arrival PlusTM World Elite MasterCard®. They do disappear the second you cancel the card though.

Other than canceling the card, the only time constraint on using Arrival miles is that you have 120 days after any travel purchase to redeem miles for an offsetting statement credit.

Beginning October 5, 2017, LATAM will fly a Boeing 787-9 three times a week on its first non-stop route to Australia, between Santiago, Chile and Melbourne, Australia.

The Business Platinum Card from American Express is offering 100,000 total bonus points through January 25, 2017 (which is just a couple weeks from now):

50,000 bonus points after spending $5,000 in the first three months
50,000 more bonus points after spending another $10,000 in the first three months

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

Check out Scott's full review here.
A Short History Lesson
In October of 2016, American Express added

UPDATE 1/10/17: If you have a Virgin America Elevate account and an Alaska Mileage Plan account that were both opened prior to December 5, 2016, you should have gotten/be getting the 10k Alaska mile bonus soon. Alaska shared the following statement with The Points Guy:
"We understand that many Mileage Plan members have questions about a surprise 10,000 mile gift that started appearing in some accounts last night, and we wanted to help put some of the mystery to rest.

This post is part three of a series about how to maximize value when transferring your Chase Ultimate Rewards to loyalty program partners. 
Maximizing Your Ultimate Rewards Series Index

Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: United MileagePlus
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Singapore Krisflyer #1
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Singapore Krisflyer #2 (this post)
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean SkyPass #1
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean Skypass #2
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean Skypass #3
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: British Airways Avios 
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Flying Blue
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club #1
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club #2
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Southwest Rapid Rewards
Maximizing

This post is part two of a series about how to maximize value when transferring your Chase Ultimate Rewards to loyalty program partners. 
Maximizing Your Ultimate Rewards Series Index

Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: United MileagePlus
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Singapore Krisflyer #1 (this post)
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Singapore Krisflyer #2 
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean SkyPass #1
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean Skypass #2
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Korean Skypass #3
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: British Airways Avios 
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Flying Blue
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club #1
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club #2
Maximizing Ultimate Rewards: Southwest Rapid Rewards
Maximizing

What are your New Year's resolutions this year? If you've managed to stumble upon this blog, chances are somewhere in your list of goals for 2017 you've got some dream trips lined up. If you don't, you should.