How To Book Awards with Lifemiles

Everyone tells you how to book awards with Lifemiles. What they don’t tell you are how they encountered issues their first time.

Ok, so you’ve used the tools (you know what I’m talking about) and you’ve found that great flight available with points. The process seems pretty easy, but on our first time using Lifemiles we found it to be not so straightforward. Here are some things to keep in mind when making that dream flight a reality!

At a Glance

How To Book Awards with Lifemiles

Open a Lifemiles Account to Book Awards

The first step to successful, and hassle free, booking awards is to open that account. Come to think of it, this advice applies to any transfer partner you’re considering. Airline or hotel, open that brand’s app and create your free account.

This might be our biggest tip regarding transferring points. When you find your points currency of choice (we like Chase and Amex), you’re going to want to open frequent flyer (or hotel rewards) accounts with that bank’s transfer partners and then link the bank with your frequent flyer account.

Even bigger tip, do that weeks ahead of when you might want to transfer the points. Why? Well, our experience (and some internet research) indicates opening a new account, linking the account, and then transferring the points all within 5 minutes could slow down the transfer as it may get flagged as fraud. Since award tickets can disappear, and programs don’t allow reverse transfers, and some program’s points have expiration dates … it can be a little nerve wracking to get the ‘points will be available in up to 72 hours’ message. Ask me how I know.

Which Tool to Use to Book Awards with Lifemiles

Now that you’re the proud owner of 2 dozen airline and hotel rewards programs, the second step in booking awards with Lifemiles is to find the flight you want. That seems easy enough, until you start to use the tools! Whether you’re using Points Yeah!, points.me, or seats.aero there are nuances to each that are good and bad. This isn’t about how to use the tools, maybe another time, but there are plenty of great guides out there for that topic.

We use Points Yeah! primarily and it has worked pretty well for us. So, pick your tool and commence to searching.

Trust but Verify Before Booking Awards

Before you transfer the points to book the lifemiles award, you need to verify the award exists!

Yeah, this is important and sometime missed so pay attention. Once you find the award in the award search tool, go to the carrier and verify the flight and award actually exists! Sometimes the award space is full, sometimes the price has changed, and in either case you’re going to want to know that BEFORE you start moving points about.

We found this step to be a bit wonky. The lifemiles interface is different than what we’re used to, say at United for example. Although we selected ‘business’ the search bar still indicated ‘economy.’ And the flights listed didn’t seem to differentiate between the two fare classes. Plus, there were 2 fare classes listed but one included some level of ‘pay to upgrade’ service we didn’t want to purchase.

I figured I could click around without inadvertently paying for something, so that is what I did. I discovered if I selected one of the fares presented, it opened up an there were additional options and info that helped me pick the right options. So, it wasn’t super complicated but it was a little odd and I hesitated because I didn’t want to buy something I wasn’t going to use.

Transfer Points to Book the Award

So you made it this far and you’re ready to go. You’ve got the award, verified it exists, and are ready to transfer. Go back to your bank and select lifemiles as the transfer partner and transfer the number of points (usually to the nearest 1000). Hopefully you get the pop-up and email saying the transfer was successful.

It usually says it will take up to 72 hours, but I’ve found waiting about 5 minutes, then logging out and back in to the transfer partner, and viola! the points are deposited.

Book that Award

You can now go find that flight again and book the award. Back in Lifemiles, find the flight again and select what you’re looking for.

Oh, and if you can’t find where to put your airline frequent flyer number (we couldn’t), you’ll have to call the airline to get the reservation into your account. So make sure you have your Lifemiles confirmation code. That was very useful when we couldn’t pick seats (it was a split cabin so we picked our business class seats but couldn’t pick the economy class).

Congrats! You’ve saved a bunch of money on your desired flight. And you’re now an expert at booking with Lifemiles

What Didn’t Work the First Time

The LifeMiles booking interface was the part that slowed us down. We selected business class and the search bar still read “economy,” and the flight list did not clearly separate the two fare classes. Two fares showed up for the same flight and one of them bundled a paid upgrade we did not want. Clicking into a fare opened the detail we actually needed, so the information was there, it just was not visible from the results page. We hesitated longer than we should have because we did not want to buy something by accident.

The second snag came after booking. We could not find anywhere to enter our airline frequent flyer number, so the reservation did not post to our account on its own. That also meant we could not select seats for the economy leg of a split cabin booking. The fix was a phone call to the operating airline with the LifeMiles confirmation code. Have that code ready before you call.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do LifeMiles transfers actually take?

Usually about five minutes, even though the confirmation says up to 72 hours. After you transfer, log out of LifeMiles and back in and the points are generally there. Do not treat the 72 hour number as your planning assumption, but do not count on five minutes either if the award is scarce.

Should I transfer points before or after I find the award?

After, always. Verify the award exists on the LifeMiles site itself before you move a single point. Award tools can show space that is already gone or priced differently. LifeMiles transfers are one way with no reversals, so points moved for an award that is not there are stuck in the program.

Why would a LifeMiles transfer get delayed?

Opening the account, linking it to your bank, and transferring all within a few minutes can trip a fraud review. Open your LifeMiles account and link it to Chase or Amex weeks before you expect to need it. That single step prevents most of the delays people run into on a first booking.

Can I add my frequent flyer number when booking with LifeMiles?

Not reliably during booking. We could not find a field for it, which meant the reservation did not appear in our airline account and we could not select seats on the economy half of a split cabin itinerary. Call the operating airline with your LifeMiles confirmation code and they will attach it.

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