Avianca LifeMiles American Express Elite Card

Earning Rates

Key Benefits

All Benefits

• $249 annual fee for the Avianca LifeMiles American Express Elite Card (Cardless-issued, First Electronic Bank, Member FDIC); this is the top-tier Cardless-issued Avianca product, sitting above the $99 Avianca LifeMiles American Express (Standard) Card in the same two-tier family marketed as 'avianca lifemiles American Express Elite Card' on the Cardless product page
• Issued by First Electronic Bank, Member FDIC, on the American Express network and powered by Cardless (a fintech program manager, not a bank); confirmed in the Cardless product-page footer ('Issued by First Electronic Bank, Member FDIC') and the 'With American Express' callout ('Use your avianca lifemiles card with the safety and security of American Express')
• Card runs on the American Express payment network (verified directly on the Cardless product page: branded throughout as the 'avianca lifemiles American Express Elite Card', with the 'With American Express' card-art callout); it is NOT a Visa or Mastercard product and acceptance follows Amex's U.S. footprint
• Welcome offer: 'Earn up to 100,000 miles' tiered welcome — the Elite ships a higher headline than the Standard card's 40,000-mile single-tier offer; current public Cardless product copy renders as 'Special welcome offer Earn up to 100,000 miles' with 'Minimum spend required*' and 'See Offer Terms' (Cardless segments the 100,000 across multiple tiered spending milestones in the first 90-180 days of Card Membership; cardholders should read the linked Offer Terms before relying on the full 100,000-mile headline)
• Earn 3x LifeMiles per $1 on Avianca Airlines and LifeMiles purchases (Cardless product page: '3x On all avianca airlines and lifemiles purchases'); this is the card's top airline-spend multiplier and is the explicit step-up vs. the $99 Standard card, which earns only 2x in the same category
• Earn 2x LifeMiles per $1 on travel and restaurants (Cardless product page: '2x On travel and restaurants'); note that the Elite rates page bundles 'travel' (a broader category than just Avianca) with 'restaurants' for the 2x tier — the Standard card's 2x category, by contrast, is 'groceries and restaurants'
• Earn 1x LifeMiles per $1 on all other eligible purchases (Cardless product page: '1x Everything else')
• Monthly LifeMiles double-up: 'Automatically double your miles Up to 1,000 miles per month' (Cardless product page) — every month that you put eligible spend on the card, Cardless automatically doubles the LifeMiles you earn up to a cap of 1,000 bonus LifeMiles per month, which works out to up to 12,000 bonus LifeMiles per year and rebalances the effective earn rates to 3x->6x on Avianca/LifeMiles, 2x->4x on travel/dining, and 1x->2x on everything else for the spend covered under the cap
• Effective earn rates with the monthly doubler active: up to 6x LifeMiles per $1 on Avianca and LifeMiles purchases, up to 4x LifeMiles per $1 on travel and restaurants, and up to 2x LifeMiles per $1 on all other purchases — Cardless renders this on the product page as '3x -> 6x', '2x -> 4x', '1x -> 2x' under the 'Automatically double your miles' callout, with the same 1,000-mile-per-month cap applying across all categories combined
• Up to 25% redemption discount on Avianca Airlines flights booked with LifeMiles through lifemiles.com (Cardless product page: 'Up to 25% redemption discount on avianca airlines flights' under the 'With a complimentary lifemiles+ membership' header); this is a redemption-side discount applied to Avianca-operated award flights and is a 5x step-up from the Standard card's flat 5% Avianca redemption discount
• 10% LifeMiles back on Star Alliance flight redemptions (Cardless product page: 'Get 10% miles back on Star Alliance flight redemptions'); after you redeem LifeMiles for a Star Alliance partner award (United, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Brussels, TAP, LOT, ANA, Air Canada, EVA, Singapore, Turkish, etc.), 10% of the miles are rebated back to your account — this benefit is Elite-only and does NOT exist on the $99 Standard card
• Up to 40% more LifeMiles on LifeMiles Hotels bookings (Cardless product page: 'Up to 40% more miles on lifemiles hotels and lifemiles cars') — Elite cardholders earn a category-level uplift when booking hotels through the LifeMiles travel portal vs. the Standard card's base portal earn
• Up to 10% discount on LifeMiles Cars (Cardless product page: 'Up to 10% discount on lifemiles cars') — Elite cardholders get a published rental discount when booking cars through the LifeMiles travel portal
• Complimentary LifeMiles+ membership bundled with the Elite card (Cardless product page header: 'Redemption discounts and bonus miles With a complimentary lifemiles+ membership'); LifeMiles+ is the paid LifeMiles subscription tier that normally costs members extra, and the Elite card includes it at no additional cost — this is the structural mechanism that delivers the 25% Avianca redemption discount, the 10%-back on Star Alliance redemptions, the 40% more miles on LifeMiles Hotels, and the 10% LifeMiles Cars discount as a bundle
• Automatic Avianca LifeMiles Silver status while you hold an active Elite card (Cardless product page: 'Get silver status With access to travel benefits like lounge access, priority boarding, and more. Each year your status will automatically renew if you maintain an active avianca lifemiles card'); note: the Cardless Elite product page currently labels the bundled status as Silver (matching the Standard tier's Silver grant), and any 'LifeMiles Gold' branding cardholders may see in third-party write-ups should be cross-checked against the live Cardless page and the Cardholder Agreement before being relied on
• Silver-status travel benefits delivered through Avianca LifeMiles (not as direct card perks): lounge access where Silver applies, premium seat selection, additional checked bags, and priority boarding on Avianca-operated flights (Cardless product page: 'Benefits available from lifemiles with your avianca lifemiles card' followed by 'Lounge access', 'Premium seat selection', 'Additional checked bags', 'Priority boarding')
• Lounge access on Avianca-operated flights is delivered through the bundled LifeMiles Silver status's lounge benefit rather than as a direct cardholder lounge-pass allotment; cardholders should consult the live LifeMiles Silver benefits page for the current list of Avianca / partner lounges where Silver-tier access applies and any guest-policy limitations
• Priority boarding on Avianca is delivered via the bundled LifeMiles Silver status rather than as a separate cardholder benefit (so the perk is contingent on Avianca's Silver-tier boarding policy at the gate, not a card-only perk that survives if the Silver tie-in changes)
• Free checked bag(s) on Avianca are delivered via the bundled LifeMiles Silver status's 'Additional checked bags' benefit rather than as a card-direct '$0 first checked bag' perk like the Delta SkyMiles Amex line; the Cardless Elite product page does not advertise a standalone card-printed free-checked-bag benefit independent of LifeMiles Silver
• LifeMiles do not expire for as long as you keep using your card (Cardless product page: 'Miles do not expire for as long as you use your card'); this is a meaningful retention perk because LifeMiles otherwise expire after 24 months of inactivity for non-cardholders, and at the Elite price point the no-expiration shield protects a much larger expected LifeMiles balance
• No foreign transaction fees on purchases made outside the United States (Cardless product page: 'No foreign transaction fee †'); useful for Avianca's Latin America-heavy route network and for Star Alliance partner trips where the card is used abroad
• Avianca LifeMiles point valuation: ~1.5 cents per mile (the project's standard valuation for the LifeMiles currency); the 'up to 100,000 miles' Elite welcome is therefore worth roughly $1,500 at the project valuation if the full tiered welcome is unlocked, and the 6x/4x/2x effective earn rates after the monthly doubler translate to roughly 9.0¢ / 6.0¢ / 3.0¢ of value per dollar spent at the project's LifeMiles valuation (within the 1,000-mile-per-month doubler cap)
• Best LifeMiles redemption sweet spots (program-level, not card-specific): Star Alliance partner business-class awards from the U.S. to Europe (United, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Brussels, TAP, LOT, etc.), Star Alliance partner business-class awards to Asia (ANA, EVA, Singapore, Turkish), and short-haul intra-Latin-America awards on Avianca itself; LifeMiles' published Star Alliance partner award chart plus the Elite's 10%-back and 25%-off discounts compound to make these the strongest cents-per-mile use cases
• Digital wallet support at approval: Cardless lets you add the Avianca LifeMiles Elite card to Apple Pay / Google Wallet immediately on approval ('Add your avianca lifemiles card to your digital wallet as soon as you're approved'), so the physical card is not required to start earning the welcome-bonus spend
• American Express benefit programs (Amex Offers eligibility, Global Assist, Purchase Protection, Extended Warranty, Car Rental Loss and Damage Insurance, Travel Accident Insurance, etc.) on this card are governed by the Cardless / First Electronic Bank Cardholder Agreement linked from the product page rather than by the consumer-facing Amex-direct benefits guide; cardholders should verify the specific Amex-network benefits enabled on this product by reading the linked Cardholder Agreement before relying on any benefit that is standard on Amex-direct-issued cards
• Target customer is a U.S.-based Latin America and Star Alliance traveler who flies Avianca often enough to value 3x earn on Avianca spend, the up-to-25% Avianca award discount, and the 10%-back on Star Alliance partner awards — and who can absorb the $249 annual fee against the LifeMiles+ bundle, the up-to-12,000 LifeMiles-per-year monthly doubler, and the Silver-status travel benefits
• Step-up positioning vs. the $99 Avianca LifeMiles American Express (Standard) Card: the Elite trades up to 3x (vs. 2x) on Avianca/LifeMiles, 2x on travel/dining (vs. 2x on groceries/dining on the Standard), up to 25% (vs. flat 5%) Avianca redemption discount, adds the 10%-back on Star Alliance redemptions, adds the bundled complimentary LifeMiles+ membership, adds the up-to-1,000-miles-per-month doubler (up to 12,000 LifeMiles per year), adds the LifeMiles Hotels uplift and LifeMiles Cars discount, and lifts the welcome offer to 'up to 100,000 miles' — for an additional $150 of annual fee vs. the Standard tier
• Not offered: any Avianca-printed travel statement credit, airline-incidental credit, rideshare credit, or streaming credit — the Elite's annual-fee defrayal comes through the LifeMiles+ bundle (25% Avianca discount + 10%-back on Star Alliance + 40% more miles on LifeMiles Hotels + 10% off LifeMiles Cars) plus the 1,000-mile-per-month doubler, not through a statement-credit ecosystem like the Amex-direct Platinum / Hilton Aspire / Marriott Brilliant lineup
• Not offered: Membership Rewards or Amex-direct transferable points — the card earns Avianca LifeMiles directly and LifeMiles cannot be transferred onward to other airline programs (this is a single-currency co-brand, not a transferable-points card like the Amex Gold or Amex Platinum)
• Not offered: Centurion Lounge access, Priority Pass Select, Delta Sky Club access, TSA PreCheck / Global Entry application-fee credit, hotel elite status (Hilton/Marriott), or any of the broader Amex-direct premium-card lifestyle benefits — those belong to Amex-direct issued cards, not to a Cardless-issued, First Electronic Bank-issued Amex-network product, and cardholders should not assume the Elite carries them at the $249 price point
• Not offered: a stand-alone, card-direct Avianca lounge-pass allotment (e.g., '2 lounge passes per year') as a benefit independent of LifeMiles Silver-tier lounge access — the Cardless Elite product page renders lounge access as a LifeMiles-delivered Silver-status benefit, not as a separate cardholder pass allotment
• Not offered: cell phone protection, trip delay reimbursement at the $300+ tier, primary auto rental CDW, or Premium Global Assist medical transport as Amex-direct benefits — cardholders should not assume the full Amex-direct benefits suite; the relevant Amex-network benefits are governed by the Cardless / First Electronic Bank Cardholder Agreement, not the consumer-facing Amex benefits guide
• Affiliate / availability note: this is a Cardless-issued product applied for at cardless.com/cards/avianca/lifemiles-elite (not through Avianca directly, not through Amex.com); approvals are decisioned by First Electronic Bank and the card is delivered through Cardless's mobile-first servicing app, with no Amex Membership Rewards account linkage