Cap1 to Avianca Nightmare for United Domestic
I have had a VX for lounge access for about 3 years. I have never actually used the points as I almost exclusively fly United and have both a Quest and CSP. I have premier silver.
I need to visit family so thought WHY NOT just use those points. It's a good valuation for what I am trying to use it for. Saves me a few hundred bucks. I even have some lifemiles from a galapagos trip we did. So I send off the miles that I need and the points make their way over. Try to book the flight and I get an error. Call them and the guy has his microphone in his mouth, tells me they'll send me a payment link. Never get the link. Next day I go to see and my lifemiles says 0. Wtf? Call again and the agent says yeah something is broken and I should have the miles I transferred plus the ones I had before. He says that for some reason the transfer triggered an event that caused them to all expire the next day. Gets escalated and today I get the miles back. Still can't book the flight since the prior payment link did not work. Need them to generate another one. Good good this is terrible. Phone rep this time was good and mentioned he has had other issues like this with people trying to book united with lifemiles.
Next time I do aeroplan or just spend the marginally more united miles. Just wanted to share with anyone else going through this pain. Anyone know a good trip to burn 300k cap1 points on that does not involve Avianca's micky mouse bookings? lol