Cost evaluation for my most recent Avianca LifeMiles spend.

Tokyo - Los Angeles : ANA in first

Los Angeles - Vancouver : Air Canada in business 

Vancouver - Tokyo : ANA in business 

Tokyo - Sydney : ANA in Business 

The Miles I am using were purchased in December 2014
They cost A$17.45 / 1,000 to purchase (OZ dollar was much better then)
The cost to purchase miles as part of this transaction was approximately A$21.20 / 1,000 

Ticket 1: 

Tokyo - Los Angeles : ANA in first 
Los Angeles - Vancouver : Air Canada in business 

The cost to purchase in LifeMiles solely is 90,000 + taxes + booking fee

I did a part purchase using 56,000 LifeMiles and paying A$818.40 (US$579.76)
US$44.76 Taxes, US$25.00 booking fee, US$510.00 to purchase 34,000 LifeMiles 

Total ticket cost : A$1795.60

Ticket 2: 

Vancouver - Tokyo : ANA in business 

Tokyo - Sydney : ANA in business 

The cost to purchase in LifeMiles solely is 80,000 + taxes + booking fee

I did a part purchase using 49,000 LifeMiles and paying A$787.59 (US$556.43)
US$66.43 Taxes, US$25.00 booking fee, US$465.00 to purchase 31,000 LifeMiles

Total ticket cost : A$1642.64

All up so far is A$3438.24

The only thing left to do is purchase a economy seat from Cairns to Tokyo and Sydney to Cairns. I never use miles/points to purchase any type of Jetstar flight or domestic flights in Australia, I can't see the value in this as Qantas requires so many miles/points and also an overly high fee on top to buy a seat on JQ.   

This seems to be one of my favorite miles collecting programs as they always are throwing deals around that add up......!!

More importantly I needed to top up the account after a little bit of miles usage.

Just booked the award components of a trip to Vancouver BC with 4 days on the ground

Tokyo - Los Angeles : ANA in first class on a  B777

Los Angeles - Vancouver : Air Canada in business on a A320 

Vancouver - Tokyo : ANA in business on a B787

Tokyo - Sydney : ANA in business on a B787

There most recent deal being transferring miles from one account to another at a rate of US$15 per 1,000 transferred, the receiver gets 2,000 - a bonus of 100%. Not to shabby given the USD - AUD exchange is crap at the moment. This is putting it at just above AUD$20 per 1,000, this takes into account what I purchased the original 1,000 for.

I also did a test of 3 different credit cards to see the value of the conversion + fees.

Transferring 10,000 miles per card  @ US$150.

The cards:

NAB (National Australia Bank) American Express - A$214.32

28 Degrees MasterCard - A$208.33

American Express - A$218.67

Once all cards have loaded the transaction and fees (if charged) I will update this page. As you may be aware when a transaction hits your account some institutions show a variation from the charge date to the settlement date. So far this has happened with 28 Degrees (to my benefit) this time. 

This is how the 3 cards converted US$150 including all fees. They all settled by 26 February 2016