Hey {{first name | reader}},

Happy Friday!

Two very different topics today. First, another opportunity to buy miles cheaply, though this time with a program that requires a little more patience than most. Then, the new World's 50 Best Hotels list came out this week, and there are some interesting names on it, including one I am visiting in just a few weeks.

Here's what's inside today's post:

Avianca LifeMiles is back with another points sale.

The promotion is targeted, so you may see a slightly different offer in your account, but the standard version gives up to a 145% bonus:

At the highest tier, the effective price works out to around $13.50 per 1,000 miles.

And LifeMiles is a program I have very mixed feelings about.

On paper, it can be fantastic. LifeMiles gives you access to Star Alliance awards, which means you can potentially use them for some of my favorite airlines: Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, ANA, SWISS, EVA Air, United, and many others. There are some genuinely excellent redemption rates, particularly for long-haul business and first class, and LifeMiles does not pass along the fuel surcharges that make certain other programs frustrating.

So what is the problem?

Using LifeMiles can be a real pain.

The website can be clumsy, award availability does not always display correctly, and just because you can see a seat available through another Star Alliance program does not necessarily mean LifeMiles will be able to access it. Sometimes it works perfectly and you book in five minutes. Other times, you find a great award elsewhere, cannot get LifeMiles to display it, and end up spending a considerable amount of time on the phone trying to get the ticket issued. And even then, there is no guarantee they will actually be able to see and book the seat.

That is the tradeoff with LifeMiles. You can get some amazing deals, but sometimes you have to work for them.

This is also why I would be more careful buying LifeMiles speculatively than I would be with other programs. If you already have a redemption in mind and can verify that LifeMiles has access to it, $13.50 per 1,000 miles can be very attractive. Just do not assume that because Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, or ANA releases an award seat to partners, LifeMiles will automatically show it.

The sale runs through September 25, so you have a few days to look around before deciding.

This week we also got the new World's 50 Best Hotels list, and I always find it interesting, though I think it is better used as inspiration than as an absolute ranking of which hotel is objectively better than another.

How do you realistically compare a tiny hotel on Lake Como with a huge resort in Dubai or a city hotel in Hong Kong? The honest answer is you cannot, not directly. But that does not mean the list is not useful.

This year's results: Rosewood Hong Kong is number one for the second consecutive year, followed by Capella Bangkok at number two and Four Seasons Bangkok at number three. Atlantis The Royal is number four, Passalacqua is number five, and Rosewood São Paulo jumped all the way to number six.

Other names that caught my attention: Aman Tokyo at number 11, Four Seasons Firenze at number 12, Bulgari Tokyo at number 24, Four Seasons Astir Palace at number 27, and Park Hyatt Kyoto at number 37.

I am staying at Rosewood Hong Kong in just a few weeks.

I have heard so much about this hotel, and now it has been named the world's best hotel two years in a row. I am very curious to see what all the excitement is about, and I will obviously report back after the stay.

One interesting omission: Airelles

Something a lot of people are talking about is the absence of any Airelles property in the top 50.

I found that pretty surprising. Airelles has some extraordinary hotels, including Le Grand Contrôle at Versailles, Airelles Courchevel, Gordes La Bastide, and Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez. These are seriously high-end properties, and I would have expected at least one of them to appear somewhere on the list.

But this also highlights one of the limitations of rankings like this. The voting panel has more than 800 members, and voters can only vote for hotels they have personally stayed at during the previous two years. Airelles has a relatively small and niche collection of properties, many of them highly seasonal, so the question is simply how many of the voters have actually had the chance to stay at them.

I would not interpret their absence as meaning they are not at the same level as the hotels on the list. It may simply be a consequence of how the voting works.

That is why I prefer looking at the World's 50 Best Hotels as 50 amazing properties worth knowing about, rather than treating the exact rankings as the final word on which hotel is better than which. Hotel number seven is not objectively better than hotel number twelve. It just received more votes from the panel.

Still a fun list though. And now I am even more excited to find out whether Rosewood Hong Kong feels like a number one hotel when I actually get there.

I will let you know very soon.

Enjoy the weekend!

Catch you in the clouds,
Tomi from Points Master

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