The US Bank LifeMiles Visa Signature card is fairly standard as far as airline cards go. It lets you accumulate miles for the Avianca and TACA airlines, which primarily serve South America. Thus, this travel rewards card would be good to pair with the LANPASS card if you are looking to travel to South America soon.
Actually, Avianca and TACA underwent a merger back in 2009, but they have elected to continue operating as separate airlines. When you browse the card’s websites hosted by US Bank and LifeMiles, you will encounter language describing these as two distinct airlines, but rest assured that the LifeMiles you earn with this card work the same way with both. In fact, you can see on the airlines’ websites that they are currently in the process of merging the sites into one common website, which should assuage the confusion.
Now that that’s cleared up, on to this travel card’s benefits!
After using the LifeMiles Visa just one time, you will receive 20,000 bonus LifeMiles. That’s enough to completely cover a one-way ticket from the US to northern South America. Combine this ticket with what you can get from LANPASS and you’re looking at a free trip! Now is a great time to visit this part of South America. Ecuador is beginning to cut down the Amazon — who knows how that will pan out.
Since Avianca/TACA is part of the Star Alliance, you could always transfer points to those partners, as well.
There are a couple other perks worth mentioning, too. The $75 annual fee is waived for the first year, but if you do decide to renew, you will get 6,000 bonus miles — and again every year that you remain a member. This card also nabs you a 50% discount when redeeming miles to pay for excess baggage. And of course, this card sports the typical rewards earning rate of 1 mile per $1 spent and double miles on Avianca/TACA ticket purchases.
Not to mention that as a Visa Signature card, it comes with a host of benefits including automatic $1,000,000 Travel Accident Insurance, rental car insurance, lost baggage coverage, purchase protections, and much more. But beware: you’re going to want another card besides the LifeMiles or LANPASS Visa, because both sport an annoying foreign transaction fee: 2% US dollars, 3% foreign currency.
Buen viaje!
