South America - Is LAN Airlines Really This Flaky?

I have a sneaking suspicion I already know the answer, but I was interested to hear about others' experiences.

We booked a fairly complex multi-city itinerary several months in advance on LAN that featured a segment from Lima to Quito.

We got word that our itinerary was "no longer" available and that we'd need to wait until 45 days before scheduled departure for an "update". A quick check on Trip Advisor and a couple other sites confirmed that the LIM-UIO segment had been vaporized.

Sure enough, 45 days out we got a call from Expedia giving us the "suggested replacement" itinerary--which featured a flight from LIM-UIO which was scheduled to land hours after the connection was scheduled to take off...LOL

Long story short, we searched our own replacement itinerary, found a newly-scheduled alternative that actually made sense, suggested that LAN give us that one and were then told we'd need to pay extra for the "flight change".

To Expedia's credit, they covered the difference and all is well in the universe (unless, of course, the plans change again.)

I realize LAN doesn't have the best customer service reputation, but is this sort of thing typical--especially now with the merger going on?

OR...might this have had something to do with Ecuador's political situation around Sept./Oct. instead? We had booked the tix in August.

While nothing like this has happened to me when flying with LAN, it certainly doesn't surprise me. I don't think it has anything to do with the LATAM fusion, just LAN being LAN.

FYI, If you're serious about trying to get reactions, try posting this in the "Other North and South American Frequent Flyer Programs" where LAN and LANPASS threads are located.

Have a good trip!

LAN is notorious for major schedule changes when booking months in advance. For non-agency booked reservations, if you push the issue - I suggest an email to customer service, and tell them what happened, and tell them what you want, politely, with no demands for compensation, etc., they will probably accommodate you. Since you used Expedia, it did (properly) act as your agent and made everything right.

This post is also a good lesson in whenever possible, having complex itineraries all on one ticket whenever possible. It means you have been sold a certain routing with certain stops, as opposed to doing it on your own, where you can end up escrewed should something happen on one itinerary such that it misconnects with another one.

It took three trips on LAN for me to realize that they are flaky and are out to screw their customers.

1. Twice I booked and paid C/J class ticket on an early direct/non-stop JFL-SCL flight and twice they re-rebooked me on the later one-stop JFK-LIM-SCL as I was leaving for the airport.

2. On a paid C/J class ticket SCL-LIM-JFK, they switched aircraft from 767 to 319 and they wanted to put me in Y on the SCL-LIM segment. Luckily I arrived four hours before departure and had all the time in the world to argue with customer service. They relented and put me in C/J on an early SCL-LIM flight in a 767.

I've had it with LAN.

Wow...crazy. Really hope they stick to their guns on the latest itinerary.

While we got as much as we could on this itinerary, we're still bracketed on both sides with other flight plans. There was no way around that.