South America - StarPeru connection flight?

I am going to Peru in August, and am trying to find tickets for domestic flights.

My itinerary is as follows:
- Toronto > Lima
- Lima > Cuzco
- Cuzco > Puerto Maldanado
- Puerto Maldanado > Arequipa
- Arequipa > Lima
- Lima > Toronto

I am looking at flying COPA for the international portion, and considering StarPeru for domestic. The cheapest way seems to be booking them in round trips:
- Lima > Cuzco > Lima
- Cuzco > Puerto Maldanado > Cuzco
- Lima > Arequipa > Lima

This means when I go from Puerto Maldanado, I am using 1 leg fro each of those 3 trips. I have heard that the flight schedules are not very reliable in Peru, and am worried that I may miss the connections. Is there a way to book these as connection flights? Is the only way to book StarPeru through their website? (My travel agent said he would not book for me.)

I don't mind paying a bit more for a more reliable plan. But right now, the connecting flights are coming out to more than double the StarPeru price.

Thanks for any advice!

Margaret

Please provide your dates of travel and I'll see what I can come up with. Have you tried calling them to do a multi-destination ticket?

I am going this August. The tentative itinerary is:
- Aug 5 - DEP Toronto, ARR Lima
- Aug 6 - DEP Lima, ARR Cuzco (assuming we will arrive too late in Lima & have to stay overnight to connect to Cuzco)
- Aug 14 - DEP Cuzco, ARR Puerto Maldanado
- Aug 17 - DEP Puerto Maldanado, ARR Arequipa
- Aug 24 - DEP Arequipa, ARR Lima
- Aug 27 - DEP Lima, ARR Toronto

So I can call the US number to book flights? Maybe I will give them a try this weekend.

I'm sure they could price a multi-destination ticket for you. But I can already see that the flight from Cuzco to Puerto Maldonado won't work on the same day with Star Peru.

Lan's South America pass could help. Your itinerary prices to US$711.68 for all segments intra-Peru. To buy a S.A. Pass you must fly RT on a OneWorld airline (AA or LAN). If you have some flexibility in destinations and dates, you could save money by going to Arequipa first because the route will help you to avoid segments connecting in Lima each time:

Saturday 06 august 2011 12:10 Lima (LIM) 13:35 Arequipa (AQP)
Friday 12 august 2011 06:25 Arequipa (AQP) 08:40 Cuzco (CUZ)
Tuesday 23 august 2011 12:35 Cuzco (CUZ) 13:30 Puerto Maldonado (PEM)
Friday 26 august 2011 11:55 Puerto Maldonado (PEM) 15:00 Lima (LIM)
This one prices at US$571.68.

So knowing that your lowest fare with some flexibility could be $571.68, you can call Star Peru to see what they can do.

I hope Star Peru works for you. I flew them in December and thought they were just fine. (I like supporting the underdog)

Have you tried calling Star Peru (there is a US # - Florida based IIRC) for connecting flights? Their website won't support it, but in person they are very helpful. I booked a much less complicated itinerary LIM-CUZ-PEM then PEM-CUZ and finally CUZ-LIM for $250 in April.

The downside is they have fewer flights per day so if one is cancelled I may be SOL. That said the only thing I would be *extremely* upset about missing is my Inca Trail hike and that is purposely well cushioned by extra days doing "less important" things.

You can book multicity trips on Star Peru on despegar.com

FYI

LAN South American Pass is an excellent idea for 3 or more segments - inside Peru or throughout South America:
Cost $110 per leg (and a connection is 2 legs) if coming in on LAN (can't comment on other OW - many codeshare), but $140 per leg if not.

Also, the "despagar.com" or www.despagar.com domain is now "gone" / "squatted on" in that form, with a "traffic redirect" site in place --
Use the following links instead:
http://www.despagar.com.mx - It is really a Mexican site,
http://www.despagar.com.ar (an Argentinian version) OR
http://www.us.despagar.com (defaults to country of origin as USA at the top).
These all work correctly.

Internal Peru air travel:
Start here for a brief schedule overview: http://www.go2peru.com/flights_airlines_peru.htm

StarPeru
Peruvian Airlines
TACA -- availability on their website or consolidated travel websites may be inaccurate.
LANPeru -- expensive if you don't use the South American Pass.
and there is another small one for some small cities.

Just to second what Adam South said, Star Peru was great last week in Peru. They were on time and had good service.

I like supporting the underdog too and wouldn't have been so nervous before if I knew that Star Peru was a decent airline.. Hopefully this helps.

UPDATE to flyzabit's post of May 30, 2011: all the despagar sites now go to a redirect site.