Central America - flight options to/from brazil

This will be my first trip to South America and I'm looking for suggestions on cheap flight options.

I'll need to fly from SFO or PHX to Sao Paulo on Sept 27th
Return will be from Rio on Oct 4th to Phx

Kayak.com shows rates around $400 to Sao Paulo and about $1300 for the return. Is this a normal fare or am I looking too early?

I know when I travel to Asia, there are travel consolidators that have cheaper rates or flying from different airports (LAX instead of SFO) will drasticly impact the fares. Any suggestions?

I don't care about airline affinity as I don't have status and a lower fare is more important than miles at this point.

Sidestep shows RT out of SFO starting at $680 and and $861 out of PHX

could I ask how'd you find those? I can only get that if it's a RT from phx to sao paulo. flights out of Rio back to the States still run over $1000 ow.

www.sidestep.com, multiple cities

enter dates

search SFO-GRU or PHX-GRU as the first segment and GIG-PHX as the second segment.

One thing you didn't mention, in your $1k total, did you include the internal brazilian flight from GRU-GIG?

Just checking to make sure you know the necessity for a visa for Brazil?

Romelle

thank you mkt, I was pricing seperate one way travel instead of multi-city. And no, I was not including the GIG-GRU flight in my total as my travel host is arranging for that portion of the trip.

yes Romelle, I am aware of the need for a visa. It will be a tourist visa which I will apply for 90 days before I plan to enter the country. I believe I will need to use an agency to apply though as the embassy responsible for Arizona is in LA and they won't accept mailed applications. I need to look at this further after purchasing my travel.