jazzmailman

Hi!

I'm looking to book EZE-SCL using Avios points, but after a month of monitoring, I still cannot find any availability. There are 4-5 daily flights from EZE-SCL on LAN and I find it very hard to believe that every single award seat is taken within that 2 weeks frame that i'm looking at.

Is it just because LAN isn't releasing those award space? Any chance that it will as it gets closer to the date of flights?

Thanks!

JohnnyColombia

Do you have a LANPASS account? Best bet would be to get one, search for award availability on LAN and work out what the "Classic" redemption rate is. If you can see the classic availability on LAN then you can call IB/BA and ask them why you cannot book it.

jazzmailman

Hi Johnny! Thank you for the prompt response.

I just signed up for LANPASS and I don't see the "classic" award that you are talking about. I only see redemption using KMS, and when I search for the dates that I'm interested in (11/30/14-12/2/14), it shows different shades of blue, I'm assuming that's the "saver" vs "standard" award section? If so, I do see light blue availability on 12/2/14, but I'm not able to see it on the BA website.

Thank you so much!

fedechat

You need to look for the lowest redemption fare, which is 20K RT for that route, check which flight cost 10K each way, then call BA to book it, they may have to do a "long sell".

Keep in mind that BA.com will only show you one 2 flights per day, the one in the morning (A320) and the one in the afternoon (787), for the others you have to call BA.

http://www.lan.com/en_us/sitio_perso...international/

JohnnyColombia

Hi jazzmailman

Sorry I will clarify, the classic level is a base minimum amount of LANPASS kms that are required to redeem a route. So far as I am aware, the classic/base level is the only inventory that is released to OneWorld partners.

You will see here that the kms required for EZE SCL is 20,000 kms return.

http://www.lan.com/es_co/sitio_perso...nal/index.html

When you search for the dates that you mention you will see that the lowest is 24,000 kms (and not on your dates), as such, you are not going to find availability on those dates with Avios

It could have been the possibility that the reward chart was wrong and the classic reward is now 24,000kms but given you cannot find any seats then the former is more likely to be true.

jazzmailman

Thank you for the kind responses JohnnyColombia and fedechat. After looking through the program, I realized that I can transfer SPG points to LANPASS... so I initiated the transfer today and hopefully it doesn't take too long to finish the transfer.

I know this question has been beaten to death (i've googled and read maybe ~6 threads on it, but haven't seen any relevant timeframe in 2014), but how long does the transfer normally? Looks like it might be once a month kind of thing...

Thanks

jazzmailman

From all the time points that I gathered, seems like SPG transfers twice a month on Tuesdays (Most are 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month with one exception). Let's see if this holds true...

Timepoints:

superdrew: "I transfered to Lanpass on 6/4/12, and just logged in today on 6/18/12 and it was credited." (According to the website, it credited on 6/4/12) - 1st Tuesday
sxchan: Superfast!!! I got 64000 KM in 3 days! (8/1/12 transfer) - 1st Tuesday
JohnnyColombia: Just got mine. Sent them 23rd Dec. (Received 1/8/13) - 2nd Tuesday, 5 Tuesdays this month (1/1 Holiday?)
nov11: Transferred 7,000 points Wed. 12th Dec. and 14k miles were posted when I logged in 6 days later on Tuesday 18th Dec. (12/18/12) - 3rd Tuesday
gohan403:Got mine in 4 days. Sent Thurs received today. (11/5/13) - 1st Tuesday
CVCONDE: Maybe it was good luck or good timing, but I transferred SPG points on May 29 to my LAN account and they showed up on 06/05! Exactly one week! 1st Tuesday
spangenberg: Update on my previous post, Initiated Feb 28, arrive Mar 5. Six days total. 3 business day. I hope all future transfers are this quick! (3/5/14) - 1st Tuesday
fedechat: "I made a transfer on Sunday Feb 16 (20K SPG) 9:20AM and I got my Km (not miles) next day after 9PM." (2/18/14) - 3rd Tuesday

fedechat

I did a transfer on Sunday and I got my Kms on Monday, I said after 9pm because I saw those points around that time.

How many Kms do you need?, keep in mind that if you transfer 1 SPG mile you will get 1.5KM, if you need 36K Km, you need to transfer 24K SPG, but you get 5K for every 20K transfe, so if you transfer 20K, you will get 37.5K Kms (37,500 Kms).

11/30 to 12/2= lowest KMs needed is 36K

11/29 to 12/2= lowest KMs needed is 32K

+ U$s 117.23 in taxes

Sometimes the best option is save those SPG and pay for your flight


11/29 to 12/2 u$s 148+taxes=149,598 CLP=251 u$s

vs

20K SPG + u$s 117

jazzmailman

I got the LANPASS KMS today!!!

Transferred 11/17/14 12:20 AM PST, Received on 11/18/14 ~ 8am (I checked at midnight 11/18/14 and it wasn't available yet). - 3rd Tuesday

jazzmailman

Hi fedechat,

I ended up transferring 34,000 Starpoints = ~ 58,500 KMS

I need to book 4 flights:

1) BUE-FTE-BUE - 11/27/14-11/30/14 ($488 if paid directly, BA and AA showed zero availability since these aren't saver fare) = 35,000 KMS + $15

2) BUE-SCL - 11/30/14 (to 12/2/14, flexible with this one) - BA showed ZERO availability for basically the whole month. Only option I can think of is to buy it with ~$255 or United 12,500 miles + ~$70 (more because of $75 late booking fee) in taxes and fees = 9,000 KMS

3) LPB-LIM - 12/8/14 - BA showed availability at 7,500 + ~$80. I just combined this booking using the multi-city trick mentioned in the forum = 23,000 KMS + ~$102 for 2) and 3)

So the original method = $488 + $255 + $80 + 7,500 BA (~$75) = ~$900

Now 34,000 Starpoints + $117 for the 4 flights. Starpoints at ~0.023 c/p redemption, which isn't too bad.

Thanks for your helpful responses everyone, wouldn't have known about LANPASS kms program with you guys!

fedechat

Ohh you had few multi-trips awards, with few more SPG you could ad SCL-IQQ-LPB

In the future, if you decided to came back, open the LANPASS CC (US Bank), sometime they offer 40K and it come with 3 upgrade tickets, you can use it on some international (or long distance) flights

jazzmailman

Hi Fedechat,

I actually did book SCL-IQQ-LPB for $177 already... which i thought is a decent price. Originally wanted to do SCL-LIM but it was going for $600... i looked at SCL-LIM-LPB and it was about ~$220 too... funny how ticket prices work...

Thanks for the reminder on getting the LANPASS CC! I'm definitely planning on coming back to Latin America as there are still tons of sights to see! The 3 upgrade tickets will definitely come handy

Thank you for all your help and suggestions!