klanfa

There should be no worries in general; the only extra fees associated with buying through another website should be the ones from your bank, for the foreign transaction fee and the conversion rate.
Being from a small country, I am sometimes even redirected to another country's website (e.g. Air France forwards me to a neighboring country's website). Never had any issues.

Congrats on a lovely find!

pbjoe

Thanks all. I'm also going to try the new bridge.

Astrophsx

I had to call in to finalize the purchase of my ticket. I hardly ever get flagged by Chase Sapphire... so I thought it was strange. Called in and Chase never saw they attempted to make the charge. So I called AeroMexico and it went through.

Using the MEX/Spanish version of the site a couple of weeks ago I saw flight availability not shown in Google Flights or the English/USA version of AeroMexico's page.

EmailKid

Thanks, good to know.

I understand enough Spanish where I don't normally have to use Chrome browser with translate, so will have more options should I go this route ^

Astrophsx

I'm interested in the bidding system for upgrades. I wonder if there are data points out there. There was a 3rd party site that you could pay to acquire an upgrade, but I think that may no longer be working. I think the first leg was $40-60 starting bid and the longer leg was ~$110.

downinit

My attempt to purchase on the Mexican website failed. They told me I had to have a Mexican credit card to purchase on that website. Also, if i called into the Mexican phone number, they automatically routed me to the USA call center for English, refusing to allow me to purchase the Peso price. My only option was to call Mexico and speak Spanish, which was not going to happen.

I was about to throw in the towel and find a travel agent in my 'hood that deals with a lot of Mexican customers, when I realized that they have 3rd party booking sites based in Mexico. After entering expedia.mx into my browser, I was rewarded with the exact same pricing as the AM Mexico website, only they had much better flight availability and the ability to select any country for passport and credit card info. Booking went off without a hitch, and I was able to select my seats on the AM USA website after the confirmation went through.

Its a great deal, but getting to Lima is only the tip of the iceberg for a trip to Machu Picchu. My one hour flight from Lima to Cusco costs almost as much as the 8 hour flight to Lima, and the train is another $200 on top of that. All in all, $800 for a trip to Peru is still a great deal. Hopefully, AeroMexico is not quite as horrific as their reviews and call center suggest.

EmailKid

IIRC there's a whole thread about "domestic" pricing for this flight.

No idea what the train costs, but it does sound expensive.

Way to go in getting AM flight purchased ^

downinit

I noticed that the airlines in Peru have discounted airfare that is very clearly only for residents of Peru. The ticket rules clearly state that on the reduced airfare. Honestly, I was able to get a fully refundable RT ticket for $185, which is actually not a bad price. It appears that any price level below a flexible ticket is for locals only. The cheapest listed airfare was $68 for residents only.

Dual pricing policies are the norm in most developing countries for most services that tourists utilize, but it is not so common in airfare pricing. Otherwise, I could never book a sub $25 flight in SE Asia, which I have done on numerous occasions. I also don't like that they have a 'locals only' train that non-residents are forbidden from riding. I really enjoy the occasional 3rd class train ride. It provides a very unique perspective on a culture and the cost is typically next to nothing.

One other slightly disturbing practice by AeroMexico is a no-show fee of $150. I have never heard of an airline charging for unused tickets.

Mr. Roboto

SQ ex-SIN, even for First & Business Class.

richardinmotion

If you can get some miles into an Avios account, its quite affordable to book a round trip using Avios. That's what we did last year. 4500 Avios RT, IIRC.

Astrophsx

Isn't Star Peru ~$100-140 RT? You use avios and then there is still a fee for departing LIM airport correct?

mahasamatman

In my experience, all the South American airlines have something like this for their local residents.

With most airlines I'm familiar with, unused non-refundable tickets have a no-show fee of 100%. You need to cancel beforehand to have any residual value at all, in which case there can be a fee of up to $400.

richardinmotion

I paid $14 per ticket in taxes 2 years ago, and it was 9000 avios per ticket.