satori

Taca Miles Purchase deal
(as a LatinPass 2000 mileage runner, I fondly remember my Taca flights)

There is currently a great opportunity for low-cost mileage awards with United Airlines, Iberia, and Taca.

This deal is HOT!

http://www.taca.com/eng/fre/fear/fearhalpri.asp

For the rest of September 2007 Taca Distancia is selling their airline miles at 50% regular cost for the incredibly low price of 1.25 cents/mile.

As a significant cost-savings kind of deal, particularly for business class travel, I know that posting it here on Flyertalk.com may shut it down, but our community has always been the place to let members and viewers get a jump on the best deals. This is what makes Flyertalk.com the top travel community on the Web. Grab this one quick before it becomes another LatinPass offer. (The LatinPass Million Mile frequent flyer promotion from 2000 was shut down in March 2000 to new registrants, midway through the promotional offer due to overexposure of the great value at low cost. Even though the original promotion allowed registering for the offer through June 2000, new registration ended in March 2000. The point being you should act quickly on this if it looks like a good deal for you because the promotion may end early if it becomes too popular. Taca was a member airline participating in LatinPass.)


“Taca Airlines is celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Taca Distancia.
Imagine all that you can do with more miles. . .

Fly to fascinating places. . . rest in the best hotels. . .drive to new cities. . .

In September, stop day-dreaming and make it happen with our anniversary promotion that allows you to buy as many miles as you wish at half the price!
Miles This month*
2,000 $25
4,000 $50
6,000 $75
8,000 $100
10,000 $125

Restrictions:
Purchase of miles valid at TACA Centers and TACA.com, between September 7th and October 1st, 2007
Minimum purchase required: 1,000 miles
If you wish to buy more than 32,000 Miles, Please make another transaction.
You can make as many transactions as you like
*Prices do NOT include local taxes
All DISTANCIA terms and conditions for redemption of miles apply
Mile purchase fee non refundable. “

How good is this deal?
At $400 for 32,000 miles per transaction you can buy sufficient miles for a variety of awards.

http://www.taca.com/eng/fre/finf/finfbusclacha.asp

Examples of Award Value:

Taca Airline Partners for award redemption:
Business Class Awards: United Airlines, Iberia, Avianca

North America – South America Business Class
70,000 miles Low Season = $875
80,000 miles High Season = $1,000

North America – Europe Business Class:
130,000 miles Low Season = $1,625
150,000 miles High Season = $1,875

North America – Africa, Australia or Asia Business Class:
150,000 miles Low Season = $1,875
170,000 miles High Season = $2,125

Economy Class Award Levels

North America – South America
35,000 miles Low Season = $438
40,000 miles High Season = $500

North America – Europe:
65,000 miles Low Season = $812.50
75,000 miles High Season = $937.50

North America – Africa, Australia or Asia:
75,000 miles Low Season = $937.50
85,000 miles High Season = $1,062.50


While I put most of my effort these days in educating travelers about the major hotel loyalty programs and finding great deals for hotel frequent guests, now and again, there is a terrific airline deal to share. I hope some Flyertalkers will be able to save a great deal of money if you are ready to take advantage of this opportunity with the Taca Distancia frequent flyer program.

Good luck from satori, the loyaltytraveler

LadyPhoenix

I don't know much about internat'l flights, but even THIS reads as a rare deal!:-:

verve

Is anybody familiar with the Distancia program - would the redemption rates be the same ex-Europe? On the webpage it lists only awards starting ex Americas.

Lurker1999

Following the links from the TACA website to United redemptions it only lists economy redemption levels, no business or first class levels. Does this mean that you could only book United flights in economy using TACA miles?

$1000 for a business class flight New York-Buenos Aires is quite appealing though. Seat specs aren't listed on Seatguru or Seatexpert though.

People on FT have not said complimentary things about their business class service in this thread. On the other hand it does beat 14 hours in economy..

dhacker

Looks like a great deal, but people should probably not to buy more than they can use in a year, since Distancia miles expire after 12 months of inactivity, and it's not clear what constitutes activity. One page seems to suggest that only flights prevent mileage expiration.

yyliu88

great find

Lurker1999

A couple of interesting points to note.

1. No United Airlines business/first class award redemptions. So if you're planning on using this deal to make an award reservation at United you're flying in economy. That also makes the TACA business award chart to Asia seem somewhat suspect.

2. If you're going to fly to Buenos Aires their only flight connects in Lima and arrives at EZE at 3:30am. Not a very good flight and you have to make connections in San Salvador and Lima on the way down from JFK. If I read the route map correctly there is no routing from anywhere in the US that will get you to Buenos Aires in under 2 connections.

beaubo

UA IAD-EZE

beaubo

THANKS so much for choosing to share!

EmailKid

You are correct. Haven't flown TACA since they stopped doing those great fares on Xmas Day and New Year's Day in additon to the odd one day sales (the last one I know about was $118 plus tax IAH-SAL, just under $200a/i). Was up to 20K miles with them, alas that wasn't really enough to do much with, and since I only had one last flight (a bump on CO got me a CO seat IAH-SAL and TA SAL-SJO).

Scored an Op Up once on a return flight SAP-SAL-IAH, and thought that First was pretty decent: Seat about like NW domestic first, and omelette WAY better than CO's on SJO-IAH (when I got an u/g).

The bad thing is that many cities are more like three connections to S. America: the one and only flight from IAH stops in BZE before continuing to their big C. American hub in SAL.

And the mileage is strange: 2K online booking bonus, but the IAH-SAL-SAP gets you less than 1K miles (CO.com gives you 1,093 miles for their nonstop) because they count the distance between Houston and San Pedro Sula, Honduras (just so you don't have to look up SAP in airport code list).

I've always had good service in Take A Chance Airlines, but did have a flight cancelled one time without explanation. Apparently the a/c that was to fly SJO-SAL didn't show up, so they put many of us on SJO-MIA, and in my case MIA-IAH on CO. But there were many pax that ended up with forced overnights because the next SJO-SAL flight would arrive after most of the once a day flights already departed. This was at least four years ago, so they may be better now.

Then again, CO had a mechanical problem one time and was forced to cancell the morning SJO-IAH flight, and my getting to the airport a little late turned out to be a blessing because they told me I wouldn't make it through security to catch said flight and put me on the afternoon flight. So I ended up with a confirmed seat while those who showed up on time were on a standby list

EmailKid

Lurker1999

Wirelessly posted (Treo 650: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D060; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

UA does not allow for business class redemptions with Distancia miles which was the point of the original post.

flyingzzzd's

Does anybody have expereince of using TACA miles for hotel stays?

Quick look at this offer and I can see this being useful for stays at the IC Miami - at 12k points per night it apears you could purchase these points for $150 (+taxes). This is about a 50% saving on the rates normally on offer at this hotel. There are lots of other options for hotels that look ok IMHO.

Just wondering what restrictions there may be on redeeming miles for hotel stays - specifically black out periods and any restrictions on number of consecutive nights, min stays etc. Assume no PC points for stays on TACA award either?

Anybody able to enlighten us on this?

beaubo

Tried to do a dummy purchase; even though promo shows $12.50 per 1000, order site still charging $25 per 1000. PLus, even though promo advises priceno includes tax, there didn't seem to be a tax charge on the order site.

Sent email to customer service about the glitches.

beaubo

gotcha

jerry crump

Say what you want to about Taca's mileage expiration rules but I can give you the definitive answer about Taca mileage expiration rules. The answer is nobody really knows. I have asked questions for years in the other North and South America airlines forum and to customer service and never got an answer.

They for years have posted contradictory information. For example look on their website under Frequent flyer, general info, terms and conditions and you will find that miles expire after 3 years, but are extended by flying round trip on Groupo Taca (not partners) once per year. My miles have not yet expired on flights from 6 years ago and I haven't flown taca every year.

Also note that at times they have offered discounted awards such as 15K miles to central America.

One benefit to Taca award tickets are you can do open jaw and 1 free stopover and I don't believe they are sophisticated enough to have lots of fees on award ticket changes, but I am not certain of the change fee comment.

Taca staff is great in the air, but their ground operations and administration have 1970's latin american efficiency.