flyernick

I'm planning a trip to Chile. Managed to get the almost last AA business saver award in Nov.! Anyway, I arrive at 9:02 a.m. on AA from Miami and am thinking of just going straight on to Punta Arenas (PUQ) the same day. There's a 10:54 SCL-PUQ flight. Would that be a reasonably safe connection time? US Passport. I will spend some time in Santiago eventually, but I figure this connection would save me the hassles of one less trip from&to the SCL airport. How busy are the SCL-PUQ flights in mid-Nov? If my arriving flight is late, will LATAM be nice and just put me on a later one? Since arriving flight is award and SCL-PUQ-SCL is separate, the two itineraries wouldn't be linked or anything.

If anyone has great suggestions for visiting Torres del Paine independently and on a reasonable budget (no $500+/night hotels), but not doing the full W or O hikes, I'm all ears! (I've read some, but am still learning/planning).

Thanks!

Eastbay1K

You can plan on the SCL/PUQ flights being quite full.

As far as your arrival hour, it is within the peak North American arrivals time. I don't know if it has ever taken me an hour to get through all arrival procedures, but I could certainly see it taking so. Also, you run a slight risk of getting a bus gate.

Once you have your luggage, you go upstairs, and to the right, for your domestic flight. If you have already printed your BP before you depart home, you'll only need to go to the bag drop line. Security line shouldn't be more than 5 minutes.

Nevertheless, on separate tickets, I'd probably opt for a later flight. LATAM follows the rules to the letter, and in the rare event that they don't, you are just grateful.

FrogProf

Unless your incoming flight is delayed, you should be okay. Only once in my last twenty times has immigration and customs taken 2 hours. Based on n=-1, let's call it a 5% chance of a missed connection. Buenos suerte!

flyernick

As a followup to my own question, I took a look at flightstats.com for the MIA-SCL flight, and it isn't really encouraging. It's only on-time 66% of the time. They had 30 datapoints for delays, one being 11 hours. Of the other 29 delayed arrivals, the mean was about 36 min. So with an average delay, now I'm down to only about 1 hr, 15min for clearing immigration and getting to the next flight. That's sounding kinda' tight...

eigenvector

There are lots of SCL-PUQ flights in peak season (almost hourly) so please give yourself a generous connection time to account for inbound delays. LATAM will not help you if your inbound is delayed on a separate ticket connection and in peak season flights can be full for days. Plan for an early afternoon departure which gives you 3-4 hours connecting time but still lets you take a bus from PUQ to Puerto Natales the same day. You don't want to start off your trip sleeping in the SCL airport and buying a $500+ walk-up ticket to get to Punta Arenas. You can also look at SKY Airlines for flight options to PUQ.

For Torres del Paine on a budget, there is not much to say - if you don't wish to do the full W or O hikes, camp at one of the sites near Hotel Las Torres (around $15/night IIRC) and do day hikes from there. There would be three main day hikes:

1. Using the ferry service along Lago Pehoe: Grey Glacier & French Valley
2. The Torres viewpoint at dawn, hiking directly from your campsite near Hotel Las Torres

You can also ferry to the Refugio Paine Grande and camp there for one or two nights which may be more convenient IF you can get a reservation. It is a very beautiful camp spot with a nice cooking shelter in contrast to the dusty, windy mess of the camps near the Hotel Las Torres.

You MUST book your camping in advance and show proof of reservation to enter the park. This is strictly enforced and many guidebooks have not yet been updated with the new policies. I have seen people turned away and their entire trip ruined because they thought they will just talk their way around the rules. CONAF is serious about this.