LeperKing

Hi Folks,

I appreciate any words of advice on trying to get the best deal for travelling to IPC from DUB as a once in a lifetime bucket list trip. My dates are fixed, and I wanted to have a day in SCL so that the trip isn't a 1 trick pony. I'd prefer to try to maintain business class, as it's alot of flying involved.

So far the costs seem excessive, can any one beat this? (ITA Matrix)

Itinerary
Dublin (DUB) to Santiago (SCL) — Wed, Mar 21
Dublin (DUB) to London (LHR) — Wed, Mar 21
British Airways 829 Dep: 8:40 pm Arr: 9:55 pm 1h 15m Airbus A319 Business (I)
Layover in LHR 20h 5m
London (LHR) to Toronto (YYZ) — Thu, Mar 22
Air Canada 859 Dep: 6:00 pm Arr: 9:45 pm 7h 45m Boeing 787 Business (P)
Layover in YYZ 2h 0m
Toronto (YYZ) to Santiago (SCL) — Thu, Mar 22
Air Canada 92 Dep: 11:45 pm Arr: 11:05 am 10h 20m Boeing 777 Business (P)
Fri, Mar 23
Santiago (SCL) to Easter Island (IPC) — Sat, Mar 24
LATAM 841 Dep: 9:30 am Arr: 12:55 pm 5h 25m Boeing 787 Business (J)

Easter Island (IPC) to Dublin (DUB) — Thu, Mar 29
Easter Island (IPC) to Santiago (SCL) — Thu, Mar 29
LATAM 842 Dep: 3:25 pm Arr: 9:55 pm 4h 30m Boeing 787 Business (D)
Layover in SCL 3h 30m
Santiago (SCL) to Bogota (BOG) — Fri, Mar 30
LATAM 572 Dep: 1:25 am Arr: 5:20 am 5h 55m Boeing 787 Business (D)
Layover in BOG 3h 28m
Bogota (BOG) to Newark (EWR) — Fri, Mar 30
United 1069 Dep: 8:48 am Arr: 3:53 pm 6h 5m Boeing 737 Business (Z)
Layover in EWR 3h 37m
Newark (EWR) to Dublin (DUB) — Fri, Mar 30
United 23 Dep: 7:30 pm Arr: 7:05 am 6h 35m Boeing 777 Business (Z)
Sat, Mar 31
Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees) EUR7,129.59
Total cost for 2 passengers EUR14,259.18

Thanks in advance,
LeperKing.

sooge_sj

Wow, that is a lot of flying, but I guess you don’t have much of a choice when going from Dublin.

I travelled to Chile, including Rapa Nui, in September 2016 and had a really wonderful time. Visiting Rapa Nui was definitely a highlight, but I also really enjoyed visiting San Pedro de Atacama. The Atacama desert was really beautiful. Since you are spending so much money and going all the way, I would seriously suggest that you see a little bit more of Chile. Also, right now you are spending 5 nights in Hanga Roa, which I think is a little too long. Rapa Nui is a small place and it is I am not sure there is enough things to do for that long.

Another big thing to remember is that flight to and from SCL to IPC and easily be delayed due to weather or mechanical issues and there is only 1 LATAM flight a day. My flight from IPC to SCL was delayed by about 4 hours because of engine issues. I was really surprised that we even departed that day cause IPC is a “one-horse” airport. But I guess LATAM had the necessary air plane spare parts and know-how at IPC to fix the issue. But it was weird watching them work on the jet engine from a distance and hoped that we got back to the mainland without an issue . Anyways, we did get back to SCL, but several people who had both domestic and international connections, missed their flights. I was lucky that I had an overnight in SCL before flying to Calama in the north.

My advice is that you book DUB to SCL return, and then a separate SCL to IPC return with a night or two in SCL. I see that there are DUB-CDG-SCL flights on Air France which would mean only 1 connection and it seem much cheaper. Around $2800 for a business class ticket:

https://www.google.com/flights/#sear...F1716;sc=b;s=1

noturbulence

I would mirror the previous comment – try to get a flight from DUB to SCL and then a separate one from SCL to IPC. This should be quite a bit cheaper and also allows for more flexibility

E.g. DUB-SCL with Latam via MAD or with KLM/Aeromexico via AMS and MEX would cost around EUR 3k for a business return ticket at that time

LeperKing

Thanks for the feedback. I'm now focusing on DUB-> SCL. I was about to pull the trigger on purchase, until I read that booking with OTAs is risky as apposed to directly with airlines.

Is this the general consensus, to avoid using OTAs?

Thanks,
LK.

noturbulence

Well, I would not call it risky as such but can be rather quite inconvenient and a true nuisance – if you need to change or amend anything, if there is a problem with your booking you always have to go through the OTA to get it sorted as the airline will point you to them and refuse any responsibility up until the day of the flight.

And whether their service desk is up to scratch very much depends on who you choose (e.g. had generally good experiences with Orbitz while less than stellar service was delivered by the OTA that Chase uses for its reward points travel bookings)

Bottomline: Personally I always book directly with the airline unless there is a compelling reason not to do so (such as a routing involving airlines not in the same alliance and therefore not bookable via the airline webpage).

The pricing is usually very similar if not the same and change/cancel conditions can even be better as some OTAs tack additional change/cancel fees on top of what the airline charges or make some tickets even not refundable that can be refunded for a fee when using the airline webpage (e.g. have seen that several times with Expedia)

OskiBear

If you do a search in this forum, there's also discussion of the price differential for an SCL-IPC-SCL ticket booked via LATAM's Chilean website versus a foreign site. I don't believe this violates any residency requirement rules (as is the case in other South American countries), it's just less expense for some reason.

LeperKing

Actually KLM might be the cheapest option available. Does anyone know what the stopover actually means for KL0701 (AMS->EZE->SCL). Does everyone get off at EZE, and then get back on again?

Thanks,
LK.

zpaul

Try to book as many of the LATAM flights on the Chilean website.

noturbulence

As this a very specific question on the arrangements of that particular KL flight, you might have better chances to get a good answer if you ask this on the KLM forum