In case anyone was wondering how the connection went, there was someone with a list of names of international connecting passengers who met us at the gate and shepherded us all to the special security line for people not entering Brazil. Probably I would have found that myself faster than waiting for everyone who needed shepherding, but it was nice to know that someone knew about us. The flights were all punctual, and both we and our luggage made the connection to TAM. TAM was nicer than Iberia, we got a second breakfast, and it broke up a twelve-hour flight into a ten-hour flight and a two-plus-hour flight, so all in all, the re-route was more a blessing than a curse. Now I am just trying to get the FFM for the remaining flight segment using the original-routing rule. The American people said that Iberia did not use the same electronic system as AAdvantage, so I had to fax them a copy of my boarding pass, and now I am waiting for the credit.

LAN, which we flew for three intra-Argentinian legs and from SCL-MVD, was a nice enough airline. On the brief flights, they don't feed you much, and the domestic flights were all-economy, but even the international one wasn't much over two hours. Iberia, which had been surprisingly incompetent during the ticketing process, proved to be also unpleasant after arrival when we had some luggage damage. The luggage person working on Sundays said our damage was too minor to take note of, and we had to argue with her for half an hour (some of which was spent looking for someone else to argue with) before she made a preliminary report of it. (Crack in hard-shell luggage.) Only after calling back the next day and talking to the supervisor (not there on weekends) did we get a claim number. Otherwise they hide behind an expensive, 12-euro-cent a minute call center number and everyone says they can't help you, you have to call there (same experience when getting ticketed).