Originally Posted by
cloudeleven
OK, so it's definitely better "insurance" for a situation like this to book multi-city flights all at once on a site like Orbitz, instead of buying a separate flight (on a different airline like TAM) for a side trip like GRU-IGU-GRU?
Assuming you are flying same-day with fairly tight connections and on different airlines, the answer is "yes."
When I lived in SEA and a 1K on UA, I'd fly SEA-IAD-MIA (UA) MIA-GYE (AA) and v/v on 2 tickets. I usually had a 3-4 hour MIA layover and never worried about it. One time I had a 4 hour GYE-MIA delay and sweated out the flight and raced through customs as I would have been subjected to the whims of UA's agents in MIA for my onward travel.