As my wife mentioned in her posts above AEP was a third-world zoo. We arrived and disboarded via air stairs. When we got to the tarmac we were loaded into buses and disgorged into what can only politely be called a zoo. We were told to head to baggage claim three but when claim three started moving there were bags for the later (read: the flight we were supposed to be on) flight from Iguazu.
A LAN employee told us to go to Baggage Claim two, where everyone waited for many minutes while nothing happened.
Then the same LAN employee told us to go back to three after all the bags from the "later" Iguazu flight had been offloaded and collected. Another change of venue led to much angry whistling and shouts of F"#$ing h#$l, bull#"ks, bl#$dy H$ll, etc....
Oh, wait, the fun wasn't over yet, our bags finally started coming out, about 45 minutes after landing...you guessed it...back on carousel three.
Our cab ot the Sheraton Conference Center on San Martin cost $45AR ($11US). Our bags were collected from the cab by the bell staff and we were warmly greeted by a young lady working the front desk. She checked us in very efficiently and let us know we had been upgraded due to our platinum status to a corner suite on a high floor with views of the city and the river!!!!
She also told us what the local amenities were but in her opinion the points were the best option and we agreed. Finally, as she was also in her 20's my wife started talking to her about places to buy handbags...more on that later.
Cost for the hotel on Cash+points: 2800 points + $45US!!!!!
Our room was indeed fantastic. A true one-bedroom suite with separate parlor room with a power room from the bedroom and a full bath. Awesome.
From the hotel we walked the short distance to go shopping on Florida. I went to Casa Lopez (on Plaza San Martin - thanks to a recommendation from a colleague who grew up in BA) and got a new wallet and two nice belts. My wife went to Prune, a very nice handbag and shoe shop that was recomended to her by the front desk staffer at the hotel as being more "young" than the handbags at Casa Lopez. My wife was very happy with her new handbag and matching wallet.
After shopping we returned to the hotel to drop off our purchases and walked down Libertador for dinner at San Juanino, a restaurant recommended by the same colleague mentioned above. It was indeed quite good. My wife had a salad and a couple of corn and cheese empanadas and I had a huge, make that HUGE steak with fries. The steak was so amazing, you could cut it with a fork. YUMMMMM. We had a "grande" pitcher of house red wine and two bottles of Mineral Water. Total check: $136AR, only $31US. If only I could get food that good, that filling, that cheaply in the US!
After eating we wandered back to our hotel where we quickly feel into a deep sleep.