I just got back home from a successful million mileage march, returning on Tues. 5/30. I did the fastest run; 11 flights in 4 days - no sightseeing. I did the run with between one and four (depending on their various itineraries) other "runners" whom I met at different times on the trip.
My thoughts and observations are as follows: (I'll try not too repeat anything that's been posted previously, or that would be of little additional informational value). All the flights with the exception of our Copa flight (which left 2 hrs. late - it was late arriving from its previous destination) from MGA to GUA, left and arrived on time. Even the Copa flight wasn't a problem since it was our last flight of the day, and we went right from the GUA airport to the Radisson. They served food on almost every flight, even the 1 hour flight from Lima to Cuzco and back, and some other short ones. In four days I ate only ONCE that wasn't on a plane, (pizza in the Bogota airport). The food on the planes was consistently quite good. I flew buisness (first?) class on 8 of the 11 flights. Aces and Aeropostal have only one class of service.
The Radisson Guatemala City is a great hotel for the money; clean, neat, modern. They gave me a rate of $80 for a junior suite to earn LatinPass credit (otherwise the rate is only $55 for a regular room) as opposed to $85 that I had read was the going rate to earn credit. Although I just found out that they charged me over $22 in taxes. I'm going to look into that.
The two most enjoyable things on the trip for me were: 1) Crashing a "Quinceanos" (hispanic sweet 16 party - but they do it at 15) party at the Guatemala City Radisson, and interacting with the teenage partygoers, who were all extremely friendly and polite. I danced with a gorgeous 15 year old girl (not the birthday girl - but a friend of hers), and then talked to her (her english was excellent) for probably 90 minutes after we stopped dancing, until the party ended and her mom eventually picked her up. I gave a bunch of the kids the new American dollar gold coins, IF you can find them before you leave, bring them, they were a pretty big hit everywhere.
and, 2) at the end of the Aces flight from Bogota to Quito, a 2nd grade boys soccer team (about 20 or so kids) started a HUGE pillow flight on the plane with some older teenagers; they were singing and having a great time (the had just won a tournament in Bogota). I was laughing my butt off (as I allied myself with the teenagers simply becuase they were one row behind me, and supplied them with ammo in the form of airline pillows - but we were handily defeated). I would have given anything to have videotaped the spirited fight. After the boys deplaned, the pilot chastised the teens, saying (from what he later told me in English) that they were old enought to have known better, and their behavior jepordized safety, because if the captain had to make an emergency announcement, no one would have heard it between all the commotion and the pillows (and blankets!) flying around the cabin. Even though he was right, it still was a blast to watch. He didn't let the teens off the plane until he was done scolding them! Since we were continuing on the same plane from Quito to Lima, I had a chance to talk to the pilot. When I mentioned that my traveling partner, who was sitting next to me (I had met him on the trip - he was also doing the 1 mil. run) was a pilot (actually he's a former naval flight instructor and a decorated veteran of Desert Storm), the Aces captain let him sit in the cockpit for the ENTIRE Quito to Lima flight, INCLUDING the takeoff and landing!
Bogota was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. We went through it twice, once they didn't even look through my bags; once they did, but it was only the briefest and most cursory search, followed by an even briefer and less thorough pat-down. Avianca had us change planes in Bogota on the flight from Lima to Caracas, even though it was only scheduled as a stop and had only 1 flight number on the ticket. I want extra FF miles for that!
The father south you go, the harder it is to find someone who speaks English. In Lima I felt like finding someone who spoke English was like trying to find someone who spoke Chinese!
We didn't have to pay a large departure tax anywhere. $8 in Managua, $4 in Cuzco, Lima let us go after some discussion with no tax (I think we had to get a "transito" stamp) even thought we had to get some airport executive or other to "ok it." Caracas was the hardest time getting out of the tax. We stayed overnight at the Intercontinental, but we were still only in the country only about 12 hours. We told them we had slept at the airport, and not left, but since we had gone through immigratrion/customs (we HAD to to get our tickets and boarding passes for our next flight!) they kept insisting we pay the tax. They don't actually give you any explaination, they just say "you have to pay." We were firm however, and held our ground, and after much discussion with and between various airline and immigration officials, they let us board without paying.
The Caracas Intercontinental is really overpriced. (Especialy when compared with the The Radisson Guatemala City - which has much nicer rooms for much less $) It's not a bad hotel, especially if you're just sleeping there like I did, but our room was desperatly in need of a makeover (everything looked pretty drab and well worn). My feeling is that the Gran Melia is the nicest hotel in Caracas, but I think it's a lot priceier. If you don't absolutely have to have the miles at the Intercon. as part of your 1 mil. requirements, I think investigating some of the beach hotels in or near Caracas might be worth your time. God knows they can't be father from the airport than the Intercon. That was a 30 minute (and $30!) cab ride each way with NO traffic!
LatinPass accomplished their goal with me, beacuse I definitely plan on returning to Latin America in the future, after some intensive Spanish classes however.
I STRONGLY reccommend flying buisness class over coach. The entire 11 flight trip cost me under $2900, which was only about $100 more than one of my travel partners who flew the entire thing in coach!
We spent the night in Lima at the Diner's Club lounge. It was ok. The receptionist wouldn't let us sleep on the floor, she said we had to sleep on the (4 foot) couches??!! Far from a great night's sleep, but much better that spending all night in the terminal! It was also extremely helpful to be able to check my E-mail at the "internet cafe" at the Lima airport. If you fly buisness class, one more benefit is that you get to use the airline lounges for free. Some of them were quite nice. Avianca's in Lima is clean and comfortable, Taca's in Miami is quite upscale and attractive. We also used the Taca lounge in San Jose and the Diner's Club lounge in Bogota. They were fine, no complaints. Only the Copa lounge in Managua is sub-par, but it's still much better than waiting in the termianl.
Cuzco is cold in the morning, bring a jacket.
All in all, it was definitly worth the time and $ expended.