I have a particularly long-term project with a global client who has offices in Brazil (Rio and Sao Paulo) due to complete in November requiring a physical presence early in the month. With COVID there was some question about it getting pushed, etc., but that has now resolved itself.
Two questions since I've not had any international travel this year and even in a normal year my international business travel tends to be limited to maybe a couple Canadian/Western Europe trips a year (in other words, I'm a domestic 1K)
Question 1: Looking at the declaration from the Brazilian government (both via Google Translate from the source and the US OSAC interpretation the only significant entry requirement for air travel is that
for a short stay of up to 90 days, must present proof of purchase of health insurance, in English, Portuguese, or Spanish, that is valid in Brazilfor the entire period of the trip with minimum coverage of 30,000 Brazilian reaisto an airline agent prior to boarding.
Given that the proof must be presented to "an airline agent prior to boarding" does anyone have experience with what UA will be expecting/looking for here and where it will be verified (assuming IAH)? Also if anyone has a particular provider that they know meets this requirement I'm all ears. I'm not so confident in usual "travel insurance" providers based on answers I've gotten from customer support. (In particular, Amex travel insurance looks like a great value/benefit but no one can tell me if they can provide proof of purchase that would be acceptable.
Question 2: I will need to be in both Rio and Sao Paulo (unclear as yet if I start in Rio and finish in Sao Paulo or vice versa). Any wisdom as to if I'm better off (for any reason other than pure costs) booking a single ticket with UA including the domestic segment, (e.g. US->Rio->Sao Paulo->US), an open jaw ticket with UA and the domestic segment with the operating carrier (e.g. UA ticket would be US->Rio//Sao Paulo->US), or open jaw and just drive the 6-ish hours from Sao to Rio (when we were originally discussing this project's logistics in December of last year I was going to try to do this trip without a rental car and walk/public transit/uber as needed, but given the current state of affairs I'm reevaluating that.