Thanks so much everyone - really helpful comments. A few specifics responses:
Originally Posted by
enviroian
From whom?
Here on this forum, articles online, etc. Not that those were 100% of opinions, but there seemed to be some sort of reputation as such.
Originally Posted by
guv1976
Looking at the MIA Airport Wikipedia entry, I'm not seeing any DL-operated flights to South America. Maybe you're seeing DL codeshares operated by LATAM?
Although oneworld no longer has a South America-bssed airline, AA does have a non-alliance partnership with GOL.
Sorry, yes - not necessarily exclusively MIA as departure, and helpful to know ATL is where a lot of flights are departing from, as that would be where I'd connect via Delta.
The additions of GOL and Jetsmart are certainly interesting from an intra-SA perspective - GOL (Brazil) and Jetsmart (Chili) would cover those two countries and their destinations.
Originally Posted by
JJeffrey
For years AA was definitely regarded as the "best" legacy for Latin/South America service due to its huge hub in MIA and alliance partner LATAM. This had nothing to do with AA's onboard service or the kind of planes they flew on these routes.
MIA is still going strong but obviously the LATAM partnership is no more, and DL and UA have added lots of dots from ATL and IAH amongst others. AA still probably offers the most service out of the 3 (especially from MIA and to secondary cities) but that's really all it has going for it at the moment.
OP, I would just do some dummy searches and see who offers the best routings/times/equipment on your potential trips between AA at DFW and UA at IAH. If there's a clear winner, go that way.
Thanks - yes, I've done a few dummy searches and so far AA is definitely the cheapest and most widely available, including to those secondary cities as you mentioned. Just didn't know if there were other factors I needed to be considering.
Originally Posted by
OskiBear
You should probably check each of the networks and then also frequency. One of the things AA offers (or did prior to the pandemic) is multiple frequencies to the bigger destinations. When I was primarily a UA flyer, South America was a bit of a pain because it meant flying across country to IAD and then an overnight flight down to EZE. Intra-South America flying was usually on LAN and no status. Switching to AA was great, especially with the flights from DFW and not having to do a transcon (JFK/MIA) before the flight south. It's a little less wonderful now with LATAM out of OW, but I think I'll probably still stick AA for South America from the US.
This definitely makes a lot of sense. From my home airport (New Mexico), it seems that both UA (via IAH) and AA (via DFW) would have a lot of options, but AA always seems to have 2-2.5x the flights per day to various locations. On top of that, AA has PHX which is close as well, offering even more.