Lan is, by far, the best Latin American partner available out there. You really do not want any of the other suggestions you mention. Sooner or later Lan is probably going to be under 1 more consolidated umbrella (not the hodgepodge of do I collect miles with this one and not with that one, etc...) as the by-far dominant and premier, and financially solvent carrier in South America.

That said, I am not a OW member, but have flown LA extensively through their AS partnership.

Here's my take on the situation.

(1) OW should have some sort of ticketing office/facility @ SCL, and/or specifically delegated to certain people @ AA or LA @SCL. LA agents are "strict constructionists" as far as rules go, no matter what anyone else says. AS even said to me "oh you don't need a reissue - just bring the other ticket there and since its the same route, etc... no problem. I fortunately told them that in the real world, that's not how it works and I'm not flying on an AS-issued LA ticket unless I am holding tickets for my actual itin.

I would suggest bringing the issue up with OW as far as isolation in Chile should any OW issues arise.

(2) Another airline's CRS will not necessarily show you the actual inventory in another airline, unless it is showing you the OA's inside link. It is just how it is. Something that Apollo (Galileo) may be showing as F4A4 may be in reality F2A1 or even lesser. LA is not lying, or doing anything wrong in this respect. As you know, LA has one row of 5 seats of F, in all 3 cabin planes. Its very hard to get an A or Z seat. But when you do, its just a great experience. Unfortunately, the frustration in getting them has caused me nothing less than a lot of aggravation. In this technology day and age, I don't know why all CRSs don't use the inside availability of the OAs automatically, without inputting an extra code to the request (which you just can't do on a web-based program).


Suerte!