For those who sought out advice in this thread along with me, please follow the excellent advice of
hoieunkim in this thread, whose suggestion of calling one of the Argentina offices of Aerolineas Argentinas directly was right on the money — and saved me quite a bit of money on airfare.
Thank you so much,
hoieunkim. Your excellent advice was greatly appreciated and was exactly for what I was searching. You are a fellow FlyerTalk member in the truest sense, and I am grateful.
I only wish I could have flown on Southern Winds airlines instead of Aerolineas Argentinas solely to earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles, but with the uncertain situation of Southern Winds airlines, I was far better off with Aerolineas Argentinas.
What I did to secure the low airfare was the following steps:
- First, I booked my flight at the English Language version of the Argentine Internet web site of Aerolineas Argentinas where I registered, logged in and made my reservation using the address of the hotel in Buenos Aires where I was staying as my address.
- After receiving the e-mail which instructed me to complete my reservation via telephone to an Aerolineas Argentinas office, as my reservation was confirmed but not yet purchased, I then called one of the branch offices in Buenos Aires to complete the purchase of the airfare for my round-trip flight between Buenos Aires and Iguazu. There is a voice prompt to choose either Spanish or English before speaking to a reservations agent.
- Upon speaking to the reservations agent, I gave all of the information for which he asked, including my home address in the United States and my American Express card information. I suppose he could have said that I was American and I needed to complete my reservation with the United States office of Aerolineas Argentinas, but instead he happily completed my reservation and thanked me for flying Aerolineas Argentinas. He was most polite, patient and friendly with me.
- I then asked for an e-mail confirmation of the purchase of my electronic ticket. I received not one but two confirmations.
I expected (for no good reason) to encounter problems at Jorge Newbery Aeroparque in Buenos Aires when I checked in for my flight to Iguazu but — aside from a 15-minute wait on line at the airport — check-in was smooth and problem-free. In fact, check-in was smooth and problem-free on both the outgoing and return flights. The flights were crowded and full but also were on-time.
By the way, on both dates when I traveled, I noticed Southern Winds had no flights scheduled on both the Arrivals and Departures monitors at both airports, the ticket counters were empty and unstaffed, and the airplanes were sitting quietly. Both of my flights were late morning/early afternoon flights. Even if Southern Winds was still flying, the schedule of Aerolineas Argentinas ws far more flexible with several flights per day round-trip.
Lunch is served on the flights, which consisted of a triangular half of two different types of sandwiches: one half was some sort of ham and cheese on white bread; the other half was some sort of deli meat with tomato. Both sandwiches were quite thin. Along with a dessert (a square of cake, for example) was also some kind of crunchy dry thin toast thing in a sealed package. One also had a choice of drinks from the drink cart, which came by twice during each flight. Needless to say, lunch was not good at all, but who cares? I was able to secure a round-trip flight between Buenos Aires (AEP) and Iguazu (IGR) for AR$595.68, including all taxes and fees!
In all, the entire experience was pleasant and easy. Having this trip planned allowed me to plan the rest of my trip with confidence.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.
For those of you going to Iguazu from Buenos Aires, have a safe trip and a great time. Iguazu was one of my favorite parts of my trip!