Hi!

I am not a Oneworld member yet but am looking into extending a trip to South America on to the Easter Islands.
As of now prices for SCL-IPC-SCL are usually in the $800-900 range with one exception ($570) in December (12th-19th).
The prices seem pretty steep for the flight but as LAN is the only airline it's obvious they are trying to protect their high prices.

My idea is to gather some OW miles (i.e. through magazine subscriptions, ...) and then book an award to IPC from SCL, EZE, GRU, GIG.

My questions are:

- Based on old threads it is actually possible to go there as part of an award. Does it still count as South America or does another mileage requirement apply?
- How likely is it to get an award within a given month, i.e. March 2008? As of now I am pretty flexible on the dates.
- Does it actually make sense to go for an award to save a few bucks or should I just buy a ticket? OW Miles for the trip itself are not important to me as I'm usually flying on StarAlliance.

Thanks,
Hendrik