thanks nacirema,
I took your suggestion and looked at the stickies - I think I have a creative solution (and the only question I did have was answered in the All Partner Award sticky on the AA forum):
so:
USA-> Rio de Janeiro (stopover in Rio)
Rio de Janeiro -> Santiago (final destination)
.....
Cuzco-> USA (open jaw home)
40k AA miles for off peak award (assuming availability on LAN and AA, of course..)
then:
buy the Visit South America Pass:
Santiago-> Buenos Aires $150 + taxes
Buenos Aires-> Lima $224 + taxes
Lima -> Cuzco $138 + taxes
(this satisfies the 3 minimum legs requirement for the Pass)
I found a list of routings that are available on the LAN site at:
http://plane.lan.com/promociones/dat...n-ue.html#lima
(this was extremely helpful in finding the most "direct/nonstop" routing possible).. and it adds Santiago to the mix, so the mixture of two hubs (Lima and Santiago) make the itinerary possible, although I will be crisscrossing the continent slightly for Buenos Aires and Rio (backtrack across, and back to the other city)
I was going to ask if anyone had luck asking AA for a stopover on an intra-zone 2 South America award for 25k AA miles (do Santiago->Buenos Aires->Lima and stopover in Buenos Aires, then pay for Lima->Cuzco out of pocket which is $70 a la carte..) Ideally, using 25k and paying $70 would be the best option..
But after reading the sticky, the policy explicitly states that no stopover is allowed when the travel is wholly within South America.. (thanks again for pointing me to the sticky, I had read it before but not noticed the level of details).
Sorry about the long post - just trying to evaluate my options. Any chimes in with opinions/thoughts would be appreciated.