swise

Hi-

My boyfriend and I are thinking about going to Chile to ski at Portilo this summer. While we're in the Southern Hemisphere, we thought it might be cool to spend a couple of nights at Easter Island.

I've discovered that it's a little tricky to efficiently arrange award flights for this kind of itinerary though, so I'm soliciting everyone's advice on the best way to go about booking this...

One thought I had was doing a OneWorld award, from AUS to and having it route though Santiago and on to Easter Island. Something like this:

AUS-DFW
DFW-SCL
SCL-IPC
***Spend 2 nights in IPC***
IPC-SCL
***Spend a week at Portillo***
SCL-DFW
DFW-AUS

Questions:
Would we be allowed to take an extended break in between segments, or do they limit you to 48 hours or something? Seems like I remember you're not supposed to hang out mid-trip for too long.

I see there are region-region awards with OW and then there are "fly a certain amount of miles" awards. No doubt each come with their own restrictions, pluses and minuses. The milage outlay might vary somewhat also. In some sections of the OneWorld pages I have read, there is mention of a continent count that goes with the "fly a certain amount of miles" award. Easter Island is considered the South Pacific, so how does that work in the continent breakdown?

From what I can gather, the best deal would be a 10K-14K mileage award. Seems like this would offer us the flexibility we would need while still minimizing the miles expended.

Any thoughts, suggestions, etc would be most appreciated!

Val

I just booked a oneworld award that is very similar to this. Check out a thread started by me in this forum on Saturday night, and 2 threads in the OneWorld forum also started by me (I think the first was in March.)

You might get some good ideas from it.

PresRDC

This itinerary would not work for a Oneworld Award. You need to fly on two Oneworld carriers other than AA for this award and the only two carriers that would work for this routing are AA and LA. Perhaps this routing would work:

AUS-DFW (AA)
DFW-GRU (AA)
GRU-EZE (BA)
EZE-SCL (LA)
SCL-IPC (LA)
IPC-SCL (LA)
SCL-DFW (AA)
DFW-AUS (AA)

This could be tricky. It would be no problem on a Oneworld Award, but on a standard award it might be. Basically, if you do a standard award, you would be getting an award from AUS to IPC and back. You are entitled to one stopover at a "gateway city" that is not your final destination on the award and I think SCL would qualify, but am not totally sure.

I think you are confusing Oneworld Awards with the Oneworld Explorer Around the World ticket. Continents don't matter for the Award, only distance. The price of the Explorer is determined by the number of continents you visit.

You just have to get a second Oneworld carrier that is not AA on the itinerary.

Val

PresRDC, SCL does not qualify due to the fact it is in another region. Using an All Partners award you have to route via pacific to get to IPC. That leaves only PPT (NAN???) for the routing. If you do want to hit SCL & IPC, it'll take two awards.

This was a large part of the reason I used a OW to get there.

PresRDC

Well that changes everything. I figured that IPC was part of S. America b/c it is part of Chile. That's the way it works for Oneworld Explorers, but it probably makes more sense the Award way.

Sounds like a OW award is the only reasonable way to get to IPC. How'd you squeeze-in the second OW carrier?

Val

I cheated. Married this trip with a trip to Egypt.
Only "real" way to do it is how you noted- BA GRU-EZE

amartin1979

how many miles would it take for a one world award to IPC/SCL?

Val

From SFO:

Including stop in SCL:
Coach- 90K
Business- 115K
First- 150K

Not Including stop in SCL (only transit/layover):
Coach- 70K
Business- 90K
First- 120K

For the record SCL-IPC is served by a 2 class plane. Some may consider it a waste to do the first class award (though you can get to SCL in first)

swise

Good advice, everyone. Thanks!

I was thinking that a OW award would allow you to use AA if no other alternative exists for the route.

Does bouncing all over South America really count as an alternative? (as if 20 hours of flying is not enough)

Right now it's just a brainstorm, but I may be able to talk the Keeper of the Miles into it. He's dying to get back to tumbling down icy mountains after his elbow dislocation in Banff.

PresRDC

You can use AA, but you still need at least two additional Oneworld carriers. The only reason you'd have to bounce aroudn S. America is to get that second Oneworld carrier. The only way to do it within South America is using BA on the GRU-EZE segment of its LHR-GRU-EZE (or GIG, depending on the day, but I am not sure if you can book GRU-GIG on BA) flight. It only runs to EZE on select days of the week, but it can be done.

JDiver

Several folks have done this run - JonNYC is another. I think PresRDC is right - GRU - GIG on BA is not likely to work, as I do not think (I could be wrong) BA has cabotage rights within Brasil.

Most folks get caught out by the airlines' brilliant version of geography - e.g Mexic isn't international for AA unless it's Mexico City, Central America Mexico, Caribbean and Canada are "Domestic" - and IPC (Isla de Pascuas) is in the South Pacific. Yes, it is Chilean territory and as such has subsidized regular air travel on LAN (I think a coach seat is about US$800) - a the 5:45 twice-weekly 2,336 mile one way way flight; almost as long as some US transcons.)

JonNYC

I didn't do it as an award though. As was pointed out above, as part of a ONE paid ticket, IPC is a piece of cake-- no need to throw in additional carriers, etc.

JonNYC

One other thought-- in some limited cases it might make just as much sense to do something like: US-SCL-IPC-xSCL-US-> Madrid or Dublin, etc. in order to make it a OneWorld ticket. It's possible that in some cases that subtracting the needless GRU stop and adding a European leg on the end (on another OW carrier) won't push the award into the next bracket. And if it does, you might be able to make it a r/t to Europe, in J or F, and use that later on.

millionmiler

You can't use the intra-Brazil flight on BA, but you can use the flight to EZE.

magic111

Since IPC is in SWP is it permissable to do US-SCL-IPC-xSCL-AKL-US on a 1world award? The only 1world routings I could find between IPC and the rest of SWP backtrack back to SCL.