Booking LATAM (LAN and TAM) award / flights using AA miles
 

Hi All,

I'm planning a South America trip with a buddy (was originally going to use the Oneworld Explorer ticket, ouch!).

Anyway, I'm looking to fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil during Thanksgiving (so still in the off-peak season). Looking at the award tickets on AA.com, it seems that it requires 20k miles (requires me 1-2 connections) for off-peak tickets, and 50k for AAnytime (direct flight from LAX->GRU). I have searched a couple more days and find it to be the norm for direct flights to cost 50k.

Upon searching BA.com and AwardNexus, I can confirm that there is award availability from LAX->LIM (LAN), and LIM->GRU (TAM). So my question is, when I call AA, would they quote me for the off-peak price (20k) or the AAnytime price (50k) if i want to book those 2 LAN and TAM flights? Or this is more of a YMMV situation? I apologize in advance if this is a simple question, as this would be the first time for me to book with miles since devaluation.

Thanks!!!

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I think you're confused about a few things:

1. Between North America and South America 2, 50,000 miles is the cost of a one-way SAAver award in Business Class, not a one-way AAnytime award in Coach.

2. AAnytime awards are only valid on AA flights. Redemptions on partner carriers can only be made at the SAAver level.

3. AAdvantage redemptions between North America and South America 2 do not permit connections via South America 1. If you have one flight number from LAX to LIM, and a different flight number from LIM to GRU, you must redeem for two awards.

Hi Guv1976! Thank you for the prompt response!

1) I meant to say SAAver award (20k off-peak one way), AA website also shows availability for 50k AAnytime awards (75k on certain days cuz of the tiers)

2) Thank you for clarifying only SAAver awards for partner flights.

3) Thank you for clarifying that. So realistically, I'd have to book an award ticket to LIM, then find a way to GRU myself? I'm guessing the award ticket to LIM would be at the SAAver level as well right (since it is SAAver award availability)? What about flights from LIM to GRU, can I also redeem that using AA miles (YES)?

Thank you so much!!!

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"AA website also shows availability for 50k AAnytime awards"

Not sure what aa.com is showing, but the award chart says that AAnytime Coach awards on this route are 55K and 75K, not 50K and 75K. SAAver Business is 50K.

LAX-LIM on LAN is 17.5K AA miles one way in Coach; LIM-GRU on TAM is 15K AA miles on way in Coach. You can have both redemptions put on a single PNR if you redeem for both on the same call to AA. Since you would have two separate awards, you could have a stopover of more than 24 hours in LIM, if desired.

Thank you so much guv1976! (wish there is a way to +rep you)

You're right about the award redemption value, I got LAX->LIM and LAX->GRU mixed up.

Thank you for the clarification on AA SAAver awards. But I'm not quite sure what PNR means, does that mean i only need to pay for one $35 phone booking fee even if I make 2 award redemptions, as long as it's on the same phone call?

Thanks!

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A PNR (passenger name record) is your reservation record. If you book two awards during a single call to AA, both awards can be placed on a single PNR, and you will only be charged one telephone-ticketing fee per passenger.

Thank you so much for the clarification and explanation! Very much appreciated.

I have one last question, I'm also looking to go to FTE airport (to visit the great glacier), I can find on oneworld award mapper that LAN flies from AEP (2nd airport in Buenos Aires) to FTE on select days (LA4440 to be exact). But when I enter the information on both BA.com and AA.com, it says no flights in oneworld flies to FTE. When I searched on awardnexus, it encountered an error. IS this fare actually bookable with AA or BA miles? Or it's more of a call and see kind of thing?

Thanks!

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The AEP-FTE flight appears to be operated by LAN Argentina. It should be bookable with both AAdvantage miles and Avios if low-tier award space can be found, but would probably have to be booked under the LAN Argentina flight number, not under the LA (codeshare) flight number.

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Also, note that if you can find SAAver award space on the AEP-FTE route, the award should qualify for the special "wholly within Argentina" redemption rate of only 6,000 AA miles one way. @:-)

Block on AA Award Res on LAN/TAM ???
 

I just called AA Award reservations to book some business class tickets from either LAX or JFK to Lima, Peru. The agent said she shouldn't find anything using all combinations of reservations for bookings in March. So I asked if she saw anything else for Feb or any other months and she said she couldn't find a single ticket. She had never seen it like that before and she just told me to call back and "keep trying." Does anyone know why this would be this way? I figure the airlines would release their seats for awards by now for March? Thanks

If you have an account on ba.com, you can check LAN's availability yourself. Find a flight combination you like, and then call AA.

I did this myself as well. I found 0 tickets also. I've never seen anything like this either.

I tend to agree that at least at first glance, this looks like an outage of LAN award inventory. Checking dates like christmas day and new years eve and seeing no awards into LIM or SCL from JFK-- and just jumping around generally, see no awards on BA.com

So, to my eye, looks like an outage.

Sorry if this is a dumb question. But is this "outage" something that is a mistake/temporary or just because they aren't offering any on purpose?

There'd be no way to know until/unless we see some notice of same (for any possible outage.) They've happened-- with LAN in particular-- in the past, for sure.

For whatever it's worth, intra-LatAM awards on LAN were showing on BA.com yesterday and today, and I did successfully book one a couple hours ago.

I don't know if this is related but on BA's website it shows this when you go to check award availability "Sorry, the map to check flight prices and availability is not working at the moment."

hmmmm

I cannot see ANY US-South America flights on BA's site in coach or business. A few weeks ago business wasn't available at all except 330 days out but coach had 7+ seats on most days. Now can't see a single seat from the US. Funny thing is I can see short flights like LIM-CUZ so this makes me think something more sinister is going on.

+1 I saw SCL - IPC last night but couldn't see any US - South America for SCL/GIG/EZE/LIM. I didn't search any other sectors.

I've been keeping an eye out for any internal notification that they are aware of this outage (and then if there's a time-frame for fix) but so far see nothing. Although the time of year, I think I'd be surprised if there was any action on that front, realistically.

LAN awards don't exist
 

Are there any meaningful updates on this? Has Aa liaison with LAN given clues to callers on this issue? Trying to get any LAN award ticket in Business from either JFK or MIA and nothing is available all year.

They don't exist on BA either though, not even coach. Recently it went from 7 seats on almost all flights in coach in August and now zero.

Either it's a glitch or LAN decided it doesn't want to release award seats to partners anymore.

December is not a month where I'd expect to see any progress on this type of issue, so/and, no update has been given to AA agents to this date. Hopefully (but by NO means definitely) January will be different, I've passed this along through as many channels as I could think of and I'm sure others have as well.

Another quick data point while booking flights for family:

1. Was not able to snag SCL - IPC for the dates I wanted. Availability disappeared from BA.com

2. Was able to grab MIA - SCL in LA J.

3. Still not able to pull up any 4M (LAN Argentina) flights on BA.com or via AAgents.

4. SCL - EZE availability on BA.com changes literally in front of one's eyes - I searched 5 minutes ago and found 5 flights with availability (4-7 seats each) now down to 2 flights with 7 seats each.

found my own answer ignore

Has anyone actually been able to book 4M intra-Argentina awards on AA miles? I can only see 4M availability at the lowest level on lan.com but cannot find it on BA or QF.

What's an example of a city pair you've been looking at?

Mainly looking for AEP - BRC - FTE - AEP. (I realize BRC - FTE may have to be on AR metal as that isn't flown nonstop by 4M) so AEP - BRC and FTE - AEP.

After many attempts, I was somehow able to type "AEP" right into the from field on BA.com (wasn't able to get BRC and FTE to show up on QF). I managed to find AEP - BRC - AEP but cannot find any availability on AEP - FTE - AEP.

I can't actually find any AEP - FTE on LAN Pass for the entire year at the lowest level so perhaps that leg is just not possible.

Also, SCL - IPC shows up on LA site with multiple dates in lowest ams availability but doesn't show up on BA or QF.

I saw this thread but started another specific one for myself in the LAN forum (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lan-l...ghts-help.html).

Looking for the following award segments using AAdv

SCL-EZE
EZE-IGR-EZE
EZE-FTE
FTE-MDZ (either via AEP or COR)

A *LONG* time ago, there was this limit on Lan Argentina flights:

BUT AGAIN, that's OLD.

Presently, I see this, which clearly is not relevant-- unless there's something screwy in the system:

Only other thing I see from present reference is:

Any recent info on this? Starting to brainstorm trips for end of 2015 already, and given that AA awards to SA are pretty much nonexistent, if LAN/TAM are locked out still then SA would be off the table. I'm certainly not finding anything US to SA on BA.com.

I had looked a bit for options to LIM, and the only I could find in J were ex-MIA (and often routing through BOG). It appears Y space has more much more availability on LAN (not sure what class you were looking for).

Ultimately it made much more sense for me to buy a revenue ticket on another carrier and save my miles for an Asia award.

Look around. I booked milesaaver Y to SCL for November without much difficulty. There was availability elsewhere in SA as well.

Awards to LIM and SCL on LA metal have decent availability. 4M (LAN Argentina) is unfindable by AA reps for awards - they see the flight but can't see the low level award LAN offers on the site.

I saw BA displaying AEP - BRC for a little but then those disappeared. BA also had some SCL - EZE awards but those too are gone. BA isn't even showing SCL - IPC now.

Quite painful. Anyone else have luck with domestic/intra-South America awards? Longhaul awards in Y and J seem quite open to everywhere but EZE.

Also note that you cannot do one-award on AA Miles to route USA - LIM/BOG - SCL/EZE. Ends up pricing as two awards.

Can you give an example of a longhaul route with Y or J availability? I cannot find one on BA.com.

Sure. I agree with you that it's a pain. Here are a few:

Nov 18, 2015 / MIA - SCL
LA 501 (7 Y award seats, 4 J award seats)
LA 503 (7 Y award seats, 1 J award seat)
[note AA 225 also has 7 Y award seats available on BA.com]

I experienced this last week using ba.com. I was trying to put an itn together with gru to mvd and then mvd to gru to jfk,, all on tam. For several hours while i was putting things together with the missus, the flights were showing lots of seats and multiple options. When i went to book, poof everything gone for months on end. Called the exp desk and she said nothing is coming up for months. I waited a few hours and then everything came back and i called back and booked it. This was the middle of the night brazil time, so i figured it was a system update.

In the end I got two seats in y gru to mvd and three seats in j mvd to gru to jfk using aa miles. These are for flights leaving first week of feb 2015. I tried to book the gru to mvd with avios to save points but the website kept erroring out at the ticketing stage (after the cc payment, passenger info,etc.) so i figured i had better grab the y seats while I could with aa miles. Revenue for that route was $600 a piece in y one way, $350 rt

Thanks; will keep on trying...

EDIT: (Upon said trying)...Wow, I think you must have lucked out on timing to search right when an availability dump occurred. Searching routes and dates (including the one you mention) which previously yielded nothing are now giving all sorts of results.

Good to hear.

Any luck finding SCL - IPC or EZE - FTE? I'm not seeing anything.