JordyC

Hey All!

Waited a little too long to book our exit flights out of MDE and running into some real road blocks with our plan of getting into Bolivia for Carnival. Looking to leave in 1-2 weeks and willing to be flexible (would fly out of MDE or BOG and into ANY Bolivian airport)

So far, the only valid routing I have found is MDE-MIA-LPB

Because of MIA being in a different zone, this prices at a fairly hefty 52,500 miles per passenger + $92.21 + $75 close-in booking fee (oops!)

That doesn't seem like a great redemption, but one way flights are also pretty $$$. Thoughts? Take it? Or does anyone have a creative idea?

Thanks!

Jordy

guv1976

Since Colombia and Bolivia are both in SA 1, you can only connect in SA 1 if you wish to travel on a single AAdvantage award. That means connecting in LIM. Award flights from Colombia to LIM, and from LIM to Bolivia are either available or they are not available; there's no magic about that. How did you check award availability on LATAM?

If you must travel via MIA, I would use BA Avios if you have them: probably a lower total number of miles (Avios) required, and no close-in booking fee.
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JordyC

And here I was on FT, looking for magic

I checked LATAM availability via AA's engine, and a few calls into their CSRs. Is there a better way? I have some UR points, could make those into BA but isn't YQ always the issue with them?

guv1976

You cannot check LATAM award-seat availability on aa.com: the aa.com award-search engine can only display award-seat availability on about half of AA's partners, and LATAM is not among them. If you have a BAEC account, you can check LATAM availability there, and if you find anything suitable, you can then call AA and feed the particular flights to the agent.

There are *no* BAEC surcharges on AA flights for travel wholly within the Americas, and no BAEC surcharges on LATAM flights worldwide. But to redeem Avios on AA, there must be MileSAAver availability; Avios cannot be redeemed for AAnytime award seats on AA. If you were quoted 52,500 miles for MDE-MIA-LPB, it sounds like one of your two flights may be an AAnytime award if all travel is in Economy class.

sdsearch

You cannot check LATAM availability on aa.com. The site I like to use is www.awardnexus.com (click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button to sign up for free with your FlyerTalk login info). At Award Nexus you can search for oneworld awards using either QF (Qantas) or BA (British Airways). I find QF a little more reliable for LATAM, but you can use both if you wish.

While you could do the same searches at QF's site and//or BA'site, I find the Award Nexus user interface far simpler than BA's, and it's the same user interface at Award Nexus whether you search QF or BA (or airlines in other alliances).

tfjim

When trying to search for South American city pairs on QF I don't see many cities such as MDE and BOG coming up as options. Am I missing something?

dkc192

Make sure you have the "Classic Flight Rewards" option checked to enable the full list of cities that QF permits awards to/from. If those cities still aren't showing up, then you'll have to use BA.com to search--QF doesn't allow searching for awards to/from all cities that OW serves.

SamOF

If you have chase points, have you looked into transferring them to United for use on Avianca or Copa? Both are searchable on United.com, so you could see if there's availability on your dates.