vandykes44

A few friends and I have been trying to get to Chile for the last few years. Trips in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled. Award flights to Chile recently became available for Oct 2022. They were very nicely priced at Round-trip 40,000 in Economy and 90,000 in Business GRR - SCL. I put Business class flights on hold for myself and one friend on Wednesday. I was unable to touch base with my other friend who wants to join us. Lo and behold, on Thursday award pricing skyrocketed! 110,000 for Economy and 220,000 for Business. I did confirm the 90,000 Business flights for myself and one friend yesterday.

Does anyone think that this much higher award pricing is here to stay or is it a fluke? It seems crazy high as round-trip economy tickets to SCL are about $1,300, so 110,000 miles is a terrible deal. My other friend would really like to join us on our Chile trip using award miles, but not at those award prices.

Jaimito Cartero

Award pricing can fluctuate, certainly. 90k RT seems very reasonable for biz. I know I looked for some awards a couple of years ago to SCL and it was considerably higher.

Have you checked different months to see if the pricing is at the same level?

Antarius

You likely snapped up the last web special or saver award space that they had released. Once gone, it went to the Anytime rate.

They may release more in the future.

enviroian

Pricing is dynamic and has been for a while now. There is not "huge hikes".

ESpen36

For the best deals, you can go to the Southern Cone countries (Chile and Argentina) in our summer, which is the southern hemisphere winter (their off-season). I've gone in May/June/July. It's not too cold.

knit-in

Only two tickets were likely available at the award level you got. Used to be that you didn't have the option of using award points for flights at all, once the award seats were sold out. These days, with the dynamic award prices, you have that option to save $$$ and use award points, albeit at a higher price.

While 110,000 points for $1300 is not a great redemption, it could still save someone 1300 bucks to use elsewhere.

stan1162

We just got back from an Antarctic cruise, which started in Puenta Arenas, via SCL. Santiago was sooo busy. Sure looked like tourism was coming back strong. 100 Mobility Pass stations set up to process arrivals. Maybe demand?

We got tix when we booked the cruise in March, and they were 30K each way Prem Econ. Haven't seen them that low in quite a while.

_fx

IMO higher prices are here to stay. Chile recently ended mandatory quarantine and people have seen the process for getting into the country is relatively smooth. More tourist confidence = more bookings = more expensive awards.

Award inventory has been wide open for months, so it’s a bit unfortunate OP waited until now and missed the boat. Given everything’s refundable these days, fortune favors the speculators…Book immediately when you see a deal, and cancel later if it doesn’t work.

Bradhattan

I just looked at GRR - SCL business prices for October '22. Cheapest is now $2300+. Maybe 110,000 not so bad?
(EDIT: Just saw it was 110,000 for economy, nevermind!)

However, lots of time for cheap award/$ to come back....put the friend on other dates/times if you can't find same flights?

What about buying economy and using miles and copay to upgrade?

Cthunder86

What about flying to GRU and then adding a connecting flight to SCL?

Biz all the way to GRU and economy to SCL shouldn’t be more than 1800-2,000

_kurt

No, AA had last-seat availability at the AAnytime level up until they introduced dynamic pricing. I believe they were the last/only airline that did.

vandykes44

Just to clarify, I'd been watching award prices for the trip to Chile for the last few months and they had remained steady at the lower rates. However, they only opened up for the dates we needed a few days before I put 2 tickets on hold. So that's why I was so surprised to see the much higher award pricing when it had been at the lower rates for months. Just for the heck of it, I checked award pricing to Buenos Aires, and those award prices have also skyrocketed. So, unfortunately, I think the much higher rates may be the new normal. Only time will tell.

xliioper

There's some 56K one-way biz awards for ORD-SCL towards the end of March. Not seeing anything less than 110K beyond that.

apeortdz

I hesitate to tell you what I recently paid for a trip to South America...but I will.
We booked a trip to Patagonia. There is no way I am flying in economy so I wanted to book Business. The business cabin was nearly full on the dates I needed (including dates nearby). So I booked what I needed. The trip was PHL-MIA-SCL and EZE-DFW-PHL. The cost was 245K miles per person all in business/first. I know you all think that is crazy but I have tons of miles and I needed those flights. Furthermore, the cash price was just as outrageous.

knit-in

Ah, my bad. Thank you.