HIDDY

I don't have the time at the moment to do an in depth research on this..... you obviously have too much time on your hands.

Must admit I always look at LA and very rarely look at AR plus earning rates are with Lanpass not BAEC. My observation of fares over a lengthy period of time to several destinations and for departure dates close in as well as far out have shown me that the savings on resident fares amount to an average of 25%. I wouldn't call 25% a massive saving once you factor in the economic situation here.
If I were a foreign tourist I certainly wouldn't risk being denied boarding for the sake of saving 25%.

You can probably offer examples where savings of more than 25% can be had but I can counter that by offering examples where there are no savings at all.

So to conclude....being a permanent resident and holder of a DNI thus qualifying me for resident fares I really don't give a hoot how much more a foreigner has to pay.

NickB

Guilty as charged. That is one of my flaws: I tend, where possible, to try to check my facts rather than relying on half-guesses and assumptions before I say something.
As it happened, I had researched this for an upcoming trip so was very aware of the gap between resident and non-resident fares.
Indeed and why should you? But it also explains why you write what you write. This is something that does not really affect you. Those of us who, as visitors, are affected by this and therefore have a stake in this matter are very aware of the substantial differences that exist between resident and non-resident fares.

Ignoring the fact that the majority of readers of this forum who are just visitors to Argentina than residents are far more likely to be members of a North American and/or European FFP than one of Lanpass, even with Lanpass it would mean that I would earn approx US$10 worth of miles for paying US$187 extra in fare. Don't know about you but I can't say that I am hugely impressed by those figures.

What do you mean by "factor the economic situation here"? Whatever the economic situation in Argentina, 25% less in my wallet is 25% less in my wallet. If what you mean is that it is justifiable for residents to have fares which are 25% lower than non-residents, then fair enough and, as I said in my earlier post, I can fully understand there being lower fares for residents. But a justifiable difference is not the same thing as a negligible difference and what you said was not that there was a substantial but justifiable difference but rather that the difference was small ("not that much cheaper").

25% is imo a big difference. Moreover my point was about the double-whammy: non-resident fare + inflated rate of exchange. When you add the rate of exchange effect (which adds another 50%), you end up with a typical differential of 75%.
I would have thought that, for the majority of flights, the risk is more one of being sent back to the ticketing desk to pay the differential with the non-res fare (since tickets are changeable and therefore should be upgradeable to a higher fare class/fare basis), viz. close to what you would have had to pay anyway had you paid a non-res fare in the first place, so the downside is not quite that huge. If you are traveling without luggage and OLCI, judging by reports here and there on the internet (not just the gringoinbuenosaires 2010 blog entry but also reports as recent as late 2013), the odds of not making seem low. Clearly, if you have hold luggage or are traveling on a busy day where flights are likely to be all full, it would definitely not be a smart move. In other situations, however, the risk matrix looks like: seemingly relatively low risk of being caught + not a huge downside if you are caught = reasonable risk. Now it may well be that LA has tightened up its procedures in the last year, making it a higher risk. I don't know but, given the limited downside, this would be something that would put me off just based on the risk equation.

No, for me, it is not so much the risk, which would be acceptable to me, but rather the feeling of not doing the right thing. OTOH, the double-whammy also does not feel to me like the right thing either. So there is something of an ethical dilemma which I am happy that LAN's cybermonday sales saved me from having to face.

GUWonder

Have all Argentine travel agencies stopped allowing for cash purchases for domestic Argentine flights?

For years -- even when it was 1USD=1ARS -- I would buy my domestic tickets and hotel night vouchers in cash from time to time.

I'm used to some kind of fares/rates/prices only being available to locals. I used to see this in Florida and Hawaii a bunch too. Some get government or corporate fares/rates to which I'm not generally entitled, and others don't get those "discounted" fares/rates to which I'm entitled.

Price discrimination is part of the travel industry picture. Fortunately I can sometimes play it to my advantage, as I frequently do with car rentals; unfortunately it can't always be played that way.

HIDDY

Again you're talking ''substantial'' differences between these fares. I wouldn't call 25% substantial even before you take the fare rules into account.

Like many others who bemoan the fact they don't qualify for resident fares you're making the assumption that without them the fare you would end up paying would be cheaper than the one you're being asked to pay now. If so what leads you to that conclusion? Or is it just the idea of there being something you aren't entitled to use that rankles you?

NickB

25% not substantial? That is a quarter. Are you going to tell me that it would not make much difference to you if, for instance, your income was cut by a quarter? Besides, again as I explained, it is the cumulative effect of res fare AND inflated exchange rate.

In any event, we can agree to disagree. For me, 25% is substantial. For you it appears not to be. Others will make their own mind if they consider a difference in price of 25% to be substantial or not.

Could you do me a favour and actually bother to read what I write rather than pretending that I have written something else? Where have bemoaned the fact that they are resident fares? Where have I suggested that I should be entitled to them? Just a couple of quick quote of what I said:
and
So, a little bit of intellectual honesty, please: I have not, repeat not, bemoaned resident fares.
What I have said is:
1) the double-whammy is irksome;
2) one cannot imo reasonably argue that resident fares are "not that much cheaper."

GUWonder

Isn't the "double-whammy" avoidable via some cash purchase methods?

NickB

Actually, you are right that there was a discussion on this on the general Q&A thread. One poster on there (David Beach) suggested that it was indeed possible to pay cash in pesos for airline tickets but the conclusion of the discussion was not 100% clear, to be honest.

If it is indeed the case that domestic tickets can be purchased in cash without problem irrespective of residence, then it probably is the best course of action to take for a visitor I would have thought, as it brings the cost of tickets back to reasonable levels. Perhaps Gaucho100K could seek a clarification about this when he speaks to LAN Arg?

HIDDY

NickB....Yes I do read your posts properly however for someone who says they aren't bothered that resident fares exist you yourself said ''I guess that what is particularly irksome as a visitor is the double-whammy: you have to pay non-res fares''.

Easy to get the impression that it does bother you to some extent.
I still maintain even without resident fares visitor fares wouldn't be any cheaper than they are now. I see a £220 return fare from AEP-IGR in April freely available to non residents. I'd call that reasonable don't you?

I suspect visitors who find the fares here expensive are used to buying air fares in markets where the major carriers have low cost competition to deal with. Considering no frills airlines don't exist here I'd say air fares are at a decent level.

Gaucho100K

Gentlemen, (mostly NickB and Hiddy)..... but also a reminder to all others participating here:

While Im pleased to see a lot of very valuable information here but please lets all remember to remain civil and in proper decorum. If I see any more of hostility of any sort (including between the lines or disguised into any sort of humor, no matter how elevated) I will start editing threads (and more), so please, lets not get to that.

Again, lots of valuable info. and good concepts for future fare searches so please lets continue with that, and other travel related content....

Muchas Gracias,
Gaucho100K (Moderator)

NickB

You are engaging in selective quoting, taking away half of the sentence to make it mean something completely different to what it said: what is the word that is just after the bit you quoted, and which was moreover, underlined? It was the word "and". I do not see how I could have made it any clearer that it is the cumulation of the two things which I find irksome. The fragment of sentence that you quoted makes no sense on its own: you need to quote the whole sentence for it to make sense, otherwise where is the double-whammy? If that was not enough, I stated not just once, but twice that I perfectly understood that a government might want to have resident-only fares.
I just do not understand how, somebody who speaks English as their mother tongue, could in good faith read what I said as implying that I objected to resident fares, especially when I expressly stated the opposite.

So, if you genuinely misunderstood what I said, then perhaps you will want to say that you are sorry to have wrongly attributed to me views that I quite clearly do not have and that we remain one big happy FT family?

HIDDY

Okay I shall quote it all.

So you happily state you got a price more or less what a resident would pay.

Good for you I say and have a thoroughly enjoyable holiday. With the money you saved you can buy some decent Malbec to take home with you.

NickB

That assumes that I do not drink it before leaving.

HIDDY

And who would blame you. You will after all be getting a massive bargain compared to the residents.

iahphx

I'm interested in booking a trip from Buenos Aires (AEP) to Iguazu (IGR). The perennial problem is that internal Argentina airfares are expensive for foreigners. When I do a search on skyscanner, though, I get a $168 LATAM fare that tickets on Cheapoair and some other obscure OTAs. LATAM's own website wants 2x for the flight. The fare rules listed on Cheapoair say nothing about having to be a resident. Does anyone know where in the rules this "should" be listed? I would think in the "Eligibility" section, which says the following:

LAN Airlines :

RULE APPLICATION AND OTHER CONDITIONS
NOTE - THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS INFORMATIONAL AND NOT
VALIDATED FOR AUTOPRICING.
FARE ECONOMY
APPLICATION
CLASS OF SERVICE
THESE FARES APPLY FOR ECONOMY CLASS SERVICE.
ELIGIBILITY
NO ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS APPLY.

Is there any possibility this fare is actually legitimate for foreigners to use? Based on what I know from past experience, I'm a bit skeptical, and don't want any airport drama.

BTW, I read somewhere that the new Argentine gov't is going to allow low fare airlines to operate in Argentina this year. Any possibility that the punitive fare rules against foreigners will also be relaxed?

Gaucho100K

If you book a non eligible fare, you roll the dice and face potential airport "drama". Enforcement is variable, although in my experience LAN tends to enforce somewhat more than Aerolineas. I suggest you also wait for others to chime in with their experiences and then make a decision.

The Macri Administration is moving towards a more "open sky" scheme so there will be more players in the domestic airline market in the near future. Having said this, I have not seen anything related to the non-resident fare difference..... and its pertinent to say that the goal of having lower domestic airfares is aimed at allowing residents to travel more by air, so there is no guarantee that the non-resident fare differentials is going to go away. All fares should have room to decrease, but that doesn't mean that the fare difference will cease.