tal32drew

Has anyone actually booked a trip to the Galapagos using BA miles? I've seen people mention that it can be done in other threads, but no one seems to have actually done it...

Thanks!

potakas

I did it but eventually I had to cancel it

tal32drew

I'm assuming you had to do it over the phone, since every time I search for GPS on the website an error appears, correct?

Did the agent give you any problems? How was availability?

thank you

tal32drew

to add to my other questions: were you able to verify availability prior to calling so that you had all flight info ready for the agent, and if so, how?

potakas

Yes over the phone, the agent was very helpful and I asked him about the available dates on a random month, he booked it for me and he removed the off line booking fee.

dvdapex

Were you flying from GYE or UIO? How many miles each way?

fedechat

You can check availability on Lan.com, you will need a Lan Pass account, just make sure that is a low rate award (baby blue)

GYE/UIO to GPS is 20K BA miles (R/T) or 20K Lan Pass Kms. GYE-GPS is a direct flight

If you don't want to spend 20k BA, you may use 10K BA miles + $130~150+taxes or if you have some SPG points, transfer 10K to Lan Pass and you will get 20K Lan kms (SPG to LAN=1:2)

EDIT:

if you have 20k SPG points, transfer to Lan Pass Kms, you will get 45K kms (40+5), then you can use 20K for GYE-GPS and 18K for LIM-CUZ, wich is much better than 40k BA miles.

BA6501

I thought this thread was about buying a GPS while earning BA miles

tjbrooks

Pretty sure it's 30K RT with LAN km, plus taxes, which hopefully doesn't include the "tourist" premium that revenue flights charge. Still pretty good for 25K SPG points.
http://www.lan.com/en_us/sitio_perso...udamerica.html

fedechat

I saw that too but when you check the actual cost on LAN.com is 20K (or more), I see lot of availability for just 20K Lan kms on Jan-Apr 2012

LA_FadeAway

Has anyone had any luck booking a trip from North America to the Galapagos on LAN using BA Miles? Like others, I get an error on the BA web site saying that none of their partners go there. I'm trying to figure out what to do with our 200k in credit card bonus miles before they possibly get devalued next month. Figure GPS would be a good value if we can get it and possibly add a stop in Lima and/or Ecuador for fun. How do I check availibility?

bernardd

Me to and I was going to volunteer that I got a GPS "free" with a new set of Conti's for the car.

PS : for the Brits amongst us who don't know, GPS == SatNav

LA_FadeAway

Just to report back, the answer is YES you can now get to the Galapagos (GPS or SCY) using BA miles on LAN. Just booked the following itineraries:

LAX>LIM>CUZ 20,000k miles pp
CUZ>GYE(stop)>GPS 12,500 miles pp
GPS>GYE(stop)>LIM(stop)>LAX 20,000 miles pp

The catch is that you have to call and get an agent to book it because the BA web site doesn't know about this route. Tell the agent to look for airline code "XE". It took a couple agents before I could get one to believe me that LAN Ecuador is part of OneWorld.

The frustrating thing is that they insisted on charging me the $20 per ticket for the last two legs that I had to call and book. Their web site says no partners go to GPS and also given the stops I had no choice but to call. The Manager claims that since GPS is never bookable through their web site that it's not an error and that we had to pay the $80 total! I argued that we'd still have to call because of the stopovers, but they didn't care. I've e-mailed customer relations and am awaiting a reply.