Gaucho100K

Sorry to hear this, but appreciate you letting us know.

Please keep this on your radar for 2018 !!!

Cheers,
Alex

Psyduck1

Anselmo it is, just booked!

MSPeconomist

For SkyTeam people:

If you're flying to Buenos Aires, be sure to consider leaving from various airports with competition on the routes to South America. A few years ago, there was a great RT business class fare from LAX to EZE on DL and IIRC other airlines.

This year I discovered a great RT coach B fare (not refundable but changeable for $300 and with few restrictions and having very good availability on just about any flight you might want) from NYC to EZE. You can leave from LGA, JFK, or EWR (I didn't check HPN, etc.) and connect through ATL on DL. This earns 150% MQMs on DL and can be upgraded to business class for 30,000 RDMs each way. Alternatively, there's also a B fare on the AR nonstops between JFK and EZE for about a hundred dollars less, although I didn't check how much this would earn with DL.

For me, this was about eight hundred dollars cheaper than the cheapest coach RT from MSP (the difference is less than the cost of even a G A P fare in FC between MSP and NYC), plus it earns a ton more MQMs that become rollover if I don't need them at the end of the year.

MSPeconomist

Are there any details yet on the meals and wine tasting location(s)?

frb98mf

By happy coincidence this coincides with one of my trips to BsAs so please put me down as interested. I will try to make as much as I can!

adrouault

Sadly I leave Buenos Aires the week before. I hope you all have fun. I'm really looking forward to my time there. First time.

MSPeconomist

Please mark me as confirmed: Plane ticket to/from EZE purchased with all upgrades cleared. Hotel booked (at the PH--hopefully we'll have a good Hyatt Herd this year).

YYZC2

I am also 100% in (thanks Qatar Airways!) and will be at the Anselmo.

JY1024

I'm starting to look at flights now...should have things locked down within the next week.

I'm a *wood guy and looks like Sheraton Libertador and Sheraton Convention Center/Park Plaza are my options. Any chance anyone has feedback re: which of those properties were preferred by past Cow Do participants? Not sure if this is going to be like some other Dos I've attended where the hotel is really just somewhere to sleep for a few hours, and you're never actually going to use the butler, fitness center, lounge, etc. - or whether I should plan on utilising some of the hotel facilities.

(I've been looking through the threads over in the SPG forum, but not a lot of recent feedback.) Thanks!

MSPeconomist

The Sheraton Libertador is located in the middle of the old downtown central business district. Streets (and sidewalks) can be congested. You're near Florida, so watch out for pickpockets there especially (but throughout Buenos Aires). The area seems rundown with littered streets and some people just hanging around, so it's a very different feel compared to the Recoleta neighborhood or the trendy areas beyond there (Palermo, Soho, Belgrade, etc.) with many good and interesting restaurants.

I stayed there one year and the lounge is very basic (potato chips, nuts, and cheap free wine or free beer at happy hour time IIRC, but there might have been hot eggs at breakfast). The hotel only has a few suites and junior suites, but some COW DO participants got the Presidential Suite and hosted an after party there. It had a full kitchen, dining room, living room, library, multiple bathrooms, etc. but everything was very dated. My own room on a (high) SPG floor but not the same floor as the club lounge as recently renovated in sterile white, with an OK smallish clinical-appearing bathroom (combination tub and shower), coffee making equipment and mini frig, desk, IIRC one comfortable chair for reading, TV, small closet, and pretty decent views from about the 16th floor. I was a SPG Plat, but no Ambassador and I did not try to apply SNAs as IIRC they only got junior suites.

The other two Starwoods are attached to each other and share some facilities. They're newer but in a neighborhood without much nearby. IIRC ysolde +1 stay in the Park Plaza, so you might try asking in a PM. [They're not doing COW DO this year, so I would assume not following this thread.]

From any of these, it's walkable but a long walk to the hydrofoil to Uruguay. Libertador is closer to Puerto Madre (restaurants and a great newish private modern art museum, plus the iconic "women's" pedestrian bridge). The CC/PP are located almost along the water between the old CBD and Recoleta. It would be a long walk to just about everything that's walkable, which isn't much from this location.

Libertador is likely to be cheaper but this isn't always true. If PP and CC are offering roughly the same rates, I'd go for the LC PP.

This year it seems that a bunch of COW DOers are staying in a Hilton property in San Telmo. When I stayed at the Libertador, so did a bunch of others that year, but since then I'm a fan of the PH in Recoleta. Other participants have liked the Sofitel (small duplex suites are possible as upgrades), which I would describe as being on the edge of Recoleta closest to the CBD, but it doesn't feel like you're in Recoleta.

soupxxxx

[QUOTE=Gaucho100K;27974768]Please post you interest in this thread, allowing us to gauge initial interest and begin with the planning details. As you status moves from interest to booked and (hopefully) confirmed, please keep us updated by posting your condition here.]

Gaucho100K,

I'm booked on United Airlines arriving 31 Aug in the AM and departing 4 Sep in the PM. Will stay at the Sheraton Librador Hotel. No +1 this time.

soupxxxx

soupxxxx

Make that the Sheraton Libertador Hotel...

Kewldude21

Thu., Aug. 31, 2017 | Houston, TX, US (IAH - Intercontinental) to Buenos Aires, AR (EZE)
Depart:
9:45 p.m.
Thu., Aug. 31, 2017
Houston, TX, US (IAH - Intercontinental)

Arrive:
9:50 a.m. +1 Day
Fri., Sep. 1, 2017
Buenos Aires, AR (EZE)
Travel Time:
10 hr 5 mn

Mon., Sep. 4, 2017 | Buenos Aires, AR (EZE) to Amsterdam, NL (AMS)
Depart:
8:55 p.m.
Mon., Sep. 4, 2017
Buenos Aires, AR (EZE)

Arrive:
5:20 a.m. +1 Day
Tue., Sep. 5, 2017
Houston, TX, US (IAH - Intercontinental)
Flight Time:
10 hr 25 mn

Staying at the Anselmo

kirkwoodj

I'm on your southbound flight

Kewldude21

Great!! I will PM you before flight time