December 23 and January 1-2 will be very tough dates for award availability.

In some ways, the obvious carrier would be AR, but it doesn't have a very good reputation for service. They fly nonstop from JFK to EZE, but then most flights would require you to switch to the domestic Buenos Aires airport. I'd start by looking for connections that avoid Buenos Aires, perhaps using TAM or GOL from Brazil, but you can have airport switches there too. BTW, AR is a DkyTeam member, so you could also do LGA/JFK/EWR-ATL-EZE on DL.

Yeah, somebody should have mentioned that earlier. Anything is possible, but it's not realistic that you can get those days for award travel: they may be the single hardest days of the entire year to obtain. In the old days, you might have been able to book them 340 days in advance (or whenever they went on the schedule), but that's gotten harder and, in any event, that time has passed.

I'd guess with 99% certainty that you'll need to be EXTREMELY flexible around Xmas time if you want to do award travel to Chile. And even then, it's more likely at this point not to work than to work. Sorry. If you do want to go, though, play around with different city pairs and see what you find. LAN does this "married segment" thing (this is getting to be inside baseball, but you should know the terminology) where LAN might make something like JFK-SCL available, but ONLY if you search for it in connection with a flight to a connecting Chilean destination.

sdsearch, thanks...just signed up for it but nothing came up as available with the airlines listed. Also said there were a few errors, but I didn't do anything wrong it seems. Looks like I won't be headed to Chile this year. I think LAN is about 355 days in advance, so maybe I should look in late December this year for next year?

I realize it is a popular time for 1) It is the holiday season and 2) Great weather for southern Chile.

USA Thanksgiving is an easier holiday to get tickets for and the weather is usually quite decent -- even in Patagonia.

IAHPHX, unfortunately as a school teacher I have set breaks and dont have the time during Thanksgiving. Maybe I would shoot for February.

Keith