JohnnyColombia

Why has bingocallerb22 been robbed of his Ambassador: LAN LANPASS status?

Has he finally exceded the upper age limit?

bingocallerb22

That's too funny. Didn't notice, wonder how long it has been gone. The thing is, as you get older you keep losing more things, maybe this is just another example. Lost another doctor recently, I keep outliving them.

andreadbc

I hadn't noticed mine is gone too!

Yo todavía me siento bastante joven...

JohnnyColombia

Well I am sure that this reduction in the number of LANPASS ambassadors is just a cut back in the FlyerTalk diplomatic budget.

andreadbc

and it's back!

but Johnny seems to be Ambassador: while bingo and I are Ambassador,
does he outrank us in a way?

bingocallerb22

He certainly does! It was his effort that got this Forum initiated. We are just his coat-tail buddies.

JohnnyColombia

I asked eightblack if I could be High Comissioner of Pudahuel and he said no

Surface Interval

With the USBank LanPass VISA you get upgrade coupons. Can a non Lan elite use these? If so what are the practical restrictions? The terms are at best, confusing.

Thanks in advance.

andreadbc

I know that with some other LANPASS CCs that mention coupons as a benefit, what they do is assign you Premium status (and then you automatically get the 2 coupons). Not sure about the USBank card though...

Surface Interval

I'm going crazy trying to find info on upgrading with km's. Many of the LAN links point to missing pages - even on LAN's website.

1) Can you upgrade from coach-biz with km's if you are not elite?
2) What is the approximate number of km's needed to upgrade from SCL-IPC-SCL?
3) Is it at all reasonable to expect/hope that an upgrade will be available the last week in Dec '15?

JohnnyColombia

1) Yes you can

2) It's oddly in the international section

http://www.lan.com/es_co/sitio_perso...nal/index.html

Presume this is return



3) I don't think it is reasonable to expect LAN to have any J upgrade availability anywhere ever. Manage your expectations downwards

andreadbc

1) It used to be yes, but this changed in 2012 and now the answer is no. The link is broken but the proper link to the English site is this one.
2) 34 000 km (round trip)
3) eh... nope. Upgrade availability is supposed to correspond with award business availability in the lowest-km-price (U class, the one that corresponds to the kms amount on the table).
You might find this on rare occasions (but I agree, low expectations and feel lucky if you find something)... I did see availability for the award-upgrade last week on a LIM-SCL for July (but we just decided to just redeem directly on J for 70 000 km). Of course LIM-SCL has more flights and is "easier" than SCL-IPC... In any case, upgrades-with-kms can only be requested 6 months or less before the flight.

Surface Interval

Thanks much for the quick answers. Sorry for my ignorance as I am completely new to the LAN experience. I must say that it has exceeded my expectations

Early on I had convinced myself that it was the program of great saver award availability. That was when the schedule had just been released and every date I looked at showed 100k kms from SCL-IPC. So I embarked on gathering as many SPG points to transfer to my new LAN account so that I could take my family of 4 to IPC when we are in the SCL area late Dec. I should have paid more mind to the post up thread that stated something along the lines that LAN determines award space with a monkey and dartboard. The award space that was 100k is now nearly 3x that. I don't have any hope that that will change much.

Ok, so I'm over that. Time to move on. At least I have plenty of SPG points now that I won't likely be transferring to LAN. One point that strikes me is that there appears to be essentially no seats taken on most flights from SCL-IPC-SCL in late Dec. Relatively speaking it is early in the schedule. One last hope based on much reading here on Flyertalk: is it at all reasonable to expect a sale between now and Dec instead of forking over more than $800US for a coach RT?

JohnnyColombia

SCL IPC SCL is on sale now, Don't know exactly when you are going but it is $555 in business to just buy outright



That is with a Chile point of sale, so you need to access the Chile version of the LAN site. If you are in CLE that might be complicated as they redirect you back to the US site, but there is a workaround like using a VPN. The rest of us can see it regardless of where we are.

You can search availability though on matrix.itasoftware.com entering USD as your currency and SCL as your point of sale

JohnnyColombia

Thanks for the correction. It sucks that this is effectively an elite benefit and there is still barely no inventory