Flying within Peru
 

It's been a few years, but it looks like I'll need to book some intra-Peru flights. Can anyone give me a quick summary of the current fare and award ticket situation?

From what I remember, it was generally very expensive for foreigners to book paid intra-Peru tickets on LAN because all the cheap fares were restricted to locals. Is that still the case? And are there other airlines that offer foreigners the same prices as locals?

The old "solution" was to book only award tickets. I will try to include some of my intra-Peru flights with my AA award tickets from the USA -- assuming there's award inventory on LAN. I recall "the AA glitch" where sometimes no LAN award inventory is displayed at AA, despite it being abundant on LAN's own website. Does anyone have recent experience with this?

And does anyone have experience with using Avios points intra Peru? That would seem like an excellent solution because the ticket prices are high but the distances are short. Does BA get accurate LAN award inventory?

Finally, there's always the option of booking award seats through LANPass. I recall previously transferring points to LAN from SPG, but I vaguely recall reading earlier this year that the transfer ratio has been devalued. So perhaps that would be my last resort.

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

Still the same. I found that fares on Taca Business were cheaper than LAN economy as foreigners have to pay the flexible tickets. I also tried Avios but on the BA website my destination (Cuzco) did not even show up so I could not book it. I did however manage to include one flight in my US Airways award itinerary to book a one way business ticket on Taca for one of my flights. For the second flight I paid 210 USD for a oneway business ticket from LIM-CUZ. I feel it is not too bad as at least the Business on Taca means you get more space and a meal which is more than on US carriers or European carriers for the same flight time. I therefore left out LAN for my intra Peru travels as they are bad value for money and it seems unless you are on LANPASS it is difficult to redeem.

Avios are the way to go. 4500 miles each way. My wife and I are going to Peru in late October and booked all our intra-Peru flights through BA. Trick is you have to call. The website is horrible for these flights. Check on LAN and find want you want and call. Availability is pretty universal. Check out this blog post on the topic.
http://milevalue.com/ba-com-no-longe...o-do-about-it/

Check Star Peru. They don't play the foreigners versus locals fare game.

OK, thanks guys. So far, it looks like the AA and BA gods will shine on me and produce LAN award tickets, so I don't think I'll need to buy any.

As has been mentioned, the BA website is very useful in finding LAN award seats -- at least to the LAN cities that BA decides to load. :rolleyes: Helpfully, though, you get the int'l routes. I also wonder why AA hasn't yet added LAN to their award search function. It sure would be handy.

AA metal itself looks pretty useless to Lima for award travel. Mirroring their domestic availability, advance award seats to Lima are extremely scarce. Which is OK -- I'd rather fly LAN. Of course, if you can't get yourself to a LAN gateway city, you're going to have considerable hassle.

EDIT: I successfully booked all my LAN flights on award tickets. From the USA to Lima, and then a connecting intra-Peru flight, 17500 each way on AA. I booked them roundtrip with an open jaw because, even as a Plat, AA charges $25 per TICKET for telephone reservations (ridiculous because you CAN'T do it on their website, but AA doesn't see that as THEIR problem!).

AA doesn't allow foreign stopovers (well, foreign stopovers longer than 24 hours). As I needed an additional intra-Peru flight, I used 4500 Avios points per ticket for that. Unlike AA, BA is happy to waive the telephone rez fee because you can't book it on their website, so each ticket was between $4 and $5 plus the 4500 miles. Considering how LAN penalizes foreigners wanting to BUY domestic tickets, this is a terrific deal.

One oddity about Avios that I barely remembered (before the agent reminded me) is that if I want to cancel my LAN flight and have the miles redeposited, all I have to do is forfeit that small tax payment (since it's below their regular change fee). How cool is that -- award travel doesn't get more user friendly!

The most amazing thing is that every flight I wanted on LAN was available for award redemption. No need to "settle" for a less convenient itinerary -- I couldn't have paid for a faster routing. In the past, I had problems with LAN award seats displaying on AA system, but not this time. The ironic thing is that I easily got a $1500 airfare for 35,000 miles, at the same time as AA now hassles folks with miniscule availability if they want to take 25000 mile domestic trips. So it's a great time to visit Peru with your miles, if you can get to a LAN gateway city.

recent data point
 

- Cuzco is no longer bookable (or even searchable) through BA website. You have to call.

- LAN offers different inventory (more eats) to its own program (similar to CX and JL) than it offers to OW partners

- LAN award seats can not be put on hold by AA, they have to be ticketted immediately

- there are two other Peru based airlines that serve LIM-CUZ route and do not charge "gringo tax". However their frequency (and supposedly service reliability) is not as good as LAN.

BTW, different price (air, hotel, train or entree fees) for rich tourists than poor locals is not that uncommon in many countries across the globe.

All true, although at least for Peru, it seems like LAN is giving very good inventory to its partners right now.

For USA travelers, there seems to be a LAN credit card you can get with a reasonable sign-up bonus, but as long as partner inventory remains good, it's a no-brainer to get the 50K Avios point bonus with the free Chase BA card for only $2000 in spend (easily manufactured, no less). 50K Avios points will get you a lot of otherwise expensive intra-Peru flights at 4500 points each!

I still think that for anyone thinking of visiting Peru in the near future, you could do worse than open a LifeMiles account and wait for a 2x1 promo

That promo month gets you 1000 Lifemiles for 15 bucks. A RT LIM CUZ is 7000 miles

So that's US$105 plus $14.27 in taxes. A snot load less than the intra peru gringo fares and "immune" from getting charged extra at check-in

deleted

That's "outrageous" compared to the Avios credit card deal. :)

Of course, not everyone can get the Avios deal (like you have to live in the USA).

Not true. I recently booked an award flight CUZ-LIM on britishairways.com for 4500 Avios.

It used to be true, but seems to have been fixed now. ^

Remember you can often add a domestic flight the international redemption for no extra kms (because same zone).

Anyone know how early you can check in for a domestic flight? My international flight arrives at midnight, my domestic flight leaves at 7am...can I enter the secure area with an online printed boarding pass to head straight for the Priority Pass or oneworld/LAN lounge (if there is one) on the domestic side around 1am to wait for my flight? or will I have to wait until 5am or so?

Sorry, I don't know the hours for the domestic terminal. Getting your domestic boarding pass shouldn't be a problem.

There are 3 lounges at the LIM airport that are Priority Pass affiliates. The two in the main terminal offer nearly identical services (I think there's a flyertalk thread about this in which I've commented). The Priority Pass lounge in the domestic terminal is smaller and offers slightly fewer amenities, but is still significantly better than a USA airline domestic lounge. It would be a good place to wait -- but it might not be open in the middle of the night.