I just scored redemption seats between SCL-RIO RTN using QF points (no way I was paying $2500AUD for Y+) Anyway, QF keep telling me how lucky I was to find redemption seats on LAN...."rare as hens teeth" they tell me.

Not sure why LAN is so restrictive in this respect.

CJ

They do have tough award management (the equivalent of revenue management but for awards) rules. They can manage their award availability with impressive granularity i.e., they can open award availability to a partner airline on certain flights but only if those spaces are sold on a specific sales city

As to why do they do it, perhaps they prioritize lanpass members' redemption first, second and third, and are constantly (read: real-time) maximizing their business unit's revenue

I have had a fair number of lengthy calls to QF trying to use my QF FF points for LAN Chile and Argentina domestic redemptions - and none of them successful (apart from one 10 yrs ago). I'd agree that you are lucky. But then again, trying to get anything in or out of USH in summer (peak Antarctic cruise season) is unlikely given that flights seem full and AR is reported to be chronically overbooked on some flights.

2 (S Hemisphere) winters ago, BA was getting very good (possibly too good) availability on PUQ-MPN (&vv) but there has been nothing since then.

A friend who does credit to LANPASS (I don't) once saw availability at something like 180,000 kms!

High season, even availability for money (I don't know about for love) is limited, especially this year.

There are vague mutterings about a bigger plane being used, but so far only vague mutterings.

Thanks for the information. It's mid-April so would be surprised if it's high season! Plus, there does seem to be availability on the cheapest of LAN KM levels. Very odd.

Why waste points? Flights within Argentina, even some to/from USH and FTE can be relatively cheap even in high season.

MAD-LIM
 

Hi all. I've read through the forum and thanks for all the info.

The problem I have is it seems LAN reliably opens up partner award space on it's international routes around 330 days in advance. I just checked routes such as LIM-JFK and LIM-LAX and there is good business class availability.

However, the exception seems to be MAD-LIM which is the award I actually want to book! Does anybody know why this route has no availability? It seems to be the exception to the rule. Iberia also fly the route but LAN's departure time works better for us.

is a route in high demand right now, maybe they lowered their availability to get more $.

I'm trying to get award tickets from NYC to Santiago Chile (SCL) for November. Booking via BA Avios. Doesn't look like they currently have anything showing up.

Is my best bet to just keep checking every day? Maybe try alternate connecting routes?

I booked LIM-MAD through BA to get back from my vacation to Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires (and possibly Santiago de Chile) in January.
Now I'm looking for awards to LIM from EZE or SCL to get home from there.
Unfortunately, nothing is available at the moment.

Do they usually make seats available at T-48, provided the flight isn't fully booked?
Finding an affordable Scoot ticket on SCL-LIM last minute probably shouldn't be a problem if the LA flight indeed is full.
But if there's little chance, I might as well find another solution already now, when tickets are still cheaper...

Also, is there a way to be notified when award space opens up?
It seems like ExpertFlyer doesn't support LA flights.
Thanks!

Thanks.

I haven't tried their notification feature yet myself, but Award Nexus (www.awardnexus.com), which is free to sign up for using your FlyerTalk login info (click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button), and is an award search engine (where you can search for LATAM availability though BA and/or QF using the same user interface and same results format for both) has a button (which it shows me after I do an award search) which seems to imply it'll re-check daily.

You get 200 free points to start when you join, and a simple one-way one-date search will use just a couple points per search method (BA and QF being the two search methods in the case of LATAM), and you can reload 100 points for free every 90 days (once you've almost used them up). If you need more points than that (say, because you're doing daily checks of multiple dates/routes) you can buy more points.

Thanks. I found AwardNexus a bit difficult to use and it seems like you still need to purchase a premium membership for email notifications...?
I'll send them an email and ask if I'm doing something wrong.
Thanks!

I booked this same flight for an October flight back in May so about the same timeframe out. Maybe it has to do with November being more peak season in SCL.

Any recent information on LATAM award availability when booking through BA? Checked for SCL-AKL a few days ago and found lots of available business seats for this route for a lot of different days. They're all gone today on BA but still available on Lanpass.
Any idea how to handle this and if there's a possibility to book those awards via BA?