Difference between Pass and Fidelidade?
 

Newbie question: what, if any, is the difference between LATAM Pass and LATAM Fidelidade? Are the two programs being merged? Is there a benefit to signing up for one as opposed to the other?

both programs will eventually be fully merged. While they are essentially one program under one administration, Latam is still to figure out how to merge them since JJ uses points as "currency" and LA uses kms. There's no equivalence between both.

That's mainly the biggest difference. LA kms can only be used for redemption within the airline. JJ points are part of a much bigger points scheme under the Multiplus point programme. Points are earned by flying but also by purchases in several vendors, hotel stays and the like... and can be redeemed on all of those

actually latampass also works for that... link. both allow acumulation from purchases with vendors and allow using the points for external things, including hotels, products, shopping cards, etc.

Thanks for the information, and I believe that you are both correct about the opportunity to earn points/kms with other vendors. My main concern is accrual with flights and airline partners. For example, AA flights booked into O don't earn kms under LAN Pass, but do earn points under Fidelidade. Or I notice that points earned via IB flights using Fidelidade expire in 6 months as opposed to the general year for points expiry... the rules for each program seem to have important differences and some notable pitfalls, but considering that I'll be flying more on LATAM, I'm forced to study up. Maybe I'll give up and switch to GOL Smiles.

It's very different.

JJ: You don't earn JJ points but "Multiplus points" instead. Think of multiplus as a huge rewards and loyalty system that tries to integrate and manage loyalty programmes for a bunch of different stuff. For example, fly a couple of segments with your LATAM Fidelidade number, earn points which are merged (outside and independently from TAM) with the rewards points you earn by shopping from groceries at your local supermarket, etc etc.
Afterwards, you can use points earned in all affiliated vendors on any affiliated vendor. You don't even need to be a TAM Fidelidade member to earn points as it is a much broader scheme.
Multiplus, which is part of the former TAM holding, is by itself worth as much as the airline.

LA: earn kms (besides from flying) by spending money on select retailers and hotels that have short or medium term co-branding partnerships with Latam Pass. All kms earning is handled by the airline. You cannot spend your kms outside of the airline (the catalog you linked to is, besides of limited, owned and operated by Latampass).

Both programmes may seem quite similar, but they are in fact very very different in the way they are run, the way they make a profit and the perks they offer, hence the difficulty in fully merging them

If you are going to be based in Brazil or might come here a lot, Fidelidade would be the answer. As a matter of fact, LAN holds Tam nowadays but Tam is a much larger operation (although less lucrative, but this is another story...). Both carriers still use even different systems, so there is much to come before any real integration.

Anyway, Fidelidade will give you the chance to an unlimited inventory of domestic flights within Brazil for a reasonable amount of points if you reach Sapphire status (actually called Platinum in both Pass and Fidelidade). In case you don't reach Platinum you'll still have access to unlimited inventory, although for not reasonable amount of points sometimes.

Fidelidade would also allow you to accumulate and spend points in some Star Alliance companies as not all the ties that Tam used to have with they were cut yet today.

Last, all points in Fidelidade will be valid for two years. That's quite universal and I've never seen an exception. What do you mean by IB point valid for six months?

Notes:

The deadline for redeeming points with partner airlines shall be 1 year from the flight date, with the exception of Iberia and Finnair, which will have a deadline of 6 months from the flight date.

https://www.latam.com/en_us/latam-fi...-from-flights/

This is just a bad translation. These are the rules to claim for missing miles. The validity of them is two years regardless of their source.

Thanks for the clarification!

Another thing about Fidelidade that I like are the partner agreements with Aeromexico and Air China. Opens up options for earning points outside of OW.

Wrong thread, I know but I didn't want to open another one for my question (yet) as it's another Newbie question.

I managed to match for Platinum with LATAM. I'm reading on their site now the following:

"Receive an additional bonus for accumulated kms on LATAM Airlines and American Airlines Flights."

For Platinum this would be 100%. Question: If I go now on a cheap economy flight which would credit with 75% of the distance, I would additionally get another bonus of 100% of the distance. Do these miles help to re-qualify for my status or would it just be the 75% points which would count for that?

Thanks a ton!

No you will not.. you will receive whatever amount of kms you accrued (75% in your example), and these kms don't count towards elite qualification. This is one of the reasons I have been trying to keep both Lan and AA. AA would give you this bonus in all their oneworld partners, whereas LATAM only has this benefit on their own flights and AA.

Sadly not all oneworld partners have extra miles on AA:
https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...s-benefits.jsp

It's a sizable amount of oneworld partners (probably more than we could be concerned about!) but a notable exception is TAM (JJ). Nevertheless, it's better than the situation at LATAM.