crimson12

Hi All,

I'd posted earlier in the AA forum about taking a RTW trip using their distance based award chart (such a good value!), but with a toddler, and the difficulty of pulling together that much vacation time, it probably won't happen. So here is my new question.

1. We'd like to go to South America. We have family in Bolivia, a few hours outside of La Paz, but that may not be the best place to cart around a 1-2 yr old. So we are thinking of visiting somewhere else in South America (Santiago and Buenos Aires are top choices) and having our family meet us there. We could possibly do two cities but probably not more than that. I also know that Northern South America is cheaper than Southern South America, so that is a consideration (e.g., maybe fly to Lima on miles and buy a ticket to a point south).

2. We'd like to go to Italy. The plan would be to spend a little time at Lake Como (so, flying into MXP) driving down and departing from FCO.

Here are our constraints:

--For both trips we'd like to travel in at least business class.

--We can pretty easily do a trip of about one business week (9 calendar days) or a little more on each trip.

--If there are some interesting tricks or ways to make the most of routing rules we're willing to tack on another city/country to the trip. (We might even be willing to do something like Caribbean + South America rather than Santiago/Buenos Aires, for example)

--We will be flying with a toddler. Although we could carry her as a lap infant, it would probably be easier to buy a ticket.

--Between the two of us, my wife and I have about 200k UA miles, 250k DL miles, 300k AA miles, 40k US miles, 100k Chase UR points, and 200k Amex MR points. So I think we have some options.

My question:

How can we optimize our use of miles on this trip? My current thinking is to use AA miles to South America and DL miles to Italy. I would really prefer to fly in J but I see that AA offers off peak awards to South America in Y which are tempting because they'd be so much cheaper.

As far as I can tell each of these trips will cost me 100k a person in J or 50-60k a person in Y (with the exception of the AA off peak to South America). Is there any way around this? Any clever tricks I'm missing? I know I can get a free stopover at the North American gateway with AA. Is there a way I can exploit this? Maybe use that stopover to set up the second trip somehow?

Thanks in advance!

Philatravelgirl

I am more familiar with BA award chart however just flew their OneWorld partner LAN from JFK to Easter Island w/stopover in Santiago one way and the return ticket (separate one way) from Easter Island w/stopover in Lima back to JFK. Easter island not good for toddler IMO but trick is to avoid Chile $140 visa fee if you can, I paid it as Santiago was entry into Chile. AA is OneWorld look at LAN options w/stopovers in South America. one way tickets may be good - you can split reward tix. Since distance based look at LAN out of Miami to save some miles. i wasn't able to do AA to MIA and switch to LAN hence direct from JFK. Their J product was quite nice, I actually slept w/lovely duvets and had good meals surprisingly.
I'm in Philly do I'd look at United partner USAirways to Italy, they do seasonal to some cities but direct from MCO. Lots of Philly options many are not aware of-
Not sure of your location or timing but hope this helps a bit

crimson12

Thanks. I forgot to mention that we have a bunch of BA Avios as well, so if it makes sense I could depart from MIA. We could also use BA (I think?) for intra-South America flights.

amolkold

An easy way to avoid both the Chile reciprocity fee (which is collected only at SCL) and the Argentina reciprocity (which is collected at EZE and AEP) is to fly to MDZ, even if it's via SCL. From there, you can easily do domestic travel within Argentina or drive back to Chile over land (with a gorgeous view as well).

OP, what's your home airport?

crimson12

I could fly out of most airports in the NY area. I assume JFK would give me the most options, though I guess if I had my choice I'd go out of EWR.

Thanks for the advice about the Chile/Argentina taxes. Good to know!

mikelat

There is no way around the published mileage requirements for award tickets. The only option you may have is in stringing 2 trips together. For example on AA you could do a one-way US->South America (30k or 50k in J) and then a South America -> Europe (55k or 70k mi in J) and then a Europe->US (50k in J). That'd be a total of 155k (or 170 k) for the two trips instead of ~200k for two separate trips. Other than combining, not much you can do on AA/Oneworld to reduce the miles required.

crimson12

I don't want to do the two trips back to back, though. Is it possible to use stopover rules (I think UA may have some generous stopover rules as well?) to facilitate this? For example, fly NYC to LIM (or wherever), and have my stopover in NYC for a few months, and then continue on later to Europe?

thetravelabstract

JFK-EZE is great for AA Avios at 100,000 roundtrip biz or 125,000 first milesAAver.

United has EWR-EZE in business at 50000 MileagePlus eachway too.

AA you could add in the free NA stopover.

AlohaDaveKennedy

Or drive underland after that Andes tunnel gets built the model is in SCL.

crimson12

Could I use the NA stopover to "stopover" in NY a few months between my two trips?

Or can I fly one way from SA to Europe via NYC?

amolkold

Or drive through land. Those Andes are all hollow, ya know

AA won't give you a stopover on a South America - Europe itinerary.

crimson12

Okay, but what about on a USA-Europe-USA itin?

For example, could I fly NYC-MXP-NYC-[wherever]? And then fly r/t from that intermediate point to South America?

allset2travel

My bold.
I had read similar suggestions in other threads. How easy is easy? Can you connect air-side (assuming carry-on only) at either SCL (or AEP/EZE) without going through immigration/custom and re-enter?
I do have a need to go to MDZ.

amolkold

You can have a North American gateway stopover if your origin or destination is in North America. So yeah, you could do MXP-NYC(stop)-other NA city. And then go from there to South America.

If you use Avios to go to South America, doing MXP-NYC(stop)-MIA would be good, then connect to AA or LAN to South America. Best yet, you'll still be protected against delays if you're on two tickets if both flights are operated by AA/LAN/OneWorld. So if you fly NYC-MIA on AA and connect to LAN MIA-South America, if your AA flight is delayed, they have a responsibility to help you connect to your next flight. Just make sure you book an eligible connecting, taking into account minimum connection times. I wouldn't stretch it, but it basically takes out the need to overnight at MIA.



You can connect airside at SCL to an international flight to MDZ. You won't need to go through immigration.

At EZE, you'll have to go through Argentine immigration before connecting to MDZ.

If you have to go to MDZ, connecting via SCL or any other non-Argentinian gateway would help you avoid the fee.

EtoileFilante

Just as a FYI, if you are lucky enough to have a second passport, you may be able to use that as a way to get out of reciprocity all together in certain countries. For example, as a dual German-American citizen, I get out of these fees in most South American countries, provided I show my German passport (instead of my American one).