sorry to pile on, if one wanted to go Cuzco to GYE, would using AA miles only require 10k miles as opposed to BA miles which I assume would be 7,500 + 4,500 ?

More like 1.36cpm since you have to pay $13pp with Avios for airport taxes. Ends up being a $244 savings for 18K Avios.

I'd still say LAN is a much better airline than Star Peru. Airbus A319 on LAN vs. the smaller BAe 146 with Star Peru, though it's only 1h20m flight. But there are a lot more frequencies with LAN, and given the number of wx cancellations on this route, I'd prefer LAN over Star Peru.

Yes, AA uses regions in their award chart, so CUZ-GYE would be within South America Zone 1. BA charges by segment, and from CUZ you'd have to transit LIM to get to GYE (and find availability on CUZ-LIM and LIM-GYE).

I value 10K AA miles over 12K Avios (due to the ease of getting Avios), plus you save $25 booking via BA online than with AA over the phone.

By the way, LAN received a FT subforum late last year and it is greatly helpful for any questions regarding LAN.

Thanks for the GREAT info from everyone ^ I was getting SO frustrated trying to figure these options out this morning.

I just priced out flights for my parents and brothers for intra-peru just the other day. 4 people with 3 one way segments (12 total tickets) was 54k Avios and around $65 in taxes/fees. The flights themselves were over $3000 total when I priced them on Kayak.com. Also I found tons of award availability with Avios points on LAN.

Found a bonus transfer offer (valid till 6/20/12) -- http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-transfer.html

I could transfer 7200 SPG points to get 9K avios ^ Wonder how long till the points + bonus will post @ BA?

Then the two RT LIM-CUZ-LIM tix would be $35+3600 SPG each.

Here's a map of where LAN flies within Peru. Click on the map on the right side of the linked page "Domestic flights Argentina, Chile, Ecuador & Peru".

http://www.lan.com/en_us/sitio_perso...apa_rutas.html

Great redemption value ^

Just another reason I love avios even with all the crap some fling their way.

I have to ask about this because I've booked five separate flights intra-Peru for November (LIM>CUZ>JAL>CUZ>AQP>LIM). All on LAN. I paid for all of the flights through Expedia, except for the CUZ>JAL>CUZ legs, which I redeemed Avios for.

Will I be hit with that gringo tax on each leg? It would effectively double the cost of my trip.

Can I selfishly bump this thread to see if anyone knows about the so-called "gringo tax"?

Speaking of the 'gringo tax', does anyone know if this will apply to BA award bookings on LAN (LIM-CUZ-LIM)?

The only taxes should be airport taxes, which amount to about $13. I don't look gringo but I do travel with a US passport and wasn't given any trouble at LIM or CUZ.

When we had this same deal 4 years ago, we were not asked to pay anything at the airport other than the airport taxes. If there was any gringo tax, it must have already been included in the price of the ticket at the time of purchase.

Looks like this time around even the airport taxes are already included in the ticket. ITA shows it as HW:

Peru Airport Departure Tax (HW) $30.74

This HW is not reflected in the fare construction seen on my receipt; however, my ticket shows 135.00 fare + 103.64 taxes = 238.64 USD; and if you add up the taxes listed on ITA, including the HW amount, they total 103.64

Hopefully this HW is indeed the same thing that we had to pay separately at the airport last time, and not an additional departure tax...

So amazing to have bought a ticket for $239 and seeing the identical itin now pricing at over $1500...!

The Gringo tax is included in the ticket price. LAN is the only entity with the predatory pricing, which is why the local budget carriers seem so much cheaper to you, but may not to residents.

If you book on the Spanish version of the website and select Peru citizenship (and can produce a resident card), you will be offered many of the tickets you are seeing for $200-300 on the US site, for $99. You may have to be on an in-country computer to do this, I haven't tested it.

They do check ID.

So after reading this thread, I tried to use my BA Avios points to go from Cuzco to Arequipa. There is one direct flight a day LA2111 which stops in Juliaca (Puno) before going to Arequipa but it did not show up on the day I wanted. Since, I'm not flying until November and most flights are wide open I checked other dates and they wee not available. It seems you can book LA2111 from Cuzco to Juliaca but not from Juliaca to Arequipa. So i can pay 9K per person and be routed via Lima or I maybe I should call and see if I can get LA2111.. it would be $25 but save me some flight time as well as 4.5k Avios points.

[QUOTE=zbenye;18739922]When we had this same deal 4 years ago, we were not asked to pay anything at the airport other than the airport taxes. If there was any gringo tax, it must have already been included in the price of the ticket at the time of purchase.

Looks like this time around even the airport taxes are already included in the ticket. ITA shows it as HW:

Peru Airport Departure Tax (HW) $30.74

This HW is not reflected in the fare construction seen on my receipt; however, my ticket shows 135.00 fare + 103.64 taxes = 238.64 USD; and if you add up the taxes listed on ITA, including the HW amount, they total 103.64

People refer to a "gringo tax" which is not a tax at all, but is merely the fact that the airline sells in-country tickets at a higher price to people buying outside the country. If you have confirmed tickets, you've already paid any extra charge in the course of buying the ticket. An issue in some instances is a separate airport departure tax, which I asked about when I was in Peru this month, but on LAN anyway I didn't owe it since it too was incorporated in the price of a ticket.

One thing that can be done to get around the "gringo tax" (actually a higher price) when using paid tickets is get your tickets through a Peruvian travel agency. I reserved a connection in the middle of the night and flew to Lima without anything in hand beyond there, but the agency rep was right there in person at 2 a.m. to meet our flight and hand us our connecting domestic tickets in exchange for the Peruvian price in cash. I used Fertur, and this was a few years ago, so confirm with them they still do this.

Another thing you can try is to call LAN if paying for a ticket and see if they have any better deals. They do sometimes have unadvertised specials that don't seem to be loaded onto the website. On another trip in 2010 (not the one mentioned above) I got a Miami-Lima-Puerto Maldonado-Cuzco-Lima-Miami itinerary over the phone for hundreds less than apparently would have been possible, by calling LAN and jumping when the agent said, "We have an unadvertised special that is good just today..."