How safe are the airports and cities in MGA ,PTY, GUA,SAL,BOG and UIO ? I get the feeling that Central America is now ,what the Soviet Union was immediately after the breakup. That is hold on to your wallet and use alot of caution .

Anyone from the Midwest put together a trip routing ?

Pudding Guy, did I notice that your itinerary started with an American Airlines flight in and out of the U.S. Gee, what a coincidence !

Everybody what's with this sudden emphasis on "anybody from near my city" going? I thought one of the advantages of this board was that location doesn't matter. Seems to me the only "same city" advantage is that my first flight wouldn't be alone (well, I've done that plenty of times!). Wouldn't "Anybody looking at the second or third weeks of May" seem like a more productive pairing mechanism?

Re: LatinPass 1,000,000 miles promotion.

I've got two weeks off, March 17-April 2 and want to do this thing! If anybody wants to work out an itinerary for sometime during this period let me know, otherwise I'm going solo.

[email protected]

Yes, I used 25k AAdvantage miles to fly into Guatemala and out of Caracas. This kept costs down since I was starting from SFO.

In response to the questions about safety, I'll share a few observations. We spent nights in Guatemala City, Managua, and Caracas, and transferred through airports in San Salvador, San Jose, and Bogota. Other than a slightly wild taxi ride from CCS to our hotel, we felt very safe and comfortable throughout. If you don't check luggage, you can stay in transit behind security at most of these airports--and save yourself the need to pay for tourist visas and exit fees. Without exception the secured transit areas seemed very safe.

Some notes:

GUA: small airport, friendly service, loads of people crowded outside eager to sell you something or find you a taxi. We stayed in the Radisson and felt comfortable walking about after dark for dinner.

SAL: lots of gates given the volume of flights, exceptionally clean, very friendly service. One of the immigration agents actually took me for a brief walk outside the airport to look around a bit. Since I had a business class Grupo Taca flight, I was able to spent my 3 hour layover in the VIP Salon, which wasn't fancy, but had good coffee and snacks. If you check your bags, you'll have to pay either $25 or $35 in fees (depending on the agent) and wade through some confusion at the immigration booth.

MGA: Not my first recommendation for a stopover. It was a long and not-so-scenic shuttle ride from the airport to the Intercontinental. The hotel area was very nice, though. Had a great dinner at Antijitos across the street, then caught a movie for $4 with popcorn.

SJO: Stayed in transit. Seemed like any medium sized US terminal. Nice shops.

BOG: We were in transit, but had to leave the secured area to get our boarding passes for the next flight. Here's the process: from the plane head to the "Airport Tax" counter, which is located in the main terminal. Show the boarding pass for your arriving flight and your departure ticket to get the stamp without a charge. Then stand in line at the airline counter for your departure boarding pass. On the way back to the planes, you must go through several rounds of showing people your boarding pass before going through security. Security seemed quite tight. My bag was thoroughly searched, and I was given a pat down after walking though the detectors. This was the only airport where I sweat a little, because the airport was very busy, and I wasn't clued into the process. I was worried about catching my next flight.

CCS: Nothing much to note here. Stay behind security in transit to avoid a $21 departure fee. It's a long, $35 taxi ride to the Intercontinental.

In summary, I'm happy to report that we didn't experience any obvious threats to our personal safety, didn't share with planes with livestock, and weren't shaken down by the local officials. Viva Latin America!

Congratulations! Now one can only hope for prompt crediting of miles!

Welcome back Pudding Guy. Congrats on completing your newest quest for miles.

I'm also contemplating a run sometime in the first 2 weeks of May (totally flexible on time right now). Not looking to make either a vacation or marathon out of this . . . just do it in a reasonably short time. I'll start in Orlando and end there too, so it looks like MIA is the first leg that really counts. I'd prefer the 1 mil but would settle for the 500K. If others are going around that time, of like mind, I'd live the company!

On 2/24/00 I posted questions on a new thread and was trashed for not using the old thread for the 1,000,000 LP bonus. My excuse is that I'm a newbie and didn't know any better. Now when I try to look up the latest info on this fascinating subject, I see that a new thread was started here by an established member, and one of the people who trashed me for not using the existing thread has left messages on this new thread too.
So, are the rules different for established versus newbie, or are some of you just e-snobs? Or is it made complicated to confus the newbies?
Now we all have to look up two threads to keep up with current input- correct?

dcraigen -
I'm a newbie too, but if we're talking about the same thread - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/002296.html - I don't think Flying Dutchman and Leroy11 were "trashing you." After all, they answered your questions and politely asked you to post in the existing threads so as not to annoy others not going on this mileage run or something to that effect - sounds reasonable to me. Also, the two threads have different subjects. This one asks who's actually going to do it - whilst the lllooonnnggg one is a discussion of the actual bonus. Just my 2 cents.

dcraigen --

I'm awfully sorry if I offended you, and I'm certain that I speak for leroy11 also when I say that no "e-snobbery" was intended.

Definitely. I'm sorry dcraigen for any offence that I may have caused you.

Like any good sized group, there are a few "characters," some of which think they rule/govern the board- but these folks are not among them, IMHO.

It also pays big dividends NOT to be too sensitive, IMHO! We can all always be more polite and respectful- including yours truly!

Got my tickets in the mail on Friday. My wife and I are going on the trip on Friday back on Tuesday 3/7. Just alittle concern after reading FlyingDut.. posting about Latinpass not wanting to post the miles into your account. FD it would be very helpful if you could say a little bit more on what the their new requirments are, I will be spending about $1400 per person between Hotel/cars/tkt etc, it would be a waste of money if the bonus is not going to happen. We are leaving on Thursday, anything would help

MileSmiles - It should be fine as long as you don't need the miles within the next few months. LatinPass isn't saying that I didn't earn the bonus; they're simply trying to delaying giving it to me as long as possible.

FD, thanks for the prompt response. I wasn't actually planning on using the miles before November or so....So it looks it would work. Did you take any COPA flight in your run, and if yes,did you have any problems getting your Latinpass in the record. I called the other day to get seat assignment and get number in record, the agent said since Copa left the grupo Taca you cannot get miles on the LP program any more ???