What airline flies Valpariso to MIA ?- and how many miles for a coach ticket? - Or does it pay to use more miles for business class on this route? Cruise line charging $549 for the one-way ticket. Appreciate the info. Renee

to LAX OR MIA? No commercial airline that I know of flies from Valparaiso but several fly out of Santiago (100-150 km from Valparaiso) and ALTA (LA PRIMERA AEROLINEA REGIONAL DE CHILE) flies small planes out of VI�A DEL MAR which is very close to Valparaiso (but not to Santiago directly?). I would think your best bet is ground transport.

On Lan Chile
SCL-MIA - 2 flights daily, one leaving mid to late morning the other around 11 PM.
SCL-LAX on LA0600 23:10 07:40+1 DAILY

Are we talking Valparaiso as in Chile or VPS?
If it's the former, then BlondeBomber is semi-correct. It's about two hours from Santiago, and there are buses from the airport to the bus terminal. Fare to Valpo is about $5 (round-trip!).

BTW, ALTA is no longer. They quit flying about two months ago.

Enjoy your trip.

ALTA's life was pretty short. Is there any commercial airline one can fly regionally to the many smaller centers ALTA served in Chile now?

Thanks all! - Cruise ship disembarks in Valpariso -they will bus us to Santiago for air home - I wanted to do this privately - (hate the bus) but I think with cruise luggage and all, it's a better bet to let the cruiseline carry us to Santiago and then use their air home. (Haven't decided if I want to return to LAX or MIA)but this will be $549 inclusive - and since I can't use mileage, I guess it's a good deal. Renee

BlondeBomber - Unfortunately, ALTA didn't last very long. I actually thought they were going to make it, as their business model mad a lot of sense. It's not that they flew to places the established carriers (LAN, Ladeco and Avant) didn't, but that they had better point to point connections amongst the second tier cities, and permitted bypassing the obligatory SCL connection on trips from northern to southern Chile.
I think what did them in was that they couldn't compete (profitably) with their probably higher unit costs. Domestic airfares in Chile has come down significantly in price in the last two years, to the point that more than 30% of inter-regional bus capacity (the standard means of transport) has been taken off-line.

This is really off-topic, but it seems that several of us would enjoy a forum on FT to discuss the economics of air transport.

JimB... you actually did not go off topic. You are talking about travel, airlines, economics (which is part of the Frequent travel game as we should be aware) and I've learned something new about Chile (which I will get too someday, through Rio is higher
on my list of places to go before I'm dust!)
CATMAN

I think I've solved this air problem for my cruise- I believe I can use 80,000 British Air miles for a Bus. Cl. ticket on American Airlines - Miami to San Juan to embark the ship - then Santiago to Miami at disembark (use the ship's transfer from Valpariso to Santiago - @$49 )Best I could do ---Hated to use my BA miles, I was saving them for another trip - but couldn't find any other way to do this using my accumulated mileage in Delta or Continental. Thanks for your help! Renee

Renee - CO does have a flight from SCL - EWR. Don't know what kind of mileage is required for award redemption though.

US to S. America on Continental

round trip Business Class
70,000 miles Standard
140,000 miles EasyPass

round trip Economy Class
35,000 miles Standard
70,000 miles EasyPass

Thanks to all -- I'll have to call Continental and see about the scheduale from Mia. to see what's best! -