Getting to Easter Island on Oneworld Miles
 

My wife and I are trying to do a South America trip and include Easter Island in March sometime. I've been doing hours of research on this topic and I'm looking for suggestions from people who have done it or who may have any good ideas! I've looked into using Asia Miles, but I haven't seen any economy award availability on BA...and limited business space, which would cost 150k Avios for two people RT, ridiculous. I've also looked into SPG but there is only a 1 to 1.5 miles to kilometers exchange now, so the 30k from SPG card would only get 45k kilometers. I've been pricing out LAN award availability in March and it is wide open, but they want 50k km round trip per person

I'm stuck here, please give me some suggestions!

I currently have 100k TYP, 30,000 URs and 6,000 United miles

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

The only airline that serves IPC is LAN, from SCL and PPT year-round, and from LIM seasonally. So the only miles that will do you any good are those that can be redeemed on LAN.

AA would charge even more than BA for flights between South America and IPC.

How much does LAN want for cash tickets on the route in Y?

Its about a 4 hour flight so it cost some miles/avios/points or a bundle of cash
Get what you can. Awards are limited
http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=s...OR=&MAP-STYLE=

What about transferring TYP to Asia miles. Cathay pacific is a oneworld partner. If there is availability on LAN's site, can I call Cathay to book it from their end?

How many miles would AsiaMiles require? I am not finding the number for a single Oneworld airline. But when two or more are involved, then you'd fall under the 4,001 - 7,500 band which requires 80k miles per person in business.

You're right about that. I really want to find economy award space.

I'm looking up the codes on ExpertFlyer and I'm getting the following for most dates: "J7 C7 D7 I7 Z0 Y7 B7 H7 K7 M7 L7 V7 X0 S7 N7 Q0 O0 G0 A0 E0"

Wouldn't this mean that economy award space is still available? LAN shows wide availability on their website for 50000km RT per person.

No. From memory Z is business award and X is economy award.
But point of sale can change apparent availability.

If LA uses standard oneworld codes, then U is business. (Z is first)

Expertflyer does not show LAN award availability. And LAN may have availability for their own members that they do not give to other partners.

LAN doesn't have first class but does use Z as a booking class, so partly non-standard.

I've read about this. In your experience, do they release more award space later on? It's really hard to get LAN kms. I'm wondering if I should book the whole trip and leave a few days open in SCL to maybe fly over for a couple days. Or should I just bite the bullet and pay $500 RT per person. I've never paid more than $400 a person, even for flights to Europe, as I've been so spoiled with miles.

If you don't mind going in economy, I'd say bite the bullet. I've looked at LAN availability for Easter Island and have found it was rather rare to find some. I am even surprised you could find two business class seats.
I've gone to Easter Island twice and it is well worth spending $500 to see it.

DeltaFlyingProf, you said Expert flyer doesn't show LAN availability, but in your last post, you mentioned looking for LAN availability..............can you tell me how? I'm a newbie, trying to learn the ropes to book a flight to San Cristobal (SCY) in the Galapagos (sorry to hijack Easter island thread, but Galapagos is the same boat). I've tried Expert flyer, award nexus and BA (of course AA and UA) with no luck. Thx

Easter island is definitely worth it. We went two years ago when LAN was offering biz fares for under 1K from JFK to SCL and we were able to add the onward to IPC for a few bucks more. Stayed abour 2.5 days on the island and same amount in Santiago. We went in April, so don't know if that is the right time for sales. We pulled an award for the one way from IPC to SCL. We had 4 J awards, but we would have done y if that was all there was. Really interesting place.