for next March/April ('cos the Inca Trail is more fun in the rain ).

Choice is BA/AA via MIA (separate tickets to ensure picking up the paltry 25% miles on my EC account) or IB via MAD.

I know what BA is like, and can guess what AA is like (although the latest reports of $4 beers in Y to SA are slightly worrying), but only ever flown IB shorthaul, and can only find one (not very comlimentary) trip report of their Y offering.

Any comments ?

tia
stewie

PS IB is +/- $200 cheaper, which to me is worth it if they're not going to be significantly worse....

No experience of IB - though I have heard good reports about Europe, and some pretty poor ones about intercontintal.

I did AA last month to Lima, out via DFW, back via MIA. I'd recommended avoiding MIA if at all possible, as the airport is overcrowded with queues everywhere. On a 4 hour transit, spent 2.5 queuing for immigration, security etc. I thought AA were acceptable, good legroom and average food counteracting jobsworth, sulky F.A's and nasty, old, cramped 757's from the US to Peru. Imagine - 7 hours on a 757. Not pretty.

If you are doing any domestic flights, stick to Lan Peru - nice new A320 v 30 year old DC9/727!

Either way it's a bloody long way. if you want any more info, drop me a line - I had a great time.

You could also do the AA to Miami and the Lan Chile codeshare to lima.

IB in Y is inferior to AA/BA. Not worth the $200.

Definetely AA/BA.
Iberia is overall a bad airline, not good customer service.
If you are going on coach. Try AA all the way. BA is ok but seats in coach suck, AA has more room and makes a whole lot of difference.
I just took 2 rt to lima in the last month.
AA service in coach is bearable, well bring your own drinks, last rt was pay for your drinks
If you can take LanCHile I would do that, same as AA but will go LC over BA.

Thanks everyone.

Looked up the LanChile flights, and the timing really doesn't fit with the transatlantics at all, so not a great option.

Looks like we are actually going to finish our trip in La Paz, so we can fly back to MIA on AA quite easily (and cheaply )

Seriously looked at AA across the pond, but we would miss out on the enormous quantity of BA miles one picks up flying in the back of the bus.

Also, and another mystery to me, AA wanted �1200 to fly LHR-MIA-LIM//LPB-MIA-LHR, but only �720 if we split the itenerary up into two tickets, and I couldn't work out from the fare rules if nested tickets are okay, so figured that BA/AA is safer

Stewart

Yikes! I got almost the same (our from LGW via DFW) for 600GBP from a Trailfinders. Might be worth call - and the money you'd save would surely compensate for all those thousands of lost miles!

Have you thought about flying LAN via MAD to SCL and then on to Lima? It beats BA, IB and AA hands down in Y.

I did this an AA in October via MIA in both directions. I decided to look on coupon connections and managed to trade for two VIPOWs. Upgrades cleared on both, and made for a very nice trip :-) If you have to - you can buy VIPOWs on ebay for about $300 for two - though of course this would be against the program rules :-)

I'd second LA MAD-SCL-LIM, I've only flown them in F but have heard GREAT things about them. I took a walk around on SCL-MAD and Y didn't look as bad as BA but didn't look quite as good as MRTC. If you can upgrade on AA I'd take that route but otherwise, LA is a great experience.