"Open" ticket question
 

I'm unclear if open tickets refer only to leaving the dates open or if they can also include leaving the itinerary open (after leaving the continent of origin) so as not to incur a change fee wants you decide axactly whre you want to go. Can anyone clarify this for me?

Also, has anyone flown Europe - South America via the US? I would like to fly from LHR to GIG via LAX (to get more miles). Am I correct in reading the rules that this is possible.?

Thanks in advance.

Is it possible? Of course. It will count as another continent though.

OPEN tickets refer to dates/times of travel. If the itinerary was open, how could you determine the number of continents flown (and the price)? The change fee is reasonable considering what the fee on a simple return ticket costs, usually $100. If you have many changes, do them all at once as it will only cost you the fee of $75.

Yes, you can route Europe-LAX-GIG and then later return to N.America. It is done all of the time with one being a transit without stopover. The best example is LHR-LAX-SCL which during the N.American winter time is a stopover of 23 hours. If you pass thru any other US city, the arrival is in time to make a same day connection to S. America.

>>Is it possible? Of course. It will count as another continent though. <<

But I can go to North America again (after going to South America) correct?



145N . 3. 1 INTERCONTINENTAL DEPARTURE AND 1
146N . INTERCONTINENTAL ARRIVAL PERMITTED
147N . IN EACH CONTINENT EXCEPT AS FOLLOWS.
148N . - 2 PERMITTED IN NORTH AMERICA. 1 MUST
149N . BE A TRANSIT WITHOUT STOPOVER
150N . BETWEEN SOUTH AMERICA AND ANOTHER
151N . CONTINENT

Yes, provided your flight to SA thru NA is a transit.

I have done similar routing recently by going SCL-LAX-LHR using this only as a transit. It is a great way to build up miles and the Lan Chile flight from SCL-LAX is a wonderful experience.

Agreed it's an experience, though I wouldn't concur that it's always a wonderful one.

OK, this is slightly off-thread, but would you care to elaborate? Is there something specific we should know about this route, or is it LAN Chile in general?

My comments were directed towards LAN Chile (or LAN, as I believe it's now called). Used to be a superb airline, surpassing BA standards for professionalism and inflight comfort. This, however, was not my impression on the last 4 occasions I flew with them. Interestingly all of my earlier LAN trips were in Y, while these were all in J. Could it be than LAN just doesn't know how to work the J cabin properly?

I've never flown them, but from chat here it would seem that they are more likely to be classed as a customer-antagonistic than a customer-friendly airline.

LAN is a bit friendlier than that, I would compare it to IB and say it wasn't as much antagonistic as bureaucratic and annoying. They treat F very well but J is an order of magnitude below F. However the plane is well stocked with Pisco sours and sometimes some excellent Chilean wine (the rest of the time it is merely good wine), so while the food is not special the drink is. Helping you forget the ground experience. As an airline I would rate it well below AA (in terms of flight operation) and I would route via AA over LAN even with a detour.

If my recollection is correct, a couple of bad things they're accused of include being very reluctant to release first-class inventory to A and putting a spin on OWE rules that makes AONEx's ineligible for first-class on certain routes?

LAN has OW rules that are specific to LAN (so it isn't a spin on the rules, it is adding rules to the program that they wanted). One of those is that domestic flights in Chile are booked in Y for A/D; and IPC is a domestic flight. But LAN appears to often waive this rule, perhaps from getting too much grief (or because they are not good at following any rules). The A inventory issue is simple: most of their F cabins are 5 seats, so releasing 1 seat is 20% of avalable seating (and airlines seem to target award seats as less than 10%). LAN solves this by releasing none automatically and treating each A booking on an individual basis. This means your travel agent or booking airline has to negotiate with LAN to get a seat released for your flight. Other airlines do this for some of their flights (even AA does this for their P product yet there is reasonable availability upon request, though I suppose it varies by who is requesting).
I have mixed feelings about LAN. Not a bad airline, but not a good airline, and one of the weaker members of Oneworld (in terms of product quality). However the other SA airlines are worse so OW is lucky to have them.