LAN Argentina - already part of One World?
 

Im wondering if I can already use my AAdvantage miles to draw awards on LAN Argentina.... does anybody know if this is possible???

Thanks.

According to the OneWorld web site ... not quite yet ... "as early as possible in 2007".

http://www.oneworld.com/ow/news/details?objectID=8856

John

Thanks!!

From ATW Daily News:

Oneworld announced that it will welcome Dragonair next year following the Hong Kong carrier's merger with oneworld founding member Cathay Pacific Airways (ATWOnline, Sept. 29). "All parties are committed to bring Dragonair onboard oneworld as soon as possible in 2007, immediately all necessary joining technicalities and processes have been completed," the alliance said. Dragonair will be the 11th carrier set to join oneworld next year alongside Japan Airlines and five affiliates, Malev Hungarian Airlines, Royal Jordanian, LAN Argentina and LAN Ecuador. Aer Lingus is scheduled to leave the alliance in April.

Im putting this to the test next week, flying to Mendoza on LAN and will see if mileage posts to my AAdvantage account.

From my limited experience LAN is kind of stingy with the award tickets they release. For example I found out from the AA CSR who talked to the LAN liasson that there is no award inventory available for AEP-BRC flights. To get to the prime tourist spots such as Bariloche you have to pay to the tune of just under US$ 300 r/t. One bright spot is that I was able to grab a flight to Pto. Iguazu as an award but the availability was very limited.

Stingy is an understatement. Worse than any US award redemption option I have come across. Nothing to Bariloche, El Calafate, Salta, etc. I also did come across a random seat to Iguazu, but no return options. This was checking several weeks of potential availability months in advance.

Ridiculous. If anyone knows an effective way to complain, I will.

Award availability is indeed very bad... this is (also) related to the fact that the average loads for domestic LAN flights is very very high. LAN has very few aircraft operating on domestic routes, and since it is usually more reliable than Aerolineas & Austral.... that leaves almost nothing for award seats.

LAN is not that bad. I booked with AA miles MIA-SCL-MDZ-AEP EZE-MIA all on LAN.
Then I wanted to change MDZ-AEP to the morning flight .. it's bookable as an LAN award, but not with AA (no AA inventory on this LAN flight)

USAFAN-- Im talking about domestic Argentine awards....

Gaucho100K:

I checked (only) MDZ-AEP and LAN showed plenty of awards...and they now have only two flights a day, my flight 4245 at 3:30 PM is canceled.

My family of three flew one segment AEP-BRC in September and none of them credited on AA. I'm now in the process of writing a letter and including all the pertinent info so they can manually give me credit. AA tells me it shouldn't take longer than a month to credit-- we'll see.

Gaucho -

Depends when you're flying, but if you know well enough in advance, you can usually grab a fare from EZE - MDZ on lan.com for around $200 USD.

I just priced a dummy fare out, EZE - MDZ, from 12 - 19 Nov, and it came out to about 126.000 pesos chilenos.

Not sure I'd cash in AA miles for a $220(ish) fare.

UPDATE: I finally found out that the flights I purchased (Economy K) don't qualify for AA miles:mad:. And as it turns out there are a half dozen other letters that don't qualify either. I haven't taken the time to fully investigate, but I'm getting the feeling you just don't get AA miles on this route (you can't fly it on an award either) which makes me wonder about other LAN flights wholly within Argentina. Has anyone received AA miles credit for these flights?

On a positive note though, the AA CSR threw me a bone and credited our accounts for the 800+ miles as a goodwill gesture^

Here's another case of "It pays to research before booking".

If flying LA the booking class needs to be listed on the AA partners page for LAN (without an *):

• AAdvantage - LAN Airlines