Chile Forum

There are two or three threads on LP's Thorn Tree South America about this. Apparently it is like the Argentina restriction and many non residents are hopping mad over it and trying to organize a boycott.

BOHICA - bend over here it comes again

LAN seems to be going out of their way to piss of all their customers in all countries.

I can not remember the dates they said, but they had a full page advertising in the local Austral newspaper sunday that they would not be flying to Temuco for about 2 weeks because of repairs at the airport (which I totally believe). I am trying to find out if that means sky is our only airline, or no one is flying to Temuco during that time. I was also a little suspicious about how easily we managed to get two round trip tickets on lan with short notice from Temuco for 50,000 pesos to Santiago last week.

I smell blood. I think Lan is in trouble.

are they actually checking and implementing this charge at the airport? probably not a risk I want to take but just curious as to the feedback.

I wonder if it's worth waiting to book to see if they change their policy... is this a new policy?

Started reading about this LAN Peru deal on FlyerTalk and ThornTree about a week ago.

Just noticed this...

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:As an AA Gold, I have had a nearly 90% success on using my accrued domestic upgrades on segments like DCA-ORD-LAX, MIA-DCA, DCA-MIA, though on LAX-DFW only about 50%.

LOL. That's probably all my colleagues flying back on AA945 with exec platinum etc. (sorry about that). I've rarely flown from Dallas to Santiago or vice versa without unexpectedly meeting someone I know. In fact I'm picking someone up from that route in the morning...

James.

From what I've heard, LAN is collecting that extra $178 at the airports before letting you board a domestic flight in Peru.

There's a lot of heated discussion on this in the forum on the Expat Peru site.

Lots of people aren't very happy about this.

....Anani

I am back singing the praises of Continental and COPA. We recently had a funeral in Arizona and I guess the extra trips to Chile supervising construction etc. put Hubby in "Elite" so he and I were upgraded on most of our flights to First class, very nice. We are returning to Chile in November and (Yippee) flying free using continental miles but flying Delta (we need to fly from DC because of a family wedding in DC) and COPA and were even able to bring our adult son,
AX points plus mileage for only 50,000 each That is a huge bonus! Total value almost 4G

Wooo hooo Helibel! I've been considering flying Copa for some time now (out of LA) but have reservations about flying long haul in a 737. You seem enthused about their service, does anyone else have experience with them?

We have been flying Copa for years now. The only other option for us is AA through Miami, which has always seemed stupid to fly two hours north to spend an extra 2 hours more flying south. The flight from Panama is only 6 1/2 hours (as opposed to 8 1/2 MIA-SCL and all Copa/Continental flights connect in Panama) and we usually opt for the daytime flight that arrives around 7-8 in the evening. There is more legroom than you think, there version of the 737 has only 112 seats in economy compared to 134-144 in an AA 737 (seatguru.com) so it is comfortable, and they don't charge for wine. We have actually been able to use our miles and fly free often, they have dozens of airline partners and miles don't ever expire.

Once, a few years ago, our connecting flight to San Juan was delayed and they hired a bus and gave us a tour of Panama City, the canal and a really good seafood buffet in a downtown restaurant.

Thanks for the seat info, I'll check them out after my AA miles are gone.

Accumulating miles is a very iffy proposition these days. Who will really be left standing and honoring miles in 2 years time?

Well something will probably survive, and I,m at a point where I am doing a lot of traveling so I taking a free trip as soon as I have the miles from now on.