Easter Island on Who's Miles?

[knick1959]

Hi folks,

I'm planning pretty far in advance since, if I'm going to do this on miles, I will probably have to find some. I swear I saw a non-Saverocity blog post awhile back on using AA miles, of which I have plenty, but I can't find it now. Figured someone here might have done this.

The trip: In January 2018 - Santiago Chile and one of my bucket list places, Easter Island. I originally had this as part of my sabbatical trip but with "only" 4 weeks available and so much to see (Galapagos, Machu Picchu, Lima, Quito, etc) , it got axed. This is my second chance and with the focus being a bit smaller, seems doable. Passengers, my wife and I. That would be 2 people .

Now, as it was with the Galapagos, it seems that LAN will get us there and back on miles using Santiago as a base. The 787-8 that services this route is 3-3-3 in coach (43km RT). I could stand sitting in an outside seat pair for 5+ hour, but not with an aisle buddy. I'm targeting J/F, which runs 94KM RT each, hopefully for Jan 2018 as THIS Jan is way higher. I've done some math, and this plan depends on each of us getting a LAN card from US Bank that will start us at about 50km. A transfer of 20k each from SPG = 25k * 1.5 is another 37.5km. We're within striking distance where more SPG points or MS on the LAN card will make up the rest. I've had this card before "almost" 2 years since I canceled and I do not know how US Bank takes to second apps. My wife would normally be easy, but some AW (the second word is wipe) physician's office filed a collection claim for $86 that was bogus. We're still trying to clear this up, but her credit score on CK shows just above 700 ... lowest it's ever been, down from 770-780.

Anyone ever applied for and succeeded in getting a US Bank card after canceling the first? Or better, 2 of the same at the same time??

Ok, so that's one plan. As I said, I've got plenty of AA miles and some AS and UR points and others. Can make more. I also have to get RT to Santiago. I can do that (although once we get closer, I may report as to what I have and if anyone seems options I don't).

What other miles might get me to Easter Island in the front of the plane, please? Anyone??

I've used BA, AS and AA search engines with no luck. But that doesn't mean they aren't options??

Thanks in advance.

 

[swazzie]

Can only speak on multiple US Bank cards and recent posts on using AA miles. I have 2 Cash+ cards opened 1 month apart, so it's possible. However, the 1st card had no signup offer (the 2nd was $100) and these are core US Bank cards, not co-branded, so I don't know what role (if any) that plays. As for recent posts on redeeming AA miles, maybe you're thinking of this series; below is the 1st of 15 posts:

http://www.milevalue.com/five-ways-to-stretch-american-airlines-miles-with-super-cheap-economy-awards/

 

[knick1959]

Can only speak on multiple US Bank cards and recent posts on using AA miles. I have 2 Cash+ cards opened 1 month apart, so it's possible. However, the 1st card had no signup offer (the 2nd was $100) and these are core US Bank cards, not co-branded, so I don't know what role (if any) that plays. As for recent posts on redeeming AA miles, maybe you're thinking of this series; below is the 1st of 15 posts:

http://www.milevalue.com/five-ways-to-stretch-american-airlines-miles-with-super-cheap-economy-awards/

Thanks for the link. An interesting series, and I did read a couple and the whole set is worthy of a full read ... which I will do. But it wasn't the post I remembered and it didn't really address EI. In his examples, the closest I could see was a "Chile (excluding Easter Island)" (from memory) reference.

I did find an older (2013) post on TravelCodex about Amol using Avios with stop-overs galore, including EI. However, the info is pretty dated and I can't find evidence that the LIM->IPC direct flight he used still exists. THAT could prove to be very advantageous. If only it were still true (haven't given up yet). I have 144k Avios available.

http://www.travelcodex.com/2013/03/adios-avios-easter-island/

What I remember, and this may be faulty, is a woman blogger on BoardingArea doing the post. I swear I saved the link in my "resources" area, but any way I look ... nadda.

Someone has to have done this more recently ... on AA, AS or BA miles? Will search around more this evening.

 

[knick1959]

So I'm screwing around at work when I shouldn't be. I'll get serious in a second, but I did a more aggressive google search. Has anyone ever seen this before? It's an award "suggestion" search tool, and if it's correct, I have many options. Interestingly, the example they use to show how the tool works is the exact route I'm looking for (which is why google found it). This has value way beyond my search, if it is accurate. I suppose I owe an exploratory call into a BA, AS and AA.

http://milez.biz/en/list_rates.php

 

[SanDiego1K]

Alaska miles allow stopovers so are good for South American trips on LATAM. If you use AA miles and book the outbound without a stop in Santiago, you can do it as a one way award. Then you can use Avios or AA, as you like, for your return to SCL. And then you need a separate ticket onward. I've not looked at IPC flights for years so have no sense of award availability. I know that when I went, there were not daily flights. You have to decide how many days you want on the ground within the constraints of flight days. It's a very weird feeling when the plane that brought you in takes off, leaving you isolated from the rest of the world for 2 or 3 days til a plane returns.

I used flights.google.com and found no nonstop flight from LIM to IPC.

 

[italdesign]

some AW (the second word is wipe) physician's office filed a collection claim for $86 that was bogus. We're still trying to clear this up, but her credit score on CK shows just above 700 ... lowest it's ever been, down from 770-780.

FWIW a relative had a collection for $1k recently. Ignored it and got approved for many cards as usual.

 

[dukerau]

Is this the blog post you're referencing?

http://www.milevalue.com/lan-award-flights-easter-island-tahiti/

LAN serves IPC from SCL daily or from PPT weekly. Since IPC is in the South Pacific in AA's region definitions, it's not any more costly to go via PPT. However, I think PPT-IPC runs on Tuesdays and IPC-PPT is on Mondays so you're looking at 6 days on Easter Island with that method. Not sure if you want that. You could also do a circle trip (xxx-LAX-PPT-IPC//IPC-SCL-xxx), but I think that will be the most expensive since you'd pay 80k for the first leg, 82.5k for IPC-SCL (this is the unreasonable price, IMO), then 60k for SCL back home, so 242.5k per person if all in J. Doing round trip to IPC via PPT would be "just" 160k in J.

ETA: on second thought, you could use BA Avios for the IPC-SCL segment. Just 37.5k BA for J. That puts you at 177.5k total, which isn't much more than doing both ways via PPT. Availability would probably determine it for me, unless you want to go to Chile.

 

[smittytabb]

To be honest, it's not that long a flight from SCL. I flew coach and got the bulkhead and it was not all that bad. Save your miles and fly coach.

 

[knick1959]

Is this the blog post you're referencing?

http://www.milevalue.com/lan-award-flights-easter-island-tahiti/

That's not the post I was remembering, but I think I've got enough info now between what I've found and the links here. Telling are the comments on the blog post you reference ... folks had no luck (in 2015) finding award space via BA's website.

Based on some random reading, the plan was to spend 3 days on the island. I'd even like to scheme leaving late on the third day, but with 1 flight a day ... yeah, not going to work. The back flight leaves at 2:25pm, so a day to get there (I see a flight that lands at 12:35 pm; if so, that would leave a decent amount of time on arrival day) and a day back. Anyway ...

The Tahiti side trip sounds interesting, but it isn't going to fit into my 9-11 day time frame. Santiago and surrounding area is on the list. Which is why a LIM->IPC->SCL dodge sounds interesting; I believe SCL trips route through LIM anyway, so would save some time. We'll see what it looks like when I'm ready, but I won't hold my breath.

Cash prices are $450RT in coach and $920 in Biz. If I were to get a LAN card, there is some type of 20% discount on up to $1k, so that might be helpful.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[knick1959]

I used flights.google.com and found no nonstop flight from LIM to IPC.

Thanks for checking. I'll keep watching and researching.

 

[knick1959]

To be honest, it's not that long a flight from SCL. I flew coach and got the bulkhead and it was not all that bad. Save your miles and fly coach.

Yeah, it wouldn't be terrible. Still, we took a similar RT flight to American Samoa not long ago where coach was all we really could afford (not even sure they had business; it was a HUGE plane tho). The seating was something like 2-5-2 on both legs and I was able to get 2 outsides both ways. Flight home was an overnight, and while we slept, it was NOT really comfortable. This was 5+ hours too. We survived, and would do it again (and for IPC) ... unless I could find biz awards that made sense!

 

[knick1959]

http://milez.biz/en/list_rates.php

Sorry, but I was pretty amazed by this link. Has anyone else taken a look? I'll spend more time with it, but it seems like a pretty handy award cost ranking tool.

 

[pointsaholic]

Sorry, but I was pretty amazed by this link. Has anyone else taken a look? I'll spend more time with it, but it seems like a pretty handy award cost ranking tool.

Looks like a very useful tool. Thanks for sharing!

 

[smittytabb]

Thanks for checking. I'll keep watching and researching.

There used to be a Lima flight. They stopped it a couple years ago. Santiago flights don't route through Lima generally.

 

[Vins68]

I am looking for a similar trip too. all the info her has been useful. have only AA miles though.
when you finalize your trip, can you post the details so it would be helpful to others? thanks.

 

[knick1959]

There used to be a Lima flight. They stopped it a couple years ago. Santiago flights don't route through Lima generally.

I've emailed via their web contact form asking about this.

 

[knick1959]

I am looking for a similar trip too. all the info her has been useful. have only AA miles though.
when you finalize your trip, can you post the details so it would be helpful to others? thanks.

Will do. I also create pretty detailed trip reports about all of my trips; these for my own personal use (so family can see and so my wife and I can reminisce over all the details years from now). I've shared some past trips via PM with specific people, but I don't want to post in unprotected areas here and have my lowly personal web server beat up by google hawks. So it would be nice to have an area for this that is a non-searchable to the outside world. @Matt? Anyway to do this now? Share a personal link with anyone on Saverocity (even guests, I suppose, but mostly members) while keeping it away from the robots?

 

[smittytabb]

I've emailed via their web contact form asking about this.

Trust me. It's gone. They only did the LIM-IPC a few years and then eliminated it.

 

[Matt]

Will do. I also create pretty detailed trip reports about all of my trips; these for my own personal use (so family can see and so my wife and I can reminisce over all the details years from now). I've shared some past trips via PM with specific people, but I don't want to post in unprotected areas here and have my lowly personal web server beat up by google hawks. So it would be nice to have an area for this that is a non-searchable to the outside world. @Matt? Anyway to do this now? Share a personal link with anyone on Saver (even guests, I suppose, but mostly members) while keeping it away from the robots?

Well I would imagine L2 should be immune? You could post a link in Off Topic area there? I could build a subforum, but if it is just a one off thing then maybe that?

 

[knick1959]

Well I would imagine L2 should be immune? You could post a link in Off Topic area there? I could build a subforum, but if it is just a one off thing then maybe that?

That was my original thought, but then if I reference it in this open forum, for example, many L1 people will be pissed at me since they can't get to it. I'm proposing an area that can be shared with ALL members but not indexed by the search engines. No big deal, just an idea.

 

[knick1959]

Trust me. It's gone. They only did the LIM-IPC a few years and then eliminated it.

I didn't realize you were saying it was gone for good. 2 external articles I read claimed it was seasonal and availability was opened on some non-standard schedule. I'll go back to plan A which isn't a big deal since Plan B was recent and I wasn't counting on it ... only hopeful.

 

[FlyerMarc]

I used AA mile 2 years ago to fly in first, I think it was like 100K which was a rip off but it was the only availability around Xmas, luckily it was around the time when AA were handing out executive platinum to everyone. You can also use LAN (LATAM) from starwood which has a good bonus of 1:1.5. I think the flight was around 6 hours, so being up front helped a bit, but would have gladly taken coach if it was an option at the time.

Throwing out another possible article you may have been referring to: http://themilesprofessor.com/2014/06/16/easter-island-us-airways-award/

 

[knick1959]

Throwing out another possible article you may have been referring to: http://themilesprofessor.com/2014/06/16/easter-island-us-airways-award/

That's it! That's the one I was trying to find. Not sure if it adds any info to what I've collected already, but I'll read it (and save it off somewhere). Thanks!

Edit: although now that I see it, this info is dated and mostly obsolete (US Airways miles? What are those??!!) That's ok, the mystery has been solved and plenty of other info accumulated here. Thanks again!

 

[FlyerMarc]

Edit: although now that I see it, this info is dated and mostly obsolete (US Airways miles? What are those??!!) That's ok, the mystery has been solved and plenty of other info accumulated here. Thanks again!

Yeah, American Explorer award doesn't exist either which she mentions in one of her posts Still a bit helpful though

 

[smittytabb]

I didn't realize you were saying it was gone for good. 2 external articles I read claimed it was seasonal and availability was opened on some non-standard schedule. I'll go back to plan A which isn't a big deal since Plan B was recent and I wasn't counting on it ... only hopeful.

Things get outdated pretty quickly and only some bloggers update their posts when things change and no longer work, so unfortunately there is a good bit of misleading information out there.

 

[knick1959]

this plan depends on each of us getting a LAN card from US Bank that will start us at about 50km. A transfer of 20k each from SPG = 25k * 1.5 is another 37.5km. We're within striking distance where more SPG points or MS on the LAN card will make up the rest. I've had this card before "almost" 2 years since I canceled and I do not know how US Bank takes to second apps. My wife would normally be easy, but some AW (the second word is wipe) physician's office filed a collection claim for $86 that was bogus. We're still trying to clear this up, but her credit score on CK shows just above 700 ... lowest it's ever been, down from 770-780.

Anyone ever applied for and succeeded in getting a US Bank card after canceling the first? Or better, 2 of the same at the same time??

I almost decided to pass on a try for these cards but even if I leverage the flights to EI on some else's points, I figured that LAN km will make a good backup, if nothing else. Besides, my applications have tapered off somewhat as of late, so why not? So I applied under the 30k miles offer on 7/20. The phone system confirms that I am approved today (forgot to check yesterday). I'll assume this includes the bonus. My previous LAN card was acquired 7/2014 and canceled 5/2015. As inferred, it wasn't an automatic approval ... it went pending until now.

So, with the mildly increased offer ending 7/31 I went ahead and applied for my wife. Approved! I should have both cards in-hand 7-10 days. We should be all set for a coach RT if that's what we decide to do.

Also, I did not follow DoC's advise and freeze those obscure credit reports that he says US Bank likes to fetch.

I mentioned the option of transferring some SPG points to add another large chunk of KM. Has anyone done this before? Did they transfer faster than my last attempt? . For the Galapagos trip, I needed a small handful of points to transfer over to get the RT for 2 in coach as an award. 6 weeks later and many SMs to Starwood and they finally showed up. I was now still short, as the flight we wanted had nudged up, so I had to BUY LAN points to get them. It wasn't terrible, but it was stressful. Complaining to SPG got me a measly 500 Starpoints as compensation. Recently found an FT thread that makes it sound like my experience was FAST for LAN transfers. If I decide to do this, I'll initiate way early.

 

[heavenlyjane]

Hey, if you can get yourself to Easter Island by mid-2017, here's an auction for 3 nights at one of the island hotels: www.charitybuzz.com/catalog_items/3-night-stay-at-hotel-hangaroa-village-spa-on-easter-1125007. This auction ends in 6 days.