BOOKED: An Open-Ended Latin America Review Trip

While I took a bit of a break from review trips over the summer (it’s just too hard to plan crazy routings in summer, given how limited award availability is), I’m getting ready to embark on my latest review trip. I wanted to share the initial details of what I have planned. While I’ll be departing on this trip shortly, I actually don’t have the journey fully mapped out. Let me explain…

I’m heading south for my upcoming review trip

Typically when I embark on review trips, I review airlines in Asia (including the Middle East) and Europe. I review the former since they’re typically among the best airlines in the world, while I review the latter because Europe is probably the most popular “aspirational” destination people want to redeem their miles to.

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However, for this trip I’m headed in a different direction. I live in Miami, which is basically Latin America for all practical purposes. Yet I often don’t review the airlines that head south from here. That’s going to be changing, though my planning isn’t done. Let me share what I have planned so far, in chronological order…

LATAM “new” 787 business class

LATAM is generally regarded as South America’s best global airline. While I’ve reviewed LATAM’s 767 business class, I haven’t reviewed the carrier’s new business class on the 787. So I booked a flight from Miami to Santiago in LATAM’s 787-9 business class, and my flight is scheduled to be operated by an aircraft with the new cabins.

For what it’s worth, I booked this ticket with British Airways Avios. I’ll write a separate post about the state of redeeming miles & points for LATAM business class nowadays, given the carrier’s awkward position in the market. I’m looking forward to seeing what LATAM’s long haul service is like nowadays, and how these seats are holding up on the 787.

Delta One A350 business class

I’ve been trying to do more reviews of US airlines on long haul flights, since I figure those kinds of reviews are useful. For example, I’ve done recent reviews of American’s Flagship business class and United’s Polaris business class. It has been some time since I’ve flown Delta One, the name of the carrier’s premium business class product.

I noticed that Delta is flying the A350-900 with Delta One Suites on select days from Santiago to Atlanta (other days it’s the carrier’s inferior A350 business class). As you’d expect, the price using Delta SkyMiles is exorbitant, as the airline was charging 495,000 miles one-way (before the 15% cardmember discount).

That being said, if you fly exactly the same flight, but connect from Atlanta to Mexico, the price magically drops to just 65,800 miles one-way (including the 15% cardmember discount).

I figured that was a pretty good deal, so I’m excited to once again check out Delta’s best business class product. I’m also looking forward to visiting the LATAM Lounge Santiago, as well as the Amex Centurion Lounge Atlanta, as I haven’t visited either of those, but have heard good things.

I’m still figuring out where to go from Mexico

Often when I plan these review trips, I get in my own way. I only end up booking them if they’re “perfect” in terms of maximizing miles & points, as well as time, and then often I end up not taking one at all. In this case, I’ve booked the trip as far as Mexico City, and my goal is to then continue to somewhere interesting from there.

Ideally I hope to continue the review trip from Mexico City, with a couple more long haul flights. However, if I can’t make that work, then I’ll return to Miami, will briefly regroup, and will then do another quick trip, and will make it all one big review series.

What products am I realistically hoping to fly?

• I am absolutely desperate to fly Boliviana de Aviacion’s A330 between Miami and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and that’s pretty readily available last minute for a reasonable fare; the only challenge is making this part of a larger trip, so I’m thinking of flying from Santa Cruz de la Sierra to Sao Paulo in GOL’s 737 MAX premium economy
• I also really want to review Aeromexico’s Boeing 787-9 business class and Boeing 737 MAX business class, so I’m hoping some availability opens up there, so that I can book that (it seems to frequently open up a day or two out)
• Alternatively, I might add in another trip on Delta, flying the Boeing 767 or Airbus A330, and hopefully I can include New York on that routing, so I can visit the Delta One Lounge JFK
• I’m not opposed to quickly hopping over to Europe on Iberia’s A350 or Air Europa’s Boeing 787-9, but I’m not seeing much there that’s available.

I’m of course open to other ideas as well, but there either need to be reasonable premium fares, or award availability needs to be decent.

Bottom line

I’lll shortly be embarking on my next review trip, which I planned at the last minute. I’ll definitely be flying LATAM’s 787 business class and Delta’s A350 business class, though my plan is to hop around a bit more, and review some other products as well. It’s not often I leave home without knowing the full details of my trip, but this will be one of those situations. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

Any predictions for how these flights will go?