Airlines

[QUOTE=Esten]Great deal. For fun I compared fares for a number of cities in March. All prices taxes and fees included. Toronto is half the price of Dallas!

Leave: Fri, Mar 13, 2009

Return: Sun, Mar 22, 2009

[b]VANCOUVER $867.00 United Airlines (2-stop)
LOS ANGELES $915.00 United Airlines (1-stop)[/b][/QUOTE]United has some crazy pricing. These two routes connect with FLT 847 from Washington to EZE. But a R/T direct flight on United from Washington to EZE is around $1100.

[QUOTE=Moore]Would it be possible to book the $511 flight from Toronto and hop on in Atlanta? It seems like you could just leave it in Atlanta on the way back (no checked bags of course)[/QUOTE]If you miss the outbound Toronto - Atlanta segnemt, the remainding segments will be canceled.

It will work if you only intend to miss the Atlanta to Toronto segment of the return trip. Checked bag would not a problem because you have to claim your bags in Atlanta anyway.

[QUOTE=Moore]Would it be possible to book the $511 flight from Toronto and hop on in Atlanta? It seems like you could just leave it in Atlanta on the way back (no checked bags of course)[/QUOTE]Sportsman is 100% correct, this is called "hidden city" ticketing, not only will they cancel the following segments but they won't give you your money back. However a flight ATL to YYZ would most likely be less than the increase in fare from ATL to EZE. Then on the way back just get off in ATL.

You can cut $300 off your ticket by booking the outbound ATL-EZE and booking the return EZE-YYZ which has a stopover in ATL. Of course this only makes sense if you don't check luggage.

Went on google and found a fair amount of discussion on "hidden city" ticketing. Airlines discouraging it in most cases, but lots of people defending their right to get off a plane on a stopover if they choose to.

I did read possibly the biggest line of corporate BS I have ever read on the American Airlines website: "Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical. It is tantamount to switching price tags to obtain a lower price on goods sold at department stores."

What BS. If the courts bought that argument then you would think the practice would be illegal. It is not switching price tags. It's buying a different product. Hardly unethical if I decide not to use the entire product.

[QUOTE=Esten]You can cut $300 off your ticket by booking the outbound ATL-EZE and booking the return EZE-YYZ which has a stopover in ATL. Of course this only makes sense if you don't check luggage.

Went on google and found a fair amount of discussion on "hidden city" ticketing. Airlines discouraging it in most cases, but lots of people defending their right to get off a plane on a stopover if they choose to.

I did read possibly the biggest line of corporate BS I have ever read on the American Airlines website: "Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical. It is tantamount to switching price tags to obtain a lower price on goods sold at department stores."

What BS. If the courts bought that argument then you would think the practice would be illegal. It is not switching price tags. It's buying a different product. Hardly unethical if I decide not to use the entire product.[/QUOTE]You can check bags on the return, when the flight arrives you will clear customs for the US.

Ethical / non-ethical I won't get involved in that. What I can tell you without doubt is that if you're busted doing it, the airline will deny you boarding on the second city and will not refund the money. How do I know this? When I worked for United I did it a few dozen times. Those people may or may not have eventually gotten their money back through customer service but they didn't fly that day.

Now you may get lucky and catch an agent who is asleep and checks you in anyway. This is doubtful because the computer drops all your rez info when you don't board the first flight and the agent would have to build you a new itinerary. To me it wouldn't be worth it as you will pay full fare to get rebooked. It is easily done on the return though.

Just received the following e-mail from Carbone Travels. Looks good!

We would like to tell you about our special fare from New York to Buenos Aires: $599 including all taxes! On round trip flights with one stop; or $668 on non-stop flights, also including all taxes.

From Miami to Argentina, Uruguay or Chile: $679 including all taxes! On non-stop flights to Buenos Aires.

To make a reservation or for more information, call us at 1-800-ARGENTINA (1-800-274-3684) or visit our webpage, [url]www.1800ARGENTINA.com[/url].

This is only an example of our promotional airfares. For airfares from other cities and to other destinations, please visit our webpage.

Bandy

But who likes to fly with Aerolina Argentina?

[quote]We would like to tell you about our special fare from New York to Buenos Aires: $599 including all taxes! On round trip flights with one stop; or $668 on non-stop flights, also including all taxes.

From Miami to Argentina, Uruguay or Chile: $679 including all taxes! On non-stop flights to Buenos Aires.

To make a reservation or for more information, call us at 1-800-ARGENTINA (1-800-274-3684) or visit our webpage, [url]www.1800ARGENTINA.com[/url].

This is only an example of our promotional airfares. For airfares from other cities and to other destinations, please visit our webpage.

Bandy[/QUOTE]

Does it matter the price if you are dealing with incompetence. These folks have just left a horrible taste in my mouth just too many times; for example:

1. When I fist started coming regularly to Argentina in 2002, I always flew Aerolinas. They lost all of my frequent flyer miles. Customer service who spoke english fluently one minute forgot the entire english language WHEN THEY LEARNED WHEN THEY LEARNED I WAS WAITING IN LINE FOR HOURS TO RETREAVE MY MISSING MILES AND THAT I KEPT COPIES OF THE BOARDING PASS STUBS. Waiting in line in Miami. Waiting in line in Buenos Aires. Nothing can be done by telephone nor email.

Air Nigeria has better customer service. I NEVER COULD RETREAVE MY MISSING MILES NOR RECEIVE MY FREE FLIGHT. I am dumb and kept flying with them. NEXT-----

2. My flight was canceled because of a strike that started hours before the cancelation. Aeolinas closed their offices at the Miami airport and had no one there to even tell their customers that the flight was cancelled. All of the passengers were 100% on their own. I was lucky and could stand by with Lan through Santiago. I ran to the Lan counter and was there first. Thank god I came to the airport three hours early. It only took 20 hours to fly Miami to BA on Lan stand-by. I was one of the lucky ones.

Aerolinas Argentinas is the worst airline going. There is zero concern nor respect for their customer. American is nothing to get excited about, but at least they are there and will make some attempt to try to understand and possibly help their customers. Lan is a much better airline.

This self serving crap about Areolinas is garbage like the entire airline.

I have flown Aerolineas Argentina a few times, to Cordoba twice and to Asuncion two or three times.

I'm pretty down on them too. I've been kept waiting in airports for planes to show up, getting anything from a shrug to a rather rude "we'll tell you when we know something" as to what the deal is with the plane. This happens a lot of the times on the trip to Asuncion because the plane comes from some other city first and they can't seem to keep a schedule.

The last time I was going to Asuncion with my wife, we were waiting (at the point of the beginning of the story, about 1 3/4 hours) for the plane to arrive from its previous stop and I noticed an American couple behind me with a couple of teenagers. Got to talking to them and learned that they had adopted the two kids (really fat and ugly - ugh! That were with them from Paraguay and were taking them back to see their "origins" (what a trip that must have been when they arrived!)

They had come from the States on Aerolineas and had some 12-hour horror story of missed connections and maintenance problems with planes, and after all that were sitting in Buenos Aires waiting for even the last leg of their trip, half dead.

We waited another hour for our plane, but it finally came.

I've waited for bags to get loaded for as long as an hour. They are usually very slow at the local airport here in BS (the name refuses to come to me as I write) but in Cordoba I've always found they do a good job getting the bags out.

[QUOTE=Miami Bob]1. When I fist started coming regularly to Argentina in 2002, I always flew Aerolinas. They lost all of my frequent flyer miles. Customer service who spoke english fluently one minute forgot the entire english language WHEN THEY LEARNED WHEN THEY LEARNED I WAS WAITING IN LINE FOR HOURS TO RETREAVE MY MISSING MILES AND THAT I KEPT COPIES OF THE BOARDING PASS STUBS. Waiting in line in Miami. Waiting in line in Buenos Aires. Nothing can be done by telephone nor email.

Air Nigeria has better customer service. I NEVER COULD RETREAVE MY MISSING MILES NOR RECEIVE MY FREE FLIGHT. I am dumb and kept flying with them. NEXT-----[/QUOTE]Hi MB,

I had exactly the same experience with them. They "lost" more than 100,000 miles of mine. I had the ticket stubs and all the other proof, and I waited in the same line you described, but all I ever got was "yes'd" off. They would always tell me that they would credit my frequent flyer account, but of course nothing ever happened.

Cocksuckers!

Thanks,

Jackson

[QUOTE=Jackson]Hi MB,

I had exactly the same experience with them. They "lost" more than 100,000 miles of mine. I had the ticket stubs and all the other proof, and I waited in the same line you described, but all I ever got was "yes'd" off. They would always tell me that they would credit my frequent flyer account, but of course nothing ever happened.

Cocksuckers!

Thanks,

Jackson[/QUOTE]Jackson,

I have flown Aerolinas fifteen times. The fact you have even flown 100,000 miles makes you a bigger daredevil than Robbie Knievel.

Travel safely; the board needs you.

Delta and American are duking it out, right now. DL has $548 (with taxes) from NYC. Lot of other fares from the East Coast. Also STL, DFW and others.

If you want to fly to AA, check out DL hubs for the best prices. Some fares available through November.

I did a quick search on Kayak, and JFK to EZE round trip was $568 on Delta. The Price has come down since I got here 2 weeks ago. I took Delta. The fare i found was from

Mon Feb. 16 2009 to Fri Mar 27 2009 for $568.

If I remember right, Jaimito uses a different service then Kayak, Which sometimes give him better results. I think it was a paid service. He told me about it, last time he was in BA.

PS

That is exactly $20 more then Jaimito price. Wonder if Kayak make 20 dollars on each ticket they get sold for the Airlines?

LAN, AA and DL all have similar prices. $429 plus taxes / fees. Some have higher taxes and such. $568 is the cheapest I see on [url]www.itasoftware.com[/url]. You can book LAN flights into January of 2010, so good if you need to plan far ahead.

Also good fares out of IAD, DFW, ATL, STL and a lot of other places.