45K business class to South America: LATAM sweet spot via Alaska Mileage Plan

The Frequent Miler Party of 5 challenge has been plugging forward on an epic trip meant to highlight sweet spots and opportunities for those looking to travel with a group of 4 or 5 people. After Team Tokyo’s adventure wrapped up, Tim and I took over as Team San Francisco (as SFO was our starting point). Tim and I flew the entire team to two countries/cities in South America in business class for just 45,000 miles per passenger. What’s more is that all five of us really enjoyed the experience of flying on LATAM.

Sweet spot spotlight:

• The short story: Alaska Mileage Plan charges just 45,000 miles each way in business class to/from South America on LATAM (note that with the new award chart, that pricing is not guaranteed, but LATAM flights continue to price at 45K so far. Note also that Alaska offers a free stopover on a one-way award, which can make a terrific value and an exciting sweet spot given LATAM’s reach across South America.
• Miles required: 45,000 one way + ~$19 one-way departing the US (plus some additional taxes with a stopover)
• How to find awards: Search at AlaskaAir.com
• How to book awards: Book at AlaskaAir.com

More detail about why this is a great sweet spot

Alaska offers a standout value for travel to South America at just 45,000 miles one-way in business class from the US. That’s a great deal even if you’re just traveling to one destination (particularly if you’re trying to reach far stretches as we did), but the deal compounds further since you can include a stopover on a one-way award and see two destinations of the price of one.

In our case, Tim found a nonstop flight from Los Angeles, California to Santiago, Chile on a date that worked perfectly for the challenge. This is a 10.5hr flight that would cost just 45,000 points and $19 for a flat bed business class seat. (The dates below are a future example rather than being from the dates we flew).

As seen in the screen shot above, it is possible to book a nonstop flight at 5pm or one that leaves at 9:10pm and makes a stop in Lima. There is also an itinerary that connected in Lima.

In our case, we wanted the nonstop from Los Angeles to Santiago because it would arrive in Santiago early enough to get in a full day’s activities. As it turned out, our day of activities didn’t work out as planned (if you’re not familiar with why, you should be checking out our Instagram page).

But more interesting yet is that we could have continued on from Santiago to other destinations in South America. LATAM serves quite a range of destinations from Santiago.

Of course, Santiago wouldn’t have been our only option. We could have alternatively flown to Lima and enjoyed a stopover there before continuing on to one of the many destinations that LATAM serves from Lima.

As you can see, LATAM’s reach across South America gives you an exciting number of options.

We booked our itinerary with a stopover, first flying from Los Angeles to Santiago and then after about 36 hours in Santiago, we continued on to Buenos Aires. We only moved on from Santiago so quickly because this challenge is limited in time (none of us can spend an unlimited amount of time away from our loved ones). In reality, you could (and certainly should) spend more time in Santiago. As I’ve said before, the purpose of our trip isn’t to set a blueprint that you should follow but rather to provide a framework you could easily adjust as per your own preferences.

In our case, the next destination after Santiago is Buenos Aires. To read more about what we did with our first day in Santiago (and to keep up with whatever is next), you’ll want to check our Daily Update post and follow us on Instagram to see our stories and reels.

How to book the 45K LATAM business class sweet spot with a stopover

Again, while this award chart sweet spot would stand on its own for 45K miles one way, the thing that made it stand out for the purposes of our challenge was the ability to get to two different destinations on the same one-way ticket without it costing any additional miles.

Alaska allows a free stopover on a one-way award. Typically, you can only stop over in an international hub on a partner airline. Also note that Alaska will only allow one partner on an award — at most, you can fly on two airlines on a single award: one partner airline plus Alaska Airlines. As an example, you should be able to fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles on Alaska Airlines and then continue on LATAM to South America on a single award. For those following our Party of 5 challenge who would wonder why we didn’t do that, the answer is that we weren’t quite fast enough. We originally saw award space for five from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but by the time we got around to booking it, that space was gone. So, we booked the itinerary starting in LAX, hoping that saver space would eventually open up on Alaska and we could then add the first leg later. We also booked a flight from San Francisco to LAX on Southwest as a failsafe in case space never opened on the Alaska flight. It’s good that we did as that backup flight is what we ended up having to use for the challenge.

When it comes to booking your stopover itinerary, you can either:

1. Book your itinerary with a free stopover online (works in many cases)
2. Book your itinerary with a free stopover with a phone agent (works in some cases where online bookings won’t work)

Booking online can be relatively painless.

For instance, to replicate our routing from Los Angeles to Santiago and then on to Buenos Aires (but with a longer stop in Santiago), you could simply go to AlaskaAir.com and on the home page choose an “All search options”.

Then choose a “multi-city” search and enter your desired city pairs and dates. Once you hit “search”, you’ll find results like those below.

In our case, we put together the second combination you see above — Los Angeles to Santiago on LATAM flight 603 together with Santiago to Buenos Aires (AEP) a few days later on LATAM flight 425.

You might be confused by the airport code used above. Some frequent travelers are likely familiar with the main Buenos Aires International airport, which uses code EZE. However, Tim found that Buenos Aires also has a smaller airport located closer to the downtown area (we made it from the airport into the city in about 15 minutes, though you should probably budget 20ish depending on your driver and traffic conditions.)

As you can see above, that itinerary could be booked for 45,000 Alaska Airlines miles and $44 (the taxes are higher because of the stopover). You’ll also notice that all of the options shown above are mixed-cabin bookings (indicated by the little blue chair next to the business class totals). That’s because there is no business class on the flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires. The good news is that we got an exit row and the flight came with bonus awesome sunset views of the Andes Mountains as we flew over them.

We found it relatively easy to find space for 5 passengers, though not always on the nonstop.

Also keep in mind that LATAM flies from Miami, and 5 seats from Miami are also pretty easily doable.

Once again, space for 5 passengers on the nonstop flight isn’t always available, but sometimes it is.

It’s worth mentioning that right now is winter in this part of the world, which may make it more or less appealing for you. Temperatures these days have been brisk (in the high 50s or low 60s during the day). Still, whenever you want to go, this can be a good technique to leverage to get you there.

Our experience on LATAM in business class (FM team summaries)

LATAM turned out to be great. Each of us was really pleasantly surprised with LATAM for different reasons (and perhaps for different purposes). I’ll summarize the feedback from each team member as follows:

Greg: This is perfect for a daytime flight (he didn’t feel it offered enough privacy for a night time flight). There was ample leg room, the food was good, and the service was friendly.

Stephen: This was one of my top 3 business class experiences ever. The catering was so good that I enjoyed eating everything on my tray, the temperature in the cabin was comfortable for sleeping (i.e. not too hot), the mattress topper and seat were comfortable in lie-flat mode, and the blanket was the perfect thickness.

Tim: LATAM was surprisingly good. There was ample leg room and unlike many business class seats, that leg room was at a constant width rather than narrowing at the footwell (which is especially important for taller passengers like Tim).

Carrie: I loved the LATAM flight. It felt private enough (I think her point was that in lie-flat mode, your head is shielded on both sides by the seat, creating a cocoon of sorts for your head even though your body is clearly visible). The layout also made it really easy to talk to your seatmate.

Nick: I was very pleasantly surprised by LATAM business class. The seat was quite comfortable, the service from my flight attendant was very warm and friendly, and the catering was surprisingly good. I slept well despite the fact that I woke up one time to my seatmate stepping over me (in this 2-2-2 configuration, the people with window seats do not have direct aisle access). I also liked the open cabin — the lack of a wall at the entry doors made the cabin feel brighter and more welcoming, though I imagine it could be a problem if one half of the cabin or the other might disturb your sleep.

More pictures

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