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Thrifty Traveler Premium is reporting some amazing airfares to Lima, Peru, starting as low as $213 “round trip”. I put that in quotation marks because these are actually open jaw itineraries ending in Montreal or Toronto, Canada (it kind of builds on a fare first reported in this Flyertalk thread). You’ll therefore either need to book a positioning flight back home from Canada or you may be able to get off in Atlanta and miss that last leg to Montreal (though if you choose to skip the leg, keep in mind that it is inadvisable to check bags and I’ll add a couple of others cautions below). Its going to take a bit of work to find the best fares for this one, and it may already be dying a quick death, but with some effort maybe you can get a really cheap trip to South America.
The Deal
- Cheap flights on Delta from many cities to Lima, Peru when you end your trip in Montreal, Canada
- Direct link to search Google Flights (this will take some effort, see below)
Quick Thoughts
First up, I’d suggest not making nonrefundable plans based on this fare for at least a week or two to be sure that Delta intends to honor it. Second, I’m having some trouble replicating the cheapest fares on my first searches. However, I expect that this deal will die within hours. Rather than waste time looking for the perfect examples, I wanted to alert those readers who would like to hunt for the deal.
Speaking of hunting for it, you’ll need to do just that at Google Flights. Use the multi-city tool and put in your origin city to Lima and then Lima to YUL (Montreal). You’ll just have to try trial and error on the dates, but Thrifty Traveler reports availability on select dates from September to December. The cheapest $213 prices are found out of Chicago (though the lowest I’m seeing on most dates I try is $238). Once you find low prices, you’ll need to book directly with Delta. I took a couple of those $238 dates and popped them in at Delta.com and got $270, so YmMV as to what you’ll find.
Some cities listed under $300 include Austin, Boston, Atlanta, Oakland, Orlando, Miami, Sacramento, and more (not an exhaustive list), so it’s worth taking a few minutes to hunt from your city if you’re interested in this one.
The return flight on the itineraries I checked stops in Atlanta on the way to Canada. It may therefore be possible to get off in Atlanta and find your way back to your origin city. Keep in mind that this practice, often referred to as “skiplagging” or “hidden city ticketing” is frowned upon by the airlines. If you’re going to make a habit out of doing that, some would suggest leaving out your frequent flyer number. You are also better off not checking bags. While you may be required to pick up your bags when transiting Atlanta (I’m not sure about this), I’d be wary of some sort of irregular operations and/or a lost bag that ends up making its way to Canada without you. Best to travel carry-on only when engaging in hidden city shenanigans.
Overall, a decent deal if you can get it. Best of luck to those who go on the hunt.
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Not sure what’s left tonight, but secretflying.com seems to have the best coverage of this deal, and there’s a helpful comment in there, too. This is obviously a great airfare, but what I think is diminishing the interest is the fact that you have to return to either Atlanta or Canada. This isn’t necessarily the case if you look hard at the available return flights. You’re basically looking for a two stop flight back from South America that stops first in Atlanta and then someplace else in the USA that is close to where you started. The roundtrip fares actually start at $182, which is almost all tax, so this is an excellent deal if you want to go and can find seats.
I’ve always been curious about the “don’t check a bag if skipping the last leg” advice, when one is transiting the USA. Since *EVERYONE* has to clear customs in the USA, all bags are delivered to the passengers and must be claimed at the USA point of entry. It seems like you just wouldn’t recheck them to your final destination after clearing customs. What am I missing?
The possibility that your bag gets lost — say it never makes it on the plane in Lima. Delta is going to transport it to Montreal the next day and you’re not going to be there to get it. In this specific case, that’s probably the biggest risk. But the advice is generally given because you could always have some sort of IRROPS situation where you end up routed a different way or even perhaps on a different carrier and you end up separated from your bags.
Admittedly, the risk here is relatively small, so you may opt to just go ahead check your bags. But if I did that, I’d do that accepting the fact that I’d have to drop back 10 yards and punt if things went wrong.
Thrifty Traveler stole this deal from Scott’s Cheap Flights. Why are you giving them credit?
I always credit the place where I saw deal first. I got an email from Thrifty Traveler and that’s how I knew about this, so that’s where I gave credit. I wasn’t aware of anyone else having published it. On Quick Deals, we don’t typically scour the internet looking to see if anyone else has published it yet as the purpose of a quick deal is to publish it quickly so that people can take advantage of it. I always credit the source where I first saw the deal. If you have a source that you think should be credited, you’re certainly always welcome to reach out with a link.
I’m subscribed to both and I assumed you would be as well. 98% of deals I see on TT were first sent on Scott’s a few hours earlier.
I’m not — I hadn’t really considered subscribing to multiple flight alert services. TT reached out long ago about sending us deal alerts that we could share with readers. Sounded like a win for folks who read Frequent Miler, so when I receive an email from them with a good deal alert, I sometimes pass it on to readers here. Having met the TT team several times, I’d be really surprised if their business model was to subscribe to another site’s alerts and simply re-publish their deals, but interesting to hear of your experience with it.
I’ve been on both for about 10 months. Just about every time there’s a really good deal like this one to Lima, Scott’s emails me about it first and then I get an alert from TT an hour or two later with no credit.
You should compare them both for yourself rather than taking TT’s word for it! I’ve never met TT or the team, I’m sure they’re good guys. I just feel like credit should go to whoever finds a deal first rather than when another site reposts it (like Secret Flying does with every deal the “find”).
I’ve been signed up for both as well and Scott’s really is head and shoulders better. My own $0.02 anyway!