(EXPIRED) Nice Business Class fares to South America

This morning, First Class Flyer reported a good business class fare from Canada to South America. In researching that, I’ve found some great fares out of New York and nice deals out of Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, and other cities to many cities in northern South America, with the best prices available on Avianca and Copa, (and with American and Delta competing on some routes as well). This one is a little tricky — the Copa flights are widely bookable online as shown on Google Flights. The Avianca flights are not all bookable at the prices shown on Google Flights through any of the major OTAs, but you can find many of those flights (for a bit more than shown on Google Flights) through Momondo. Great prices are available through peak summer dates to the end of the schedule.

Unfortunately, these flights do not show up in the Chase or Amex travel portals, so you likely will not be able to pay with points. That said, these paid business class fares can earn 125-150% mileage credit in some programs, making them potentially useful towards earning status and some redeemable miles.

Here’s a map showing some of the low fares I saw through Google Flights — these are round trip from New York City in July (though note that most of these low prices are on Avianca and they actually cost a bit more than shown):

However, some great fares are available. For example, you can fly round trip from New York to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia for $851 round trip, bookable via OTAs like Orbitz:

If you’re looking to fly on Avianca, you can get round trip to Quito from $921 with one-stop through Monondo:

Or if you’re looking to add segments/mileage, you can do 2 stops on the way there with an overnight in Lima, it can be booked from $689:

Or fly go Bogotá for as little as $758 round trip in business class with a nonstop on the way out and 2 stops on the way home, bookable via major OTAs like Orbitz:

Other Cities

It’s not just New York that has decent fares. For example, you can fly from Chicago to Quito for $1,077 round trip on Copa. Unfortunately, these will be recliner seats, but they are available via most OTAs like Expedia:

Starting in Vancouver is hundreds cheaper than starting in Seattle. I found some really strange mixed itineraries like this one, bookable on United.com for $1019 round trip and including legs on WestJet (all economy class), American, and United.

And yes, that itinerary really does show up on United.com, albeit with a warning that it might not work:

San Francisco to Bogotá is available from $1293, which isn’t bad considering the fact that you can earn somewhere between 9,000-11,000 redeemable miles on the fare depending on where you credit it:

Or fly to Medellín or Calí for about the same price (click those city names to go to Expedia).

Bottom line

There is a lot of phantom space when looking via Google Flights, but it can be a good starting point for finding city pairs. See our guide to How to find great business class fares using Google Flights for more info on using this powerful tool to find good deals.

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