Here are the prices for the One World Visit South America Airpass

[sammy]

This information is so difficult to get - now that I have it, I thought I would share (otherwise it's a long and tedious wait for qantas to answer the phone followed by long delays while they seek out the details)

Note: The term Airpass is a misnomer. These are actually a set of distance driven airfares available to those flying into and out of South America with a One World airline.


Miles. ...........US$ (+taxes and charges)
01-560 ..........153
561-750 ........168
751-1280.... ....251
1281-1810 .....285
1811-2300 .....390
2301-3500 .....480

These fares are little used because nobody really knows about them and they are not listed online anywhere that I could find. Naturally, research your own particular dates, but they can be good value for money.

Under the last category, I plan to fly from Santiago to Easter Island return for US$960 + tax which is a great deal.

Flights must be purchased before flying in to South America.

 

[RooFlyer]

Thanks for posting this. Yes, very hard to get the info!

For my up-coming trip around South America, strangely, regular sector-by-sector pricing on LAN as booked by my TA was cheaper than the 'Airpass' pricing. Not by much though; I'm doing a lot of relatively short legs which I think made the difference.

These were the prices I got last September:

Zone 1 $153
Zone 2 $168
Zone 3 $251
Zone 4 $285
Zone 5 $390
Zone 6 $480

Unchanged!!! :shock: Must be a bargain now.

 

[sammy]

Interesting, Rooflyer.
I have also found internal flights available for less. Peak season seems to vary with area. I'm going in January which is off season for Machu Pichu but high for Ushaia (departure port for Anarctica)

 

[docjames]

The airpass fares used to have a restriction on airfare category for the inbound flight eg. In our case flying in on a ff redemption made us "ineligible".

I don't know if that's the same for these fares?

 

[sammy]

We are flying to Santiago return using Qantas ff points. Qantas have confirmed that we can still use OW visit SA pass even though we didn't actually purchase our flights to/from SA. (I did ask particularly)
Mind you, I haven't actually bought any segments yet

 

[Mattg]

This is really good info. How does one book one of these? With Qantas or LAN/TAM? Only through a travel agent?

I also presume there is some sort of requirement to be flying into and out of South America on oneworld. This was the case when I researched the possibility of purchasing a LAN/TAM Airpass a few years ago. (These Airpasses have since been discontinued.)

 

[sammy]

You book direct with any OW carrier (by phone) I would object to Qantas charging me a booking fee for this because they offer no other choice.

LAN has the LATAM pass, but it can no longer be booked directly, it needs to be booked through a (specially trained!) TA according to their website, and the prices are a mystery.

However, I have booked my Antarctica expedition through a SA specialist TA (Chimu) so may ask them about LATAM if I can be bothered. it all sounds a bit too hard.

To make things even more confusing, the LAN ff programme is called LAN pass.

 

[RooFlyer]

The LATAM pass is useless to enquire about, in my limited experience. If you call LAN 'Australia', you get through to somewhere in Sth America (I think) and the 3 times I tried it, always a bad line and always an agent with relatively poor command of English. My TA also enquired but couldn't get any sense.

IIRC it still exists on the LAN USA site.

 

[Lynette Estelle Pollard]

I am going on a cruise on 26th March, 2016 which begins in Buenos Aires and ends on 9th April in Valparaiso/Santiago. I am mainly interested in visiting Cartagena, Colombia and Cuenca, Ecuador and am wondering how best to fly to these before or after my cruise for about 4-5 days each.

I was going to add Galapagos and Easter island as well but the cost is high.

I am in Sydney so does anyone know who is best to contact for help or has any ideas?

 

[sammy]

We used Chimu Adventures. They are South American specialists. We found them useful for Patagonia and Antarctica.

However, if you just want the cheapest airfares, do you qualify to buy flights through the One World South America Airpass? (In other words, are you flying into South America on Qantas, Lan or another one world airline?)

We just booked our flights today (with Qantas, by phone) even though the operator was quite knowledgable, this took over an hour on the phone. Not to mention countless hours of research beforehand. I looked up the distances for each flight, then compared the SA Pass price to a regular online ticket purchase.

In some cases the regular fare was cheaper. Often the prices were similar. In a couple of cases, the SA pass was much much cheaper. It's a hassle, but the only way to work this out is to do the due diligence.

 

[Fifa]

I am going on a cruise on 26th March, 2016 which begins in Buenos Aires and ends on 9th April in Valparaiso/Santiago. I am mainly interested in visiting Cartagena, Colombia and Cuenca, Ecuador and am wondering how best to fly to these before or after my cruise for about 4-5 days each.

I was going to add Galapagos and Easter island as well but the cost is high.

I am in Sydney so does anyone know who is best to contact for help or has any ideas?

What a coincidence!
I am looking at the same cruise but as the price has been so high for the last 6 months or so, I am taking a punt and booking it after final payment date (75 days before sailing) and hoping prices drop. If the price doesn't fall we'll do our own thing and travel to Patagonia.

We are also walking the Inca Trail and visiting Cuba, the Galapagos (will book when we get to Quito) and Amazon in Ecuador which all involves a fair bit of flying.
My plan is to use our Avianca Lifemiles for most sectors (I already have the miles but using the current promo, business class flights are coming in just under the cost of an economy flight).

 

[smckay]

Sammy I am also cruising out of Ushuaia in Jan 2018.

Did you end up using the sa pass or was it just as easy to book flights?

Were the flights in SA generally on time and no cancellations/big delays?

 

[Mattg]

Sammy I am also cruising out of Ushuaia in Jan 2018.

Did you end up using the sa pass or was it just as easy to book flights?

Were the flights in SA generally on time and no cancellations/big delays?

I just returned from South America a few weeks ago, although I didn't purcahse one of the oneworld passes.

I would note that most flights between SCL and USH are via Buenos Aires and the total flight distance for a round-trip (SCL-EZE-USH-EZE-SCL) would be 4388 miles - more than the highest pass category.

In terms of on-time performance, almost all of my flights were a little bit late and I have had the odd cancellation too. So, I would build some extra time into connections if possible.

 

[sammy]

As mentioned above, I used a combination of tha pass and buying flights separately - whichever worked out cheaper for each flight.
we didn't experience delays greater than 15 - 20 minutes, but I met several others who did , so allow extra time.

 

[burmans]

Sorry to necropost but my daughter is flying to South America (on Qantas) in July and has started looking at internal flights.

Given these started pricing out at $1400 plus (more than the flights to/from SA) I suggested she definitely look at the One World pass. But from reading it all sounds quite difficult so thought Id ask here f anyone has any tips to make this process easy for someone who doesn't have quite the FF skills of those on this site (but is nevertheless quite able to do some basic travel planning).

 

[sammy]

It's not really so hard. Just google the distance in miles for each flight, then look up the price as per the list in post #1 (prices may have changed, but probably not by much)
if the "pass" works out cheaper for a particular flight, then purchase it by calling qantas.
Can I just remind everyone that it's not actually a "pass" (even though they call it one) it's a way of purchasing single one way flights. The poster in post#13 seems to expect to get a return flight by buying an "air pass" but would actually need to buy two.
Lets just stop calling it a pass, because that name implies you get a bunch of different flights. You only get ONE (possibly transiting somewhere. Eg Santiago - Buenos Aires - Ushuaia) Buy another to return.

 

[smckay]

They are very hard to get info on. I spent 40 minutes on the phone to a lovely QF lady who had no clue about the pass/flight purchase enabler/whatever we are calling it.
But, the same routing that was priced at $1900 USD by Latam (I got a good line and Inglish speaker finally) was quoted as $1550 USD + taxes. Now, we get static. Taxes are an unknown and can only be priced once you have bought your return flight. So, they may be cheaper flights, they may be the same.

Only good thing is for all the pain you get one ticket and flight delays become their problem not yours. I think.

I foresee many hours with multiple web browser windows open.

 

[sammy]

I just asked for the "Oneworld Visit South America Airpass" straight up. Of course the operator didn't know anything about it. After only about ten minutes on hold, I spoke to someone knew the score.
Perhaps call during office hours when there are more staff for them to call on?

 

[RooFlyer]

They are very hard to get info on. I spent 40 minutes on the phone to a lovely QF lady who had no clue about the pass/flight purchase enabler/whatever we are calling it.<snip>
I foresee many hours with multiple web browser windows open.

Absolutely not necessary. That's what Travel Agents are for. A good one (not a Flight Centre type) should either know, or have the phone number of the local LAN rep to find out. They should be able to price both the 'pass' method and manual, individual segments for you - like mine did, and arrived at the manual segments option being cheaper.

The cost shouldn't be any more expensive than buying the tickets yourself (but some TAs may charge a fee) - how much is your time worth, and getting a 'professional' answer rather than what you happen to find out through airline agents who generally don't know?

 

[sammy]

LATAM pass (only available through LAN reps) is a whole different animal to the OWVSAA (one world visit South America airpass)
The OWVSAA can't be purchased through a travel agent. Only directly from a one world airline, in your case, Qantas.