Flight from Brisbane to South America via USA

[Chelkin]

Hi all

Hoping I can get some assistance with a travel itinerary I would like to do. I am taking 3 weeks off in September and would like to do a trip to South America with a stopover in USA. I was wondering what would be the cheapest option to do this as it wouldn't be classed as a RTW ticket. I am thinking somethiing along the lines of:

Brisbane - Dallas - Bueonos Aires - Sao Paulo - Santiago (or somewhere else as I'm not too sure about Santiago, but seems easier to get to/from) - Brisbane

This is in no particular order and I'm open to suggestions of other places in South America that would be cheaper and easier to get to etc. I thought Dallas in the US as the stopover as I know Qantas have a direct flight between Dallas and Brisbane, as I want to try get direct flights wherever possible. I'm just not sure the best way to book this whether I somehow buy a return ticket to Dallas/Santiago then purchase a Oneworld Visit South America Pass and/or purchase separate ticket to Dallas? Or is there some type of half RTW ticket that can be purchased? If anyone has any experience with a similar itinerary or can give me an idea of the best way to do this itinerary and how best to book tickets would be greatly appreciated. I'm hoping this won't cost too much more than a RTW ticket in which currently I can get from $2100 with Lufthansa.

 

[MrHyde]

A OneWorld Circle Pacific trip might be suitable. Circle Pacific - oneworld

 

[k_sheep]

If you can push it forward into August, Qantas has a good sale on now, $1699 BNE to Santiago. Damn good price for South America.

 

[docjames]

We did open jaw bne-JFK and scl-bne and used points in between.

The dfw flight departs syd (as does scl flight) so either way you'll be transitting syd if taking the dfw flight outbound but if you do scl first you'll only transit syd once as the dfw flight stops in bne on the way home only.

The sale fares to scl are quite good do you could purchase scl return and then a scl-us-scl ticket and it may be cheaper than a circle pacific but it'll be more flying time.

 

[deejo77]

I agree QANTAS has great sale to SA at the moment - you could do a flight from SA to USA return if you really need to

 

[juddles]

Chelkin, welcome to the forum!

I think you need to work out where you want to go in South America. Have a look at buying two tickets, one simply a return trip to Los Angeles (heaps of options and very competitive route) with a second down with either Copa via Panama or American AAirlines via Miami. It really depends if you want to visit the southern countries (Argentina, Chile) or the northern half (Peru, Colombia, etc)

 

[GeeZed]

You can construct an open jaw fare .. that is two half return fares (of the same type) with sector fares in between ... which may or may not work out better than other alternatives

 

[Chelkin]

Hi Guys

Thanks heaps for you replies, I have looked into the open jaw ticket and this is what I have come up with:

BNE - DFW
SCL - BNE
$1859 Qantas

Inbetween this flight:

DFW - GRU (use my frequent flyer points for an AA flight)

GRU - EZE
EZE - SCL
$961 LAN ($1148 TAM)

Sounds good to me except for one problem, the flight using my frequent flyer points. I don't think I will be able to do this. I went online and this flight that I want did not come up, the only flights that were available were all first class flights and connecting flights, not the direct AA flight I wanted. I went to call Qantas but everytime I ring they state they are experiencing longer than expected delays, so will have to try call them from work. Does anyone know if this is the case? Could this flight be available to use my ff points for even though it doesn't show up online? Is there anyway around this as this flight comes up at $2000 one way! Perhaps I'll have to either look into the cost of a circle pacific fare or give up the the flight to the US. When I looked at the milage for the circle pacific fare, I come up with 22,066 miles, dam, just shy of the 22,000 fare! Do you think they would let me get away with that? I doubt it!

 

[deejo77]

Have you thought about going DFW to MIA (less then $200) then if you want to stay with OW - LAN to GRU (via LIM) for around $900 if you want cheap go with TACA airlines ($616 but could be tacky )

 

[juddles]

Hi Guys

Thanks heaps for you replies, I have looked into the open jaw ticket and this is what I have come up with:

BNE - DFW
SCL - BNE
$1859 Qantas

Inbetween this flight:

DFW - GRU (use my frequent flyer points for an AA flight)

GRU - EZE
EZE - SCL
$961 LAN ($1148 TAM)...

That costs you a total of $2820 plus whatever FF points for the DFW-GRU leg.

Just for fun I did a search of ex-LAX flights in September. You could do:
LAX-LIM
LIM-GRU
GRU-EZE
EZE-SCL
SCL-LIM
LIM-MIA
MIA-LAX
all with LAN for $1620 (2 flights are codeshares)
That would leave you with $1200 to pick up a cheap BNE-LAX return, and you would spend no points.