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We booked our trip to Chile and Argentina using Delta SkyMiles which worked out fine for the flights to/from the US but making the best use of our miles intra-Argentina required some research.
We’ll start with a quick recap from our post on booking the itinerary (Delta SkyMiles to Argentina: How to book Aerolineas Argentinas Award Space). If you want to get from the U.S. to Argentina (and you’re using Delta SkyMiles, KLM/Air France Flying Blue points or other SkyTeam currency), you’ll have the following choices for the long-haul flights:
Aerolineas Argentinas: 1x daily from New York-JFK to Buenos Aires-EZE Aerolineas Argentinas: 2x daily from Miami-MIA [...]My sister was studying abroad in Argentina this past semester, so McCown and I planned a trip to go and visit her. We both had a decent stockpile of Delta SkyMiles and, with the impending changes to the 2015 SkyMiles program, I really wanted to burn all of the miles that we had in the event that Delta renders them all but worthless next year.
By using Delta Skymiles, we were able to take advantage of their routing rules to have 1 free stopover and 1 free open-jaw. It looked like this:
Depart Charleston-CHS, fly to Atlanta-ATL to connect to Delta 147 from ATL to Santiago, Chile-SCL. This was the beginning of our open-jaw. After 2 nights in Santiago, we purchased [...]You’d think that this was a cut and dry topic, but it’s far from it. What flights should count? Non-stop only? Contiguous countries? Territories and dependencies (they do often have the same currency and government as their mother country)?? As a result we’ve had to categorize the list a bit. We’ll start with a little background: the IATA (International Air Transport Association) defines “domestic” as two places with the same ISO country code. Contrary to the IATA definition, however, the regular passenger considers domestic flights as those where they do not need to pass immigration on departure and arrival.
Longest non-stop domestic [...]In an interesting conflict of interest, I received an upgrade for which I had mixed feelings of “this is awesome, finally!” and “damnit Delta, why are you trying screw me?!” Delta (generally) has a policy of either upgrading all parties in a reservation or none. For example, if you’re a Gold Medallion traveling with a no-status “civilian,” the weakest link in the reservation will decide your position on the upgrade list. Examples:
Diamond + Silver = All considered Silver Silver + no-status = Very last in line Diamond + Gold + Silver = All considered SilverEasy enough, right? Rule of thumb: Delta uses a “weakest link” scenario when it comes to [...]
We woke up early Sunday to be at the Roraima offices/Residence Inn hotel by 7:15am–the departure point for the tour. Meanwhile, the vans were out collecting our fellow tour-goers from the other Roraima property: Duke Lodge. Transport appeared to be free if you’re staying at one of their properties. To everyone else, including us, you get a giant “screw you” and are told to arrange your own transportation. No big deal, though.
By 8am, all 12 of us were there and we piled onto a bus and started on our 48 min ride to the dock.
Arriving to the dock around 9am, the sun was still rising, the air crisp, fresh and cool with a perfectly still and calm [...]
With 5 minutes left to go on the flight, the pilots had made the descent and we were nearing the Falls. Having done this a time or 2, they came in at a great angle to view the Falls over the left wing then circled to give the right side some love. It’s a pretty awesome vantage point–I mean, I was super tempted to go on the grueling 5-day hike over land but this view really solidified my decision to take the lazy way out.
We circle around and the plane entered the traffic pattern as we set our sites on the runway (which, to my surprise, was paved).
Looks like the 1st flight made it safely:
Our plane was a little dated, but she [...]
Small planes scare many people in the US where we have fairly strict regulation of both aircraft and airspace. It can be assumed that, in non-developed nations, these things fall to the back burner and Guyana is no exception – although it is improving.
Thus, it was important to us to pick a tour operator that had an aircraft that would take us further than the scene of the crash. When researching from afar, it’s hard to know exactly what you’re dealing with, so hopefully our experience can help.
Out of all the flight operators, Air Services Limited has one of the more impressive websites showing off their fleet and large crew, [...]
Here’s something you need to know: the difference between tour agents and tour operators.
Guyana is no stranger to the tourism agency. Although, compared to other countries, it has a long way to go tourism-wise, there are still plenty of Guyanese trying to get a piece of those highly valued $, £, and €. So, to state what shouldn’t need to be said for the sake of being thorough:
A tour operator: owns the boats, planes, boats etc. and employs the guides. They have their own offices and market tours themselves. A tour agent: books you on an aforementioned tour and tacks on a hefty commission. In Guyana, it will likely be unclear what you’re booking [...]“Welcome to Guyana!”
We stepped off the plane and into the nice, warm and muggy air that we have come to know and love growing up in the Southeastern US.
No official gates here, just jump off and walk up
Making our way into the terminal, we were greeted by about a 60+ min wait to reach customs & immigration.
Before we left for Guyana, we did some brief research about the safety of the country and learned that they still have major problems with trafficking cocaine (exports, mainly). That said, I love the [...]
