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LAN Airlines is releasing seven flat bed Business Class award seats per flight for most flights from Washington-Dulles to Lima for the next 11 months.
LAN launches the new route on May 2, 2016 flying Sundays, Monday, and Thursdays in both directions.
- Lima to Washington-Dulles departing 9:00 AM arriving 5:50 PM (LA2800)
- Washington-Dulles to Lima departing 11:30 PM arriving 6:20 AM the next day (LA2801)
There are seven Business Class seats and seven economy award seats you can book with American Airlines miles on nearly every flight from May 2, 2016 through late March 2017. Business Class is only 30,000 miles one way from the United States to Northern South America, including anywhere in Peru.
Peru is one of my favorite countries with a mega-city, Amazon Rainforest, Lake Titicaca, dessert, and beaches plus amazing food and culture. See my Peru Top Ten.
The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® comes with 50,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months and Admirals Club lounge membership.
Just meeting its spending requirement gets you 55,000 miles, just shy of the 60,000 needed for a roundtrip in Business Class to Peru.
Product
The new route will feature a LAN 767. Here is a video review of the flat bed Business Class.
It is not the world’s nicest product, but realistically you cannot do much better on a flight under eight hours to South America.
Searching for Award Space
LAN award space does not appear on aa.com. You need to search it on ba.com. Here’s how. When you do, you will be ecstatic to see seven Business Class and seven economy seats on most flights…
…in both directions.
Connections
If you don’t live near Washington DC, you can still take advantage of this space. You can tack on domestic economy or First Class MileSAAver award space onto these international flights for zero extra miles. (You cannot add domestic AAnytime space to the itinerary.) Search for the award space on aa.com and note the date, cabin, and flight number.
Unfortunately American and its partner Alaska don’t have many flights into Dulles where the flights to Peru departs.
They have a lot more flights into Washington-National (DCA). You can add these to the award for zero extra miles though you will be on your own to get between the two airports.
This space works perfectly for connections within Peru, landing early morning in Lima in time to catch connections and leaving Peru mid-morning, giving time to make connections heading home.
I’d recommend flying an open jaw roundtrip to see more of the region without backtracking. Here are the possible connections in Peru and Ecuador from Lima. Within Peru, get between cities with Avios or cash.
You can search for award space from Washington all the way to any of these destinations on ba.com. Note the dates, cabins, and flights numbers of all flights you find that you want to book.
Booking the Award
To book the award, you must call American Airlines at 800-882-8880. The phone fee should be waived, since you couldn’t book online, and make sure that it is.
Each way in economy is 20,000 American Airlines miles. Each way in Business Class is 30,000 American Airlines miles. You can mix-and-match cabins. Taxes are about $75 roundtrip to Peru, and there are no fees or fuel surcharges.
Pay the taxes with your Citi Prestige® Card.
The Citi Prestige® Card offers a $250 Air Travel Credit each calendar year that offsets your first $250 in spending on airlines with the card. Taxes on an award ticket definitely count.
The card also comes with 40,000 bonus ThankYou Points after spending $4,000 in the first three months, which can be transferred to 13 types of airline miles or used like cash toward the purchase of any ticket.
Getting the Miles
The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® comes with 60,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months and Admirals Club lounge membership.
Just meeting its spending requirement gets you 65,000 miles, enough for a roundtrip in Business Class to Peru.
Bottom Line
Book your 2016 or 2017 trip to Peru with fantastic flat bed LAN Business Class award space, using American Airlines miles right now. LAN is usually rather stingy with award space, so snap this up before it disappears.
Key Link:
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
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I only see space on BA for the spring. Did you actually see the space in Sept and Oct? I cannot see it.
You are right that the September space has dried up. I see some through Miami then.
Thanks for the heads up, just booked 2 tickets for late May. Looks like it’ll be a great time of year to do the Inca trail. Glad I was able to burn another 120k AA miles before the deval… Looking to book a couple CX F trips as well.
Awesome award and awesome vacation. Double win for you!
I know this is an older post, but I’m not seeing ANY Lan award space showing up on BA anymore for ANY Lan routes – I know the old rule was 330 -331 days out, but now there’s nothing – Any tips???
I see some space on some routes (like CUZ-LIM), so I know that space can be shown on ba.com, but basically none on longhauls.
I see tons of space on LAN on the BA site for the dates I’m interested in but when I call to book via Alaska Miles they say they only have 1 seat available.