Buying Aa Tickets For Visiting Relatives

[Patagone]

Hi all,

as my mother will be visiting this spring (November), I need to get her a ticket. She is Euopean and will come with a friend. We live in San Martin de los Andes.

It seems impossible to book a flight straight to our airport (CPC), or even Bariloche or Neuquen on sites like Kayak.com etc.
When checking the Aerolineas Argentinas site, it makes a huge difference whether I enter as a foreigner ('other countries'), or as argentinean (which I am not, but my wife is).

2 return tickets as foreigner cost USD 980
Same tickets cost AR$ 5700.

So unless somebody can get me USD for 6 pesos each, it seems better to book as Argentinean.

Question: can I (or my wife) do this? Can we book for foreigners? Or will all kinds of terrible things happen when they actually try to check in? I won't be there and as she is over 70 and does not speak any Spanish, I would prefer to make it as painless as possible..

Cheers.

 

[Tilda]

Maybe someone else has got a clearer idea, but in my opinion they will get in all sort of trouble. You won't be able to buy it since you have to provide a DNI anyway.

The price difference is there. When my family comes to visit, flying to Bariloche they tend to fly Lan. I haven't asked why but with the foreigner price the two airlines are similar and Lan seems more reliable.

I read in our local news paper, I live in Villa la Angostura, that they are lobbying various people to have the same price for San Martin as Bari. Go into aerolineas and LANs web sites directly. You will have to pay with a credit card or through Pago rapid.

As a side note, if you have permanent residency (I don't know about temporary) you get the price for Argentinians.

Just make sure that you give her plenty of time, maybe even a night, between the international and domestic flight as it is very likely that she will have to transfer from Ezeiza to Aeroparque. You may be able to avoid that with Lan, maybe...

Let me know how you get on.

 

[ghost]

Europe to Santiago then on to Bariloche??????

 

[Matiasba]

I really dont know TBH, but I think you can. When I went to Mexico this year, tickets were bought by my uncle in Mexico with my name. I did not pay the 35%.

 

[Tilda]

My parents looked in to that route and they were not convinced that it was neither cheaper nor easier.

That route involves a domestic flight to Osorno with Lan in Chile and a bus ride across the border, with two checkpoints to Bariloche (or Villa) and then another bus to San Martin. Maybe there is something direct, I don't know. If you can cross with a car to pick them up it is much easier for the traveler.

On the pro side they only have one airport in Santiago, what I know.


My parents fly to Ezeiza, then they take the Tienda Leon bus to Retiro. They drag their suitcases one block to the Sheraton hotel for one night of rest and a dinner in town. The next day they go back to the Tienda Leon station in Retiro and take the bus to Aeroparque to fly on to Bariloche, where I pick them up with my car. But if I can't I send a tourist combi to get them.

For me the most positive part of it is that you have a set price on the bus, no chance of being tricked and a rest in the middle of the travel. Not to mention a bufert time in case something goes wrong on the flight from Europe.

 

[Patagone]

Thanks everybody, for your insights. I do not see why anybody would need to pay 35% on a internal ARG payment in AR$? Especially when it would be paid in cash.
Anyway, it does not create the huge difference between the tickets in USD vs AR$. I am still not sure if you just need a DNI to buy them or to if you need a DNI to actually fly them for the lower rate.

For SMA, it is easier to fly to Temuco with LAN, but another problem is that there is this silly ARG rule that as a foreigner I cannot cross the border with my own car (I have a Tarjeta azul, my wife has the Targeta verde, but they will only let me pass if she is there with me, which is practically impossible due to kids etc).. It's possible/easy to cross the border with a rented car.

The disadvantage I found for SCL is that there seems to be a long waiting time involved between international flights and the connecting flights South. It's better as it is only one airport, but having to stay a night in SCL is a pain due to transport to/from SCL.

So maybe a bus would be better after all, though the tickets for good buses are about the same as the AR$ flights.
Cheers

 

[DCexpatstudent]

Lan I have read online from other sites does not check because booking online does not ask for the DNI. (Tried to search for them but of course when I want to find it its not coming up). They said as long as you check in online and print out your ticket and do not check any bag aka avoiding the airline representatives it will work. But they said that the worst case scenario is at the airport they will charge you the full fee of what you would have payed at booking not buying the ticket that day at the airport or anything like that but again this would only happen if they didn't print online which they could do for free I'm assuming at the sheraton and had to check bags. My friend put in their transit visa number for a friend when they were traveling together to mendoza and there was no problem and it was through aerolineas. However again I don't believe they dealt with airline personnel. And yes with transit visa aka studying a semester or things like that you can still use the number and temporary residency also

 

[BaltRochGirl]

When you go to purchase the ticket you will have to enter your mother's info, at which point it will be clear she's not Argentine, not sure if the price will change at that point.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

The disadvantage I found for SCL is that there seems to be a long waiting time involved between international flights and the connecting flights South. It's better as it is only one airport, but having to stay a night in SCL is a pain due to transport to/from SCL.

Cheers

Transport to and from SCL is a lot better (and cheaper) than transport to and from Ezeiza.