I spent 2 weeks  in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Only one night was paid out of pocket and we flew r/t Biz. Here’s how I planned it.

In 2012 there was a knock, and when I asked “who was there?” – Buenos Aires answered.  The more I read, the more I had to visit this vibrant, European inspired city with Portillo lined streets and 11pm dinners.  I was enamored. The seed was planted, but its crop wasn’t harvested until this past November when I finally took my first trip to South America. That’s roughly 6 years in the making, and it wasn’t as if I didn’t investigate visiting the continent nearly every year in between, I did, but other locations around the world just fell into place with greater ease.

Plainly speaking…it’s much easier finding award space to other locations around the world.

This past November, the award space fell into place

You need to hub and spoke a trip, and often I find that once I pick one spot that I know I HAVE to visit, suddenly all of these other options  fall into place. That was the case with Buenos Aires. It was a must for the trip, and became the place that we could spend a few days getting settled, and then explore the region via low-cost carriers. We knew we wanted to take a trip that would end just before Thanksgiving and we were open to routing anywhere in North America to start the trip, and could take anywhere from 10 to 14 days.

I’d planned a version of this trip several times over the last 6 years so I knew I wanted to hit up some the following places:

• Buenos Aires
• Patagonia, Glaciers, Antarctica
• Chilean/Argentinian Wine Country
• Santiago
• Iguazu Falls
• Rio
• Visit Uruguay for a day or two

Those places formed the basis of where we’d like to visit. Now…I my first task was finding the award space to/from Buenos Aires that would fit our schedule and provide a comfortable and convenient way of getting there.  There are really 3 or 4 big hubs in that region to focus your search on: EZE, GIG, GRU, and SCL.  Since we wanted to spend more time in BA than any other place I figured we should either start there, finish there, or both, but at least one leg needed to fall into place.

Finding award space to Buenos Aires from the US

I was considering the following routes

• American Airlines
  • LAX, DFW, MIA, JFK
• AeroMexico
  • MEX
• Air Canada
  • YYZ
• Avianca
  • BOG
• Copa
  • PTY
• Delta
  • ATL
• LATAM
  • MIA
•  United
  • IAH, EWR

While I was looking at space on all of those routing options, I was only really considering American, Aeromexico, Air Canada, Delta, and United because of the product offering, timing of flights, the ability to bake in a true longhaul that would allow us to rest and enjoy the experience to start off the trip.

In addition to all of those desires…a big goal of mine is looking at each person’s bank of points and decide which points we should try and use for this trip, and which we should save for other trips down the road.

Ultimately we decided to try and conserve our flexible currency earned by cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, and American Express Gold card, and spend our miles that are specific to a single program, namely AA.

Then I ran into persistent married segment problems:

Here is an example of married segments on flights from LA to Buenos Aires January, 2020. Notice how if you start your trip in Los Angeles you can route via Dallas and fly in business from Dallas to EZE; however, if you start your trip in Dallas the availability in biz isn’t there. That means the availability is married to those specific segments.

AA used to be better at dividing segments with a reservation on hold, but that can no longer be relied upon. You could always pay the $150 change fee after booking to divide them, but we wanted to figure out how we could both book tickets with minimal cost. Ultimately we found a way that would  require 2 stops for me out of Los Angeles, and a single stop for Dave out of Detroit, routing us via Miami.

As luck would have it, that meant I could review AA’s internationally configured 757 and Dave could experience the 772 with Super Diamond seats. This was a win/win for everyone and we locked it up.

Once our first piece was in place, we needed to narrow down where we’d like to visit.

Narrowing down the list

Here’s the list where we’d love to visit in the region with bolded locations denoting this trip.

• Buenos Aires
• Patagonia, Glaciers, Antarctica
• Chilean/Argentinian Wine Country
• Santiago
• Iguazu Falls
• Rio
• Visit Uruguay for a day or two

The main thinking around this was our first leg brought us into Buenos Aires. Let’s figured out how to create a dynamic trip that includes not just city touring, but some countryside, and of course, Iguazu Falls. If you look at the map, you can see just how close Buenos Aires is to Uruguay. It’s an hour by boat to Colonia – #21 on the map.

Since there wouldn’t be much of a time difference we could spend a couple of days truly exploring Buenos Aires, and then take a boat to Uruguay and visit Carmelo where Hyatt has an absolutely beautiful property and do some wine tasting. Because of the location, we could afford to come back to Buenos Aires and tick off anything we hadn’t accomplished in our first two days.

We opted to check out the Park Hyatt Buenos Aires for our first two nights.

I’ve long wanted to stay at this hotel. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and in recent times, has offered up a healthy amount of award space. We were able to stay here for just 20k points per night. Rack rates were $500+ and Hyatt recently increased the category to 6 = 25k a night. The location was superb and the hotel lives up to its reputation.

We then used  Buquebus ( a boat ) to get from Buenos Aires to Colonia and redeemed World of Hyatt points + cash to stay at the incredible Carmelo Resort in Carmelo, Uruguay. At the time it was 10k + $125 a night. It’s smack in the midst of Uruguay’s emerging wine country. A great respite from Buenos Aires hustle and bustle and a drop dead beautiful property with individual villas.

We then used the Colonia Express to travel back to Buenos Aires. We thought we’d check out a different area and used IHG points to stay at the Intercontinental Buenos Aires. A very solid value at 30k points per night. We walked the city for another 2 days straight and saw sites like the Water Company Palace, La Boca, the Opera House, and ate at Don Julio’s, the best restaurant in the whole of Argentina.

If you’re keeping track, up to this point we’ve spent about $230 out of pocket per person for 6 nights, 2 boat tickets, and a one way flight in Business Class. Not too bad.

Getting to Iguazu Falls.

I’m writing an entire post on how I would do Iguazu Falls again if I were to return ( which I’d like to ), but we entered on the Argentinian side after flying Andes from Buenos Aires regional airport. Flights are regularly $100-$150. We were supposed to do two nights here, but some personal issues came up back stateside and we needed to change the trip. This resulted in us squeezing in just 1 night in Iguazu at the Iguazu Grand. While it’s a nice hotel, I would HIGHLY recommend splurging on the Belmond Das Cataratas.

I’d parrot my words, and HIGHLY recommend spending the $110 for the heli as well. You can see the Belmond and the Gran Melia in picture below – both inside their respective sides of the park ( Brazil/Argentina). The Belmond’s location is truly extraordinary, closest to Miles with a red roof. We paid roughly $275 for our Iguazu Grand room and the Belmond was roughly double, but could come with Virtuoso Benefits, and in my opinion is totally worth the splurge as its inside the park and has direct access to trails, and you can hear the falls from the hotel. If you’re looking for longer hikes, etc spend your time on the Argentinian side.

We then flew GOL to Rio and chose the JW Marriott Copacabana

While we could have pursued Delta, Emirates, or even Flyingblue to redeem points to fly GOL, we opted to pay out of pocket. Flights were still cheap and we were able pick exactly the one we wanted for less than $150. We ended up using points at the JW Marriott, and I heavily debated what was the best thing to do. My heart wanted to stay at the Copacabana Palace ( we ended up having dinner ), but we were only going to be there 2 nights, with a full day of touring. The Copa was pricy, and had we spent more time in Rio I would have put us there, but after plans changed, we found ourselves at the JW. I really weighed paying out of pocket, but it was roughly $300 before taxes, and using 35k Marriott Rewards seemed like a decent thing to do.

Our ride home. United Polaris 777-200

We had originally found a way back to the States that required us to fly from Rio to EZE, and then back on AA, using Alaska miles for me and Cathay Pacific for Dave. I was heavily weighing the option of using points to try out Emirates First on their 5th freedom route between GIG and EZE, but when we had to cut the trip short by a couple of days, it threw a wrench in those plans. Ultimately, it worked out really well…

Within a couple days of us departing, space opened on the UA Sao Paolo to Chicago route, with space for me to continue on to LA and Dave back home as well. So we booked them transferring Amex points to Aeroplan for 60k each – this avoided UA’s close-in booking fee as neither of us have UA status. The night before there was an equipment change, and we got a retrofitted plane with United’s real Polaris product. Magic!

Total Tally: Not including food or tours, less $1k + 57.k AA, 60k Amex, 30k Hyatt, and 30k IHG per person

Over the next couple weeks I’ll be releasing the entirety of the trip with more depth and specific reviews. I’m also looking forward to visiting South America again, and work in Chile, Patagonia, and Antarctica. BYAH!