ginia.org

When you find friends who are also amazing travel companions, you find lots of reasons to explore the world together. I wish I could remember how and why we decided to go to Argentina and Chile with our friends Jordan and Edward, but I’m so glad we did.

This was not a normal trip for me and Chris: about 10 flights in 2 weeks to explore a lot of territory:

• Buenos Aires
• Iguazu Falls
• Mendoza
• Santiago
• Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
• Vina del Mar
• Valparasio

I still can’t believe we did all that! Going down, I booked us on AA in economy. That sucked, but it was too cheap to pass up: about 25K points + $5.60 pp. The four of us were seated together in the middle 4 seats in the bulkhead, so at least no one was reclining into us.

One hack for this trip involved an amazing status match from LATAM: they had left the OneWorld alliance to form a joint venture partnership with Delta (but not join SkyTeam), so they matched my AA EP status (and Chris’ Plat status) such that we got free upgrades on intra-continental flights and a shot at upgrades on the Santiago-Easter Island flights as well! I milked that shamelessly: we flew from BA to Iguazu Falls and back on the same day, then from BA to Mendoza, then Mendoza to Santiago, and then Santiago to Easter Island all on LATAM. With all those flights, quite a few upgrades did clear. Unfortunately, while I got us all upgraded going to Rapa Nui, only Chris and I got upgraded going back to Santiago… and even that was a close-run thing. Chris’ upgrade came through AFTER we were all seated — he got pulled up from economy to business class. The guys were lovely and gracious, although I felt a little bad about leaving them in economy. 😦

A day trip to Iguazu Falls is technically doable (and we did it) but, wow, that was a long day! Lots of fun though: walking through the park, taking a closer look at the falls on a boat trip, enjoying a “touristy” dinner. Unfortunately, Chris picked up a cold, perhaps during the boat ride under the falls, and then our flight back to BA was delayed, so the poor guy was just miserable at the gate until we boarded. (Actually, he stayed a little miserable for a couple more days, trying to shake that cold.)

We love BA and we were so glad our friends did too! Lovely meals, lovely weather, lovely coffee, lovely walks. Palermo is our favorite neighborhood and Edward found an amazing AirBnB for us there. (This may have inspired a future trip to BA and spending even more time in Palermo — we’ll see if that works out.)

Onwards to Mendoza: we love this wine town and we had arranged for a day of wine tasting with our usual driver, Miguel. But Chris’ cold got worse, so he skipped out on the winery day to try to recover. As he slept, the three of us explored a couple of wineries, Finca Bandini (where we found another points & miles fan who hadn’t yet booked his ticket home — that’s a kind of bravery I could never indulge on!) and RJ Vinedos, then a fabulous lunch at Lagarde.

While Jordan, Edward, and I were out and about, we talked about our Mendoza digs. One sign of a healthy friendship is where you can communicate disappointment, knowing they won’t take offense. We (well, I) was in charge of the flights while Edward was in charge of the accommodations. And his track record is amazing: always well located, great amenities, plenty of space for all of us, often lots of style. But the Mendoza apartment disappointed all of us: the pictures were really misleading and the whole place was just a little dumpy. I did hesitate in saying something, but we were all relieved to find we were all on the same page! (The wine from the wine tastings may have loosened my tongue, but these are dear, dear friends and this frank exchange only made me love them more!)

So points and miles to the rescue: the Park Hyatt Mendoza had a 2-bedroom suite available for about the same price as the AirBnB (IIRC, about $300 + 6k points per night). That ended up being a lovely space for us: Jordan cooked for us in the kitchen and the hotel staff took care of clean up! (I think I may have sold Jordan on the points & miles hobby with that booking.) We spent a lovely Christmas day there, enjoying food and wine and Netflix holiday movies. Then we discovered that while Mendoza closed down for Christmas day itself, by the evening the town opened up again and we had a lovely dinner at a pizzeria. (Side note: Italian food in Argentina is sublime.)

Moving on to Chile, we had the most amazing apartment in Vina del Mer to watch the ocean-side fireworks on NYE. We also spent a day exploring Valparaiso: IIRC, I think we took a taxi over there and back.

Coming home, we flew fancy class on LATAM, booked using Alaska points. I did gamble a little here: we were originally booked on a “direct” flight that stopped in Lima overnight. That schedule would have been terrible: neither leg was long enough to get some decent sleep. Then the schedule changed and we were put on a direct, nonstop flight to Miami. From there we parted: the guys were going to stay in MIA for a bit while Chris and I continued on home to kitties.