Chile, today, is the best flights bargain in South America
In my never-ending quest to find the best airfare bargains in the world at any given moment, I’ve uncovered an unlikely destination, at least historically speaking. Santiago, Chile, is currently one of the cheapest cities to fly to in South America, far cheaper than Buenos Aires or Rio de Janiero, which are similar distances.
These flights are so cheap, in fact, that you might even consider booking a flight to use Santiago as a hub for exploration around the continent. It’s normally very expensive to get down to Buenos Aires, so this is really a stand-out bargain that should be looked into.
Destination: Santiago, Chile
Some good news comes from the fact that spring is about to start in Santiago, and from that point onward they have about 8 months of rather nice weather. If these sale fares were 4 months ago it would seem like a cruel trick, because Chile’s capital can be quite miserable during its winter, but the rest of the year it’s lovely.
Now, let’s talk about the fare sales. Right now you can fly from New York to Santiago for $670 round-trip (keeping in mind that it’s usually around $1,000), and you can fly from Miami to Santiago for only $490 round-trip. Needless to say, if you live in another part of the US or Canada you’ll only need to pay a bit more or look for cheap flights into Miami to create a deal on your own.
Using Santiago as a hub
I’ve not yet visited Santiago but I’ve heard that it’s one of the nicer large cities in South America. It’s certainly well worth a visit on its own, but even more importantly you should consider using it as a hub for a tour of South America. Believe it or not, South America has a great network of low-cost airlines, plus the big LAN alliance, meaning that you can get very cheap flights between almost any major city down there. The normal trick is to get TO one of the major cities cheaply enough, so this Santiago fare sale really helps.
You might fly from Santiago to Cusco, Peru, and then onto Lima, Peru, and then back to Santiago. Then pop over to Buenos Aires or even the Mendoza wine country in Argentina. Brazil is even close enough, and the famous cities (Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo) are the most expensive, so you might consider flying to one of the lesser known beach cities for cheaper hotels and lovely weather in the coming months.
Those who are flexible and can take advantage of these fare sales as they come up will always be able to construct an interesting trip for a low cost. The trick is to be open to almost any possibility and then stay on top of the fare sales. Reading this column is a big help, if I do say so myself.