Kathygo

Can anyone advise me where I might find a good airfare from Chicago to Buenos Aires? I've gone to the airline websites and Expedia, yikes,$$$.

clevelandbrown

Travelocity lists a fare of just over $1000. Bear in mind that fares can vary seasonally, with how far in advance you are shopping, and with sales. Also, I suspect this route is not one of the high volume routes where competition and volume hold fares down. In fact, A few months ago I was trying to find a fare from Cleveland to Buenos Aires on Continental, and they said sorry, we and our partners don't go there. QIXO, a global searcher, found no flights for your route, possibly because I selected wednesdays for the departure and return, and there may be no flights there on wednesdays.

AAFrequentFlyer

American has somewhat of a monopoly on EZE. United amd USAir will also get you there with only one stop, but after that, it's 2+ stops for any other US based airlines. Varig has great flghts too. Anyway, the point is that this usually is a high fare route because of lack of heavy competition.

You could do little better from MIA-EZE. I believe I saw some fares advertised for under $600, but you will also need to get from ORD-MIA and that will add about $200. This could work, but I'm just not sure about the connections. You may have to stay overnight in MIA which again will add more $ to the entire trip.

Good luck!

Kathygo

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I'll check them out.

AAFrequentFlyer

Kathygo,

When do you need to go? Post the dates. I may have something that will save you few hundred $ of the fares you are finding now.

Is there anyway I could contact you? e-mail?

Kathygo

AAFrequentFlyer..Thanks for your offer to help me save money.

I hope to depart on or about 2/1/05 and return on or about 4/15/05 (dates are somewhat flexible).

I can't post my email address, I get too much spam email now.

Hmmmmm, what to do?

AAFrequentFlyer

Kathygo,

I just assumed you were going this summer or fall. As you know the fares were pricing out at over $1K, and I found a way for a 1 connection flight from ORD to EZE for $750, but who knows what it's going to be next year?

Anyway, I think you should wait and keep on checking the fares, although I really would not expect the fares to go down very much, if at all.

If you only need one ticket, I do have a suggestion, but I just can't post it here. If in the near future you are still having difficulty finding a reasonable fare, we could try again to hookup. Maybe you could set up a new e-mail address, (yahoo, google, etc...) and if you do post make sure you put some <b>Xs&lt;/b&lt;&gt; or <b>Ys</b> between the name and @ or between the @ and the host name, or whatever, but at least that way the automatic e-mail pullers won't be able to read your address. Just a suggestion.

Hope you get the right fare and actually I have to admit, your trip sounds fabulous! Is this a pure vacation? or work/school related?</b>

Kathygo

AAFrequentFlyer,

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I'll keep checking and see about another email account, per your ideas. I do visit Flyertalk also; seems there's an email possibility there? And, it's just one ticket I need for EZE. No work or formal study, just a winter escape plan.

clevelandbrown

Your trip dates may be too long to qualify for the very lowest air fares. From reading many fine prints, I have accumulated a set of rules I try to stick too; there are, of course, always exceptions, but these seem to work.

Avoid weekends and fridays. Their seems to be a small premium if you fly on these days.

Stay away over a weekend. This is commonly phrased as dates must include a saturday stay. i.e., a flight on monday returning thursday will cost much more than a flight on thursday returning monday.

Travel must not exceed thirty days. When my son did his quarter in Europe, all the tickets I found were really expensive and I think it was because his trip exceeded thirty days. Fortunately, there are some consolidators that have a way around this for student travel.

In your case, you will want to try to find a way around the thirty day rule.

Kathygo

ClevelandBrown,

Thanks for your tips. It does seem there's always a premium to pay for long stays.