Over the course of the past several months, I have dropped by the Qantas site to check on the availability of flying in business class between Santiago de Chile and Los Angeles. This is one of the longest routes flown by LATAM. It is an overnight flight of more than 11 hours on one of their 787 aircraft. Flying business class on this route is by far the most attractive option for getting between Chile and the U.S. West Coast. With only a difference of four time zones, there would be minimal jet lag.
There’s just one problem: this route never seems to have any business class seats available.
Is This The Worst Route Ever In Terms Of Award Space?
Like I’ve said, I’ve eyed this LATAM flight for a while. Every once in a while I’ll log in and search for an award, just to see what the options are like. But the more I do this, the more perplexed I get. Turns out, I have yet to ever find a single business class award seat on this route.
I’m very aware of routes and carriers that are stingy with award space. Finding Lufthansa first class space from SFO to Germany is tough. Singapore first class can be hard to chase down if you don’t book right when the calendar opens. Heck, even AA business class space can be difficult at times (although it seems to open in waves). I’m used to difficult award bookings.
But this is different. I am beginning to wonder if LATAM ever releases award space to partners on this route. The main tool I use to search is the Qantas site, since you have an awesome month view. As far as I am aware, their inventory is also quite accurate a majority of the time.
Multiple times now I’ve search the entire calendar and come up dry. This isn’t just bad, it’s ridiculous. There should be at least some seats made available now and then.
Conclusion
It’s a bummer to be willing to work for an award and still not be able to find a single seat, let alone a pair on any date. Anyone else have this experience with LATAM? I’m curious to know if anyone has ever booked the SCL-LAX flight using partner miles.
Is space worse than SIN-FRA-JFK or v.v. in first for 2 on Singapore? I’ve tried to the end of schedule before and repeatedly come up empty. Also, how’s space on NZ in business?
I’ve read about many who’ve booked FRA-JFK. That route just seems highly competitive.
ANZ is perennially abysmal. I haven’t checked in a while, but when I did, you could only find a few long-haul seats through the entire schedule.
I was able to book this flight using BA Avios in 2014. I had no problems whatsoever and my recollection is it was a fairly common usage for those points. Perhaps Qantas is where the issue lies? Good luck.
Qantas is just my search tool. I have seen previous reports (3+ years old) that this was bookable.
I’ve only seen business class award seats on LAN when redeeming from its own frequent flyer program LANPASS. It’s very rare to see LAN business class awards available to partners (unless you’re flying a fifth freedom flight.) Good luck though!
This is generally what I’ve understood. However, a friend has told me that calling to manually check with partners can be more successful. Supposedly, the inventory is not shared well via the search systems.
I was able to do this last October booking with Alaska miles LAX-SCL on LATAM J, but that was a very rare situation. I’m based in northern CA and I have specific reasons to go to SCL many times so I regularly look for that award space on Qantas. I saw a last minute availability last Oct and called AS to book. But yea, otherwise besides the one time, no luck.
Good to know it is possible!