I’d never expected too much from Airline loyalty programs, however British Airways had a nice surprise when we need to book a flight across Pacific. So what happened?
We’ve been looking for the best way to cross Pacific from South America to either New Zealand or Australia. Apparently there is only one direct flight from Santiago (Chile) in South America and it costs minimum of $1100 per person one way. It’s a bit expensive, but not that bad. However crossing Pacific without seeing at least a few islands didn’t sound as perfect plan. What we wanted to do was to fly to Easter Island from Santiago, then fly to Tahiti (French Polynesia) and then fly to Auckland in New Zealand.
The flight from Santiago to Easter Island was 320$, flight from Papeete to Auckland was 300$, but the problem was with a flight from Easter Island to Papeete. The only airline flying from there is LAN and it costs minimum of 1500$ one way which was a bit too high for our budget. Then on one of Saturday hangover morning the idea struck me that it might be possible to use my British airways Avios (I had 10000 of them). I thought that the chance was really low, but apparently my 10000 Avios was enough to book two tickets from Easter Island to Papeete for only 220$ in total!
So one small advice – never underestimate Airline Loyalty programs!