[Tango-L] What's the Cheapest Airfare to Buenos Aires You've Ever Found?

[chenth@comcast.net]

A couple of points about this thread so far. Continental flies Quebec (YQB)
to Buenos Aires (EZE) on a Boeing 767-200 which has a 32" pitch in economy.
Pitch is the distance between seats and has been shrinking as carriers
attempt to squeeze maximum revenue out of each flight. However a 32" pitch
is fairly standard for an economy product on most major US carriers.

Using www.seatguru.com you can determine that unlike many other
planes the exit rows on a 762 do not have added room but row 37DEF while
closer to the galley and lavatory are reported to have extra legroom.

The alternative of course is to upgrade to BusinessFirst on CO with miles
where you'll get a 55" pitch. Of course this will require that you first have
frequent flyer miles and ideally Platinum Elite status on Continental for the
cheapest upgrade manner.

To search for a flight from, for example, Quebec (YQB) to Buenoes Aires (EZE)
one could use Kayak.com. If one did not care for the CO product you can
deselect them from the search criteria which brings up a Delta flight as
the cheapest alternative at present. Delta flys a Boeing 767-300ER from Atlanta
(ATL) to EZE. This plane is listed on seatguru as a 31-31" pitch so same
as the CO 762. Here you can identify seats 17CDE and 18 CDE as having reported
extra legroom. However, your ability to book these seats may depend on whether
or not you have Delta (or at least Skyteam) elite status.

Deselecting Delta would bring up Air Canada which will fly you mostly in a Boeing
767 with a seat pitch of 31-32" as well. You can decide where to sit based on
Seatguru recommendations as before. The Air Canada site will allow you to review
airplane configurations directly on their website during the booking process.

A couple of other data points includes TAM which lists a 32" pitch on their
international flights. United Economy has a 32" pitch but there is also the choice
of United Economy Plus which has a very desirable 35" pitch. The caveat
for this is that the United flight costs 4 times as much as the cheapest flight.
Additionally Economy Plus is only available to United elites (Premier and up)
or to those who have purchase Economy Plus access for $300 a year.

In addition to Kayak, www.farecompare.com will provide some ability to evaluate
multiple fares over many different dates with the big caveat that listed prices
are often not available for booking or may already have sold out. Farecompare
has gotten better about adding taxes and fees into their prices but there may still
be some slight shift in prices once you actually proceed to the booking phase.

Farecompare and Kayak also offer email notifications of changing prices which will
keep you aware of any particular bargains that may come up.

If you have elite qualifying miles already accumulated with a particular airline
you may wish to consider that when making your reservation. Travel from the
northeastern US to Buenos Aires will cover a distance of 13319 miles which gets
you half-way to bottom-tier elite status qualification/re-qualification on most
carriers. This of course assumes your fare gives elite qualifying miles (EQMs)
which many white box and consolidator fares do not.

Great Circle Mapper will give you an approximation of miles flown for any city
pair that you enter without needing to create a dummy booking with an airline
(i.e. faster): http://gc.kls2.com/