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Hidden Galapagos and Peru
Our TA gave us a price for first class tickets for our upcoming trip to the Galapagos. Tauck price was $3386 per person. We looked at the American website and found the exact same itinerary for $2767 per person. Also, my husband had a credit from our trip to Spain and Portugal when they changed the aircraft and instead of first class he had to sit in economy from Tucson to Chicago. Tauck said they couldn't use the $300.00 credit as it was from the airline. We went ahead an booked our own air and saved ourselves $1538.
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Noreen - Is that $2767 per person for First Class International or Business Class International, with the domestic legs being First Class?
Smiling Sam - There are no business class seats due to the aircraft they use. It is all first class. This was a surprise to me as I just assumed that the international legs would have business class. A little disappointing but we had no choice. Yes, it is $2767 per person.
Sounds a pretty reasonable price. Where do you fly from? Do you change in Miami? Is that to Quito or Guayaquil?
Don’t some airlines just call business first class?
We’re on the Peru and Galapagos in May. American has the best schedule, but there were no true business international (lie flat/pods) available. Looks like the business seats are the standard domestic first class type. The planes are the A321 neo or 737. So we just made sure we had no overnight flights. The longest leg is just under 6 hours. Cost was $1,680 pp for business (DRO through DFW and MIA). We elected to take overnight layovers in DFW on the way out and MIA on the way back and will stay at the on-site airport hotels. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not but we thought breaking up the trip might be less stressful. We’ll see.
We fly from Tucson/Phoenix/Miami/Lima. We leave Tucson at 6:00 am and arrive in Lima at 10:22 pm the same day.
On the return leg we fly from Guayaquil/Miami/Dallas Fort Worth/Tucson. We will leave Guayaquil at 8:27 am and arrive in Tucson at 10:37 pm. We have over three hours in Miami as we will need to retrieve our luggage and go through customs.
Wow, that’s some trip! I guess we are lucky we live on the east coast
Noreen - The prices to get to the southern part of South America (Tucson-Rio; Santiago-Tucson) are 2-3 times what you're paying.
When we took the Peru/Galapagos trip, we flew from Guayaquil to Lima, then non-stop to LAX on LATAM. The leg to LAX was lie-flat seats. I don't remember the cost but I felt it wasn't expensive.
Smiling Sam - We thought the price was reasonable and it could be less expensive if we were willing to fly into Lima in the early hours of the morning.
Mike - I should have looked at LATAM and the lie-flat seats are so comfortable especially on long flights. Live and learn!