Flights Manchester to Santiago Chile

[Mr Mac]

Dear fellow cabin members. I have been informed by Mrs M that we are going to attend a wedding in Chile in October !. I lived there when young, but have not been back for a while. South America, other than very occasional trips to East coast of Brazil is no longer my stamping ground, and I spend most of my time going East so will have to pay for this, probably with real money !, as all current air miles with EK/SQ and a small amount of LH. Therefore BEFORE I DO my own research, I wondered if we have cabin members who do this route (or more likely Western Europe to Chile) on a regular basis who could advise on route /carrier. Depp airport would be Man / LBA and would be in Business. All advice welcome.


Regards
Mr Mac

[Espada III]

My parents did this route (MAN to Santiago) twice in 12 months; once Lufthansa, once Air France. Lufthansa was the preferred route from the aspect of comfort in Business Class, quality of service and connection time.

[Gibon2]

I did it from Geneva on Air France via CDG last October, in J class - with some misgiving as I'm not a big AF fan and hate CDG. But price and schedule were unbeatable. And as it turned out, the flights, connections and service were pretty much flawless.

But if you have SQ points that could be redeemed on Lufthansa, given Espada's comments above, that may be the better option.

[ConstantFlyer]

I did LAN Airlines a couple of years back when they operated A340s on the Frankfurt-Madrid-Santiago route. Very nice. Think they use 787s now if you fancy a go on one of those.

[Hartington]

In January 2013 we went London/Sao Paulo/Santiago on BA/LA in business. The connection at Sao Paulo was about 2 hours. As we got to the top of the jetway we found a little door and a staff member who checked us off a list and then let us straight into the departures area. We were right at the end of a pier so we wandered along until we found an information screen which told us the LAN flight went from the other pier (which is actually designated a separate terminal). We found our way into the other terminal (all signed), found the American lounge and settled. No announcements so we wandered to the gate, getting there a little too early but LA have a series of separate queues so we were on board easily.

We came back from Buenos Aires so I can't comment on the return journey.

[Heathrow Harry]

also via MAD - Iberia & LAN-Chile have flights that depart around midnight - the LAN flight comes in from Frankfurt - and arrive Santiago around 10:00 am

Much of a muchness in business cabin service (quite good) but LAN are sometimes a bit cheaper

Try and avoid going via LHR - BA/Iberia will book you on a connecting flight at around 15:00 which gives you several hours to kill in the vast Iberia lounge in T4S when you could easily leave at lest one flight later

[Mr Mac]

Thank you to the cabin for all your info / suggestions. Mrs Mac is on Lufty, however due to work commitments I have to fly out to Dubai with EK for a few days before our trip, so I have arranged to go with EK via Rio to BA and then onwards with LAN to Santiago. I will have to come back the same way as well, as I am needed back in DXB a couple of days after I would have returned to the UK, so have moved things around to arrange earlier meeting. I must admit it is quite a bit of flying though especially the return 21.30 out of BA and 22.50 into DXB !.


Regards
Mr Mac