Booked: Family Trip to Machu Picchu and Easter Island Using Miles

Guys, I’m so excited! Some of you may remember that me and my husband were supposed to fly to Peru without kids with the goal of visiting Machu Picchu. I ended up scrapping this idea and taking a “free” Alaska cruise instead. But once I get something in my head, it’s hard to let it go.

Over the last few months I was debating on whether I should pick  a big US roadtrip out west  or South America for our main family vacation in 2025. On the one hand, I’ve been in the process of gathering hotel points with the idea of burning most of them to see famous national parks in our own country.

On the other hand, South America is calling and I have a sizable stash of Alaska  miles I can put to good use. I am concerned that current partnership between LATAM and Alaska may be dissolved in a near future, though I don’t have any inside knowledge. But since Alaska joined OneWorld alliance, it doesn’t take a genius to make this assumption. Also, LATAM is joined at the hip with Delta, Alaska’s rival.

Flying out west from Florida  is not terribly complicated and can be accomplished via variety of programs. I hope to use up my Jet Blue stash, but will pivot if necessary. The only concern is my MIL’s health. Adding another year could be a deal breaker. That being said, we have done many trips with her over the years, and even took her to Japan last summer. Though it’s something she would like to do, she doesn’t have her heart set on seeing the national parks with us. Not in a “take me there before I die, it’s my last wish” kind of thing.

South America it is.

Adding Easter Island into the mix

I knew that I wanted to fly to Peru to visit Machu Picchu. Jokingly, I’ve mentioned to my husband that we should add Easter island while we are at it. After all, you can only fly there from Santiago, and Santiago happens to be only a 3-hour flight from Cuzco. He kind of brushed it off, but told me to do whatever I wanted. He is used to my crazy antics by now. Hmm…

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that skipping Easter island would be the height of foolishness, not the other way around. Yes, it’s a skip and a hop from Peru, but totally doable via miles. And I got them miles!

Plus, to me there is something cool about (mostly) completing the Polynesian Triangle. I’ve now been to Hawaii, Tahiti and New Zealand. Aside from smaller places, there is only Easter island left, and I must go. Plus, my kids really want to see the Moai statues in person.

I’ve never been a country counter, and it’s not critical for me to visit them all in my lifetime. But this one feels different, plus, I really love Polynesian culture. Some of my best travel memories come from “foolish” decisions that everyone thought were too impractical. Like adding one night in Moorea by cutting our stay in Bora Bora to two nights. I tend to operate by using “Why not?” as my guiding principle in planning travel. Within reason, of course, as my husband is not exactly a fan of breakneck pace (to put it mildly).

Booking everything was more complicated than I expected

Booking a flight from Miami to Lima was relatively simple. I just paid 17.5k Alaska miles per person, and that was that. Btw, AAdvantage wanted 40k miles for the same itinerary. I’ll still need to book separate tickets to Cuzco which cost 4.5k Alaska miles per person. There are some flights that are available right now, but the departure times aren’t the best. I’ve been watching this route for a few months, and it appears that LATAM releases award availability in waves. For now I’ll sit tight, and if all else fails, we will just buy the flight with cash, since it’s relatively cheap (about $70 per person).

I have also discovered that since  Alaska program has overhauled its award chart, it appeared to be finally possible to include Easter island when booking a multi-stop flight to/from US. That wasn’t the case before, so I was excited at the prospect of saving a ton of miles.

The flight from Santiago to Miami normally costs 25k miles one-way, so including Easter island leg would only add 5k miles, a great deal. The same principle would apply to our flight from Cuzco to Easter Island (with a layover in Santiago), which priced out at 17.5k miles total. Unfortunately, what seemed possible in theory, proved to be impossible to redeem.

I’ve tried booking these flights over a span of a week, but each time I got the message that the award seats could not be confirmed. That didn’t make sense since individual legs were available, and I cross-referenced it with Avios program which also partners with LATAM.

I went ahead and called Alaska program and the friendly agent has reached out to LATAM. I was really hoping she would come up with a magical fix, but nope. I was told they were not able to book these award flights via multi-city itinerary. The agent told me that after the update in the program, there isn’t a whole lot they can usually do beyond what the website spits out. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve decided to throw in the towel. Let me know if you were able to achieve a different outcome.

I’ve decided to try to book a different kind of multi-city itinerary: Cuzco to Santiago, followed by Santiago-Miami flight six days later. This time it worked, though I’ve only saved 2,500 miles per person vs. booking flights separately. So, it appears that adding Easter island was the issue all along.

Of course, now I was facing the prospect of spending way more miles than I initially intended. Fortunately, I still had some MR points I could use for transfers to Avios. This is when I’ve discovered the latest no-notice BA devaluation. Avios program has raised the rate for Santiago to Easter island from 13k Avios to 17k. Yikes!

But what can you do, right? Since the award availability was plentiful, I’ve decided to wait for transfer bonus to Avios, which I figured would happen any day. Well. I’ve checked a week later, and guess which day was no longer available in economy? Yup, the exact one I needed. Sure, I could pay 35k Alaska miles for two business-class seats from Easter island to Santiago, and buy two tickets with cash. But that’s an extra expense I don’t need.

Fortunately, Alaska award reservation can be changed for free. So, that’s what I did. I simply moved all of our flights a week forward. I’ve decided that for my own peace of mind I needed to sort out our Easter island flights and not hold out for a transfer bonus. This is how I ended up with a minor dilemma on my hands.

To use Alaska miles or Avios?

The flight from Easter island to Santiago costs 17k Avios or 17.5k Alaska miles, with identical taxes. On paper, using Avios is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the only way I can get Avios is via transfer from Amex or Capital One. I had about 78k Alaska miles left, which could book four one-way tickets to/from Easter island. The return flights would need to be covered via Avios. Or I could do the whole thing via Avios.

I thought about it and asked myself this question: if MR program added Alaska as a partner today, would I speculatively transfer my points? The answer was No. I would do it if there was a transfer bonus, bit not with 1:1 ratio. That settled it, and I used Alaska miles without any hesitation. I then transferred Capital One and Amex MR points, and booked the other set of tickets.

So, to recap, so far I’ve spent 82k miles (plus a bit over $100 in taxes) per person for Miami-Lima, Cuzco-Santiago, Santiago-Hanga Roa, Hanga Roa-Santiago, Santiago-Miami flights. All seats are in economy, but at least there are no red-eyes. If I wanted to book the same exact flights in cash, here is what it would cost me per person:

I’ll still need to book one short flight from Lima to Cuzco, and will try to use up my remaining 8k Alaska miles for two tickets. I only need to get 1k extra miles via promotion or outright purchase. Also, each of my kids has 5k Alaska miles, which would cover the other two tickets. It would pretty much zero out our Alaska balance, but that’s what miles are for.

Final thoughts 

Rest assured, there will be plenty of other costs. Trains and entrance to Machu Picchu  cost an arm and a leg, but we will obviously pay whatever it ends up being. I plan to utilize hotel certificates for our airport stays in Lima, Miami and Santiago, and have some gift cards that will cover Cuzco portion of our trip.

Beyond that I’ll try applying for new Wells Fargo Expedia cards that are supposed to be released this summer. Ollantayatambo, our base for Machu Picchu, doesn’t have any chain hotels, so that’s where Expedia points would come in really handy. Ditto for Easter island.

Travel isn’t free, but miles and points can put exotic destinations within our grasp. I can’t wait to share this experience with my family.