LATAM Pass and Delta SkyMiles members can now book each other’s awards online, and LATAM flights, for now, continue to be available using Oneworld frequent flier programs excluding AA’s.
I decided to execute a few searches for LATAM routes that I tend to flow both using Delta SkyMiles and British Airways Avios to see if there are availability differences.
Sao Paulo – Mexico City
British Airways
Availability in both economy and business.
Delta
Only selling flights via the United States or on AeroMexico.
Santiago – Bogota
British Airways
BUSINESS
ECONOMY
Availability in both flights and classes of service,
Delta
This one available using SkyMiles as well.
Papeete (French Polynesia) – Santiago
British airways
This once-weekly flight usually has no availability at all but does on this one day.
Delta
Only flights via the United States and not the direct service,
Sao Paulo (CGH) – Rio de Janeiro (SDU)
British Airways
No availability at all. You can find plenty of flights from Rio to Sao Paulo for the very same day.
Delta
Plenty of availability. These are just the first two fights.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, I cannot check BA or Delta award availability using LATAM Pass because my account got disabled during one of the “upgrades” years ago and was lost (and I wouldn’t be crediting there anything anyway).
It is quite an eye-opening that LATAM award availability using Delta SkyMiles (airline, which is responsible for LATAM’s Oneworld exit) is worse (internationally) than via BA. You would think that Delta would get preferential access?
If possible, it often is useful to have miles in several programs due to many reasons, such as the ones demonstrated above (availability and pricing).
