Introduction - The Andean Crossing
My partner and I were scheduled to go to Japan this summer. However, due to some work conflicts, we had to reshuffle our plans so that we could still be in a time zone adjacent to the East Coast. We’d always wanted to visit Argentina, but never managed to make it happen. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring it into fruition.
Planning this trip was surprisingly easy, mostly because we decided to save Patagonia for another trip, maybe in conjunction with a trip to Antartica. To get to Argentina, a direct flight from JFK to EZE on American Airlines was available. While not the most exotic option, the convenience of a nonstop flight was hard to beat. I reviewed the joint British Airways and American Airlines Chelsea Lounge at JFK earlier this year, and this flight allowed me to review the other two joint lounges - the Greenwich Lounge and the Soho Lounge.
In Buenos Aires, I booked the Anselmo, which was a Curio Collection hotel. I rarely stay at Hilton properties but wanted to keep my account/points active. The majority of our vacation would take place in Mendoza. Aerolineas Argentinas is the national airline, but there was no incentive for me to choose it because there was no domestic first/business class anyway. I landed on Flybondi, which I had never heard of. I thought it would be fun to check out, and the schedule worked for us.
In Mendoza, really the only option was this Auberge du Vin hotel, not to be confused with the Auberge Collection. I’m on the Marriott hamster wheel so I wasn’t gonna spend 4 nights at a random hotel where I couldn’t get elite night credits, lol.
During my search, I discovered that flying from Mendoza to Santiago de Chile was actually much easier than flying back to Buenos Aires. And Santiago has way more air service than Buenos Aires. We spent a total of 4 nights in Santiago, split equally between the Mandarin Oriental Santiago and the Ritz-Carlton Santiago. These were the only two global luxury hotels in the city.
On the return, LATAM actually had an one-way business class fare from Santiago to Miami for a mere $900. I reviewed LATAM in the past and was less than impressed, so I instead booked us on the Air Canada flight to Toronto. Apparently this flight gets a lot of mining traffic. I’d never flown with Air Canada on a long-haul before, so I was excited to see how it would stack up against its North American peers.
All in all, our itinerary looked something like this:
Review - American Airlines Business Class B777-200 New York Kennedy to Buenos Aires Ezeiza
Review - Anselmo Buenos Aires, Curio Collection by Hilton
Review - Flybondi Economy Class B737-800 Buenos Aires Aeroparque to Mendoza
Review - Auberge du Vin, A Tribute Portfolio Hotel, Tupungato
Review - Mandarin Oriental Santiago
Review - The Ritz-Carlton Santiago
Review - Air Canada Business Class B787-8 Santiago de Chile to Toronto Pearson
Review - Air Canada Business Class CRJ-900 Toronto Pearson to Washington Dulles
We flew Chile’s Sky Airline from Mendoza to Santiago. That flight was under 40 minutes with no service, so I’m skipping it for this review series. It was a good little airline with brand new A320neos.
Without further ado, come along as we fly across the world’s longest mountain range.