The 7 Best Ways to Fly Business Class to South America on Points

South America is a popular destination for North American travellers due to its range of diverse countries, and depending on where you’re travelling from and to, its relative proximity.

Despite not having to traverse an ocean to get there, it’s still far enough that you’ll want to be comfortable for the journey. Luckily, there are a number of options to consider, including many that can be booked at a significant discount using points.

Let’s take a look at an alphabetical list of the best airlines for flying in business class between North America and South America using points.

1. Air Canada

Air Canada maintains a modest route network to destinations in South America. Currently, the airline operates flights to São Paulo, Lima, and Bogotá from both Toronto and Montreal, as well as a flight to Santiago from Toronto.

Within South America, you’ll find a fifth freedom flight between São Paulo and Buenos Aires.

Air Canada typically offers its flagship business class product, Signature Class, on these routes. The product is largely similar across the different three-cabin aircraft, so there’s no real advantage to looking for one over the other.

Flights to this part of the world are subject to the pricing of the “Between North America–South America” section on the Aeroplan Flight Reward Chart. In theory, at the lower end of the dynamic spectrum, you can expect to pay between 50,000–60,000 points for a one-way flight in business class, depending on the total distance flown.

Direct flights from Toronto to Bogotá or Lima fall under 4,500 miles, while all other destinations are over 4,501 miles.

In practice, as we all know, dynamic pricing with Air Canada flights is often skewed much higher than that.

You may, however, run into situations in which business class is cheaper than premium economy, and marginally more expensive than economy.

The above flights show some values on the more favourable side of the dynamic-pricing spectrum with Air Canada. In the event that dynamic pricing is high, then as long as you have Aeroplan Elite Status and eUpgrades, you can book a flight in economy and upgrade to business class to reduce the cost.

For example, suppose you’d like to fly from Vancouver to Santiago via Toronto. A quick search pulls up the following results.

Booking into business class would cost 121,900 points, which is twice the cost of the lower end of the dynamic…