How I booked my flights to South America, from the Philippines

Machu Picchu, November 2016

Some friends have been messaging me how I did my recently concluded South America trip. I realized just so I do not miss something important to someone (and I don't have to repeat everything 😅), it'll be much easier to write it down and send them this link. 

So for flights, here's how...  

First, I frequently visit Skyscanner to find cheap flights. This site is very user-friendly and easy to understand. You won't get lost. I have actually been checking since late 2014 since I had plans of visiting last 2015. But prices were ridiculously expensive during that time. So that year I went somewhere else instead. But still, of course, I was still checking flights and I saw that prices were starting to drop. So I thought 2016 is a good time to visit and it was.

First thing you have to do once you have accessed the Skyscanner site is to enter your destination. In this case, for South America, flights are really expensive if you are coming from Manila. So what I did is i chose "Flexible" or "Everywhere" in the "To" field, and selected "One way". I decided to fly out to another Southeast Asian city first because i find that flights are cheaper if i do it this way. Also especially since I'm only booking for one way. For the "Depart" and "Return" fields, if you don't have any specific dates yet, you can select "Cheapest month". Since I knew which month I wanted to leave, but not the date, I selected a specific month instead. After that, you can now click on "Search flights". And the system will then show various options and you can just choose whichever you prefer. 

Once I have already selected my preferred date, airline and flight, i check if the price listed was a direct rate from the airline's website or if it was based on another booking portal. If the rate is not directly from the airline's site, I then visit that airline's legit site, and i check the fare of the suggested date to see whether there could be a cheaper promo fare apart from the one listed on the other booking portals listed on Skyscanner. If the rates are the same, I book directly on the airline's site. If not, I book my flights on the booking portal. Then if I would need additional services such as selecting a seat, I can just easily book it on the airline's site. That way, i still got the cheaper rate. Yay! 

Note: I have also tried searching for roundtrip (RT) flights from Manila and there are cheap ones. So if you have definite travel plans, you know when you are coming back, then I highly suggest booking the RT flight instead. Less complications. Oh, one important thing to mention. There are no direct flights from Manila to any city to South America. You definitely would have layovers or change planes along the way. Another note, though RT flights from Manila to Brazil are cheap, flying in and out of Brazil is expensive. Therefore if you are planning to go to several countries in South America and not just Brazil, maybe you can select another Latin American city instead. But if you have the money, why not? You can also take the bus to get in and out of Brazil but it would take about three days. You can check the site Rome2rio for sample routes. (P.S. I skipped Brazil in this trip though.)

Second, once you have booked and confirmed the first leg of your flight out of Manila to another Southeast Asian city, you can now search for flights to a city in South America. You can do the same thing of selecting "Flexible" or "Everywhere" for the destination field so that it will show you the cheapest options. 

Reminder: Just be sure that you have enough time in between flights. For this trip, I chose the one which has at least a four-hour interval, just to be safe in case (knock on wood), there are delays. For the second leg of your trip, please be mindful of the layovers too. Double check visa requirements if you would need any. For example, in the United States of America (USA), even if you are only there for a quick layover, you would still need a transit visa. 

By the way, before coming to South America, i visited the US for a few days. So my itinerary was Manila> Bangkok> New York> Lima. I booked three separate flights for these. Different airlines. After New York, I wanted to visit Peru first, mainly because for the Machu Picchu site so that I can catch the good weather by then (I went there in November). Therefore, I really chose the New York to Lima route. From Lima, i took another flight to Cusco to reach Machu Picchu. Yay! 

Anyway, all the way from Peru to Bolivia and back again to Peru, then to Ecuador and Colombia, I crossed all the borders by bus. I will elaborate these on my succeeding posts. 

Lastly, to fly back home to Asia, I did the same process. Flying in to the States from Bogota was the cheapest option. So the route I had was Bogota> Miami> Hongkong> Manila. Same as my journey from Asia to South America, these are three separate flights, in three different airlines. 

That's it. Overall, just to give you guys an idea, the total cost of my flight tickets was less than US$2,000.

Tip: It would be a big help if you have a US visa before coming to South America because most cheap flights have a layover in the States.