Chile

Ballard

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

In Santiago.

ATMs are a little flakey. They tend to charge between £3 and £7 to withdraw cash. Withdrawal limits around £240 (200,000 peso).

I've had a couple of transactions declined at one ATM and accepted at the next door bank.

Heading north with a bit more cash than I would in, say, the USA. Cards widely accepted in Santiago though.

I had read that ATMs pretty much all charge for withdrawals in Chile so I may we'll take plenty of Sterling and use my credit card wherever possible. I'd be interested to know how easy it is to change Sterling there if you happen to notice.

I've still got 114 days until I fly and haven't done massive amounts of planning.

PeacefulWaters

Ballard wrote: »

I had read that ATMs pretty much all charge for withdrawals in Chile so I may we'll take plenty of Sterling and use my credit card wherever possible. I'd be interested to know how easy it is to change Sterling there if you happen to notice.

I've still got 114 days until I fly and haven't done massive amounts of planning.

There are numerous money changing places in San Pedro. No idea on rates of exchange as they're not advertised at the door. But Union flag was evident.

There are at least two ATMs in town with a 4,000 peso fee (so 2% if you withdraw the 200,000 peso maximum).

Some shops don't accept card. Some do but have iffy wifi that might impede a transaction.

Haggling maybe in order if you want to buy larger value items. We were just offered 10% off if paying by card and 15% off if paying in cash.

Most restaurants add a 10% service charge so I've tended not to tip.

Coffee is awful in this country. Colombia it isn't!

Ballard

It's just over 3 weeks until I fly now and I'm just starting to think about currency in a little more detail.

Going on a 4,000 fee for 200,000 Pesos It still appears to be better than exchanging cash in the UK.

Over here I'd currently get 200,000 Pesos for £262 through Thomas Global Exchange. If I use my Halifax Clarity and get the mid-market rate I'd pay £246 for 204,000 Pesos. I have read that some banks have a higher withdrawal limit which would bring the cost down.

I would take a few cards, some Sterling and I'd exchange some for Pesos at TGE. My last trip was to India last year when it was impossible to do any foreign exchange so I ended up taking about £1,000 on a tour whilst queuing up at ATMs most days. Chile should be a breeze compared to that.

Our rough itinerary is to fly to Puerto Montt and get to Isla Grande de Chiloe for a few days and gradually work our way back to Santiago with a couple of days in Valparaiso towards the end.

We only have one hotel booking for our arrival in Santiago and the flight south but have a good idea of where we'd like to see after that.

Does anyone have any more suggestions?

blindman

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Thanks. Booked business class from Milan (£1,400 cheaper for the pair of us). Flying with Iberia. Exactly the same flight I'd have picked up connecting from the uk.

Three days in Santiago then flights with Sky Airline upto Calama and four nights in San Pedro.

Back to Santiago for a night and then off to Easter Island for three nights. Those flights were £800 less than Google flights thought they would be.

I've got the rest of it to plan, but will most likely do a few days driving around the lakes. There's an outside chance of Punta Arenas too!

Now I just need to add four BA flights to my year to get silver status.

Hi

I subscribed to the thread because South America is on the books for our retirement RTW (ish) trip.

The clock is ticking now and I hope to start a RTW ish trip in Nov 2018 at the earliest.

Possibly start in Mexico and then go south :cool:

How did Easter Island go?

I'm planning to possibly do the Santiago then South to Ushuaia-with a possible trip to Antartica.

We will have 6 months minimum away from home so we could have a good month at least in SA.

Trying to get to STA tours but it's 404 at the moment.

So
Any good routes to follow ?

Some good ideas on here f om tater et Al

I'm looking at TourRadar for ideas


Cheers

PeacefulWaters

blindman wrote: »

Hi

I subscribed to the thread because South America is on the books for our retirement RTW (ish) trip.

The clock is ticking now and I hope to start a RTW ish trip in Nov 2018 at the earliest.

Possibly start in Mexico and then go south :cool:

How did Easter Island go?

I'm planning to possibly do the Santiago then South to Ushuaia-with a possible trip to Antartica.

We will have 6 months minimum away from home so we could have a good month at least in SA.

Trying to get to STA tours but it's 404 at the moment.

So
Any good routes to follow ?

Some good ideas on here f om tater et Al

I'm looking at TourRadar for ideas


Cheers

Easter Island was an amazing three days. Like nowhere on earth.

I wouldn't recommend too long in Santiago. While I'm not a fan of cities anywhere, there wasn't much of tourist interest in my view.

We flew everywhere, so not really a route. Car hire tends to be pricey too. We didn't use the long distant overnight buses, but they looked brilliant with comfy seats, wifi, privacy curtains and in flight entertainment! They might save you the occasional hotel bill.

blindman

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Easter Island was an amazing three days. Like nowhere on earth.

I wouldn't recommend too long in Santiago. While I'm not a fan of cities anywhere, there wasn't much of tourist interest in my view.

We flew everywhere, so not really a route. Car hire tends to be pricey too. We didn't use the long distant overnight buses, but they looked brilliant with comfy seats, wifi, privacy curtains and in flight entertainment! They might save you the occasional hotel bill.

Great
Trying not to hijack this thread

Did the Lan.Ch website work for you and How much did the Easter Island flights cost?

Cheers

PeacefulWaters

blindman wrote: »

Great
Trying not to hijack this thread

Did the Lan.Ch website work for you and How much did the Easter Island flights cost?

Cheers

Unusually, they came out cheaper via Topcashback and the U.K. site.

£800 business class and £700 economy rings a bell. Helped get me over the line for BA Silver status with 280 tier points.

We flew Milan to Madrid to Santiago for the main flights for £1,300 in Iberia business. Very impressed.

For internal flights in Chile, Sky were usually miles cheaper than LATAM. Supposedly possible to redeem Avios for LATAM but no availability.

Easter Island flights than I'd usually pay for four nights away! Car hire from our hotel was US$40 a day. There's a US$54 national park entry fee that you can buy at the airport. Covers over half the island.

Maximum_Saving

In 2012 I wanted to visit Santiago in Chile to see a friend.. I was going with my two young children. We found the flight cost from London to Santiago too expensive. So we got a more affordable flight to Buenos Aires. We found much crime that city and we were almost mugged. We found Chile very expensive. There at my friend's house we had two earthquakes of 6.3 and 6.8 sort of scale. The buildings are strong in Chile.

Ballard

Back from a lovely trip to Chile... We really enjoyed our time there and found transport very comfortable and easy. The weather was decent and the places that we visited were lovely. We went as far south as Castro in Chiloe and as north as Valparaiso.

As far as ATM withdrawals I found BCI to be the cheapest so I looked out for them but where possible I used my Halifax Clarity to pay. The credit card was rejected three or four times although on one occasion the owner of the hotel then put it through as a 'cardholder not present' transaction which worked.

I purchased a local SIM which was a pain to get going as it is a local requirement to register the phone online before it can be used which takes up to 5 days. I've just looked online and Three have just added Chile as a 'feel at home' destination. Had they done that a few weeks ago it would have saved me a lot of time and a few quid. Not to worry.