Iberia flight booking weirdness

benjus

I would like to book the following itinerary on Iberia:

1. La Paz, Bolivia (LPB) - Santa Cruz, Bolivia (VVI) (flight IB1795)
2. Santa Cruz, Bolivia (VVI) - Madrid (flight IB1791)
3. Madrid - London (flight IB3166)

(legs 1 and 2 are codeshares operated by Boliviana de Aviacion)

If I look on Iberia's site (using June 8th 2017 as an example date) I can buy a flight from La Paz to Madrid (i.e. legs 1 & 2), or Santa Cruz to London (i.e. legs 2 & 3), but not La Paz to London. I have tried both the UK and Spanish Iberia sites. I don't want to have to collect luggage and re-check it, so buying separate tickets isn't an option.

I can buy the full itinerary via a travel agent, but for various reasons I'd prefer to buy direct from the airline. I tried calling Iberia telesales but they basically just said "computer says no".

I guess I'll probably end up using a travel agent, but does anyone have any idea why this happens? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

richardw

Have you got to a payment page on the dummy booking on the travel agent's website?

My guess is there's ultimately something in the fare rules that prevent this routing due to interlining rules in Bolivia, or something similarly bizarre.

benjus

Yes, I can get to a payment page on an agent's website. Nothing out of the ordinary in the fare rules it lists - just the usual stuff about changes etc.

One thing that's really odd is that Kayak (the search engine I used to find the flights) does give a price for buying the flights direct from Iberia - I wonder how it gets that price...

richardw

Another guess, some S American countries have differing departure taxes, with some to pay at check in, according to how long you've spent in the country and since you are flying one way Iberia may not be able to deal with this when including a Domestic leg on an ultimately international departure, when the final destination is not Spain.

PeacefulWaters

Google flights seems to point towards Avianca and American Airlines offering alternative routings.

No idea if they're any use to you. AA presumably need an ESTA for a Miami landing.

benjus

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Google flights seems to point towards Avianca and American Airlines offering alternative routings.

No idea if they're any use to you. AA presumably need an ESTA for a Miami landing.

Definitely don't want to fly via the USA, and while Avianca is a decent airline the timings make it 26-30 hours end to end compared with 17 hours (IIRC) on the Iberia/BoA route.