Domestic flights in Peru airfare hack, LATAM airlines

Interesting! I guess you are going to Peru? It’s at the top of our list and would love to hear about it upon your return.

Tammy: An independent trip Peru requires 20-30 times more effort to plan than an independent Europe trip. I have been utterly exhausted on multiple occasions.

Tours increase the trip cost by a factor of 3 to 6, however at this point I am wondering if it would have been a better choice. I just want to see more things than a tour ever covers, and I can’t stand tour whiners and being herded around generally.

About to book a series of ground transportation reservations. Airport pick ups and so on. Lots of companies offer “taxi tours” which are pretty neat. If for example a person wants to go from Cusco airport to Ollantaytambo, a 2 hour $35 taxi trip, up to 3 Inca sites can be added along the way for $25 more. So a totally personalized trip where you can stay as long as you want at each site while the driver waits in his car (luggage in trunk).

We did a wonderful Peru trip that included Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.
Used PeruAgency.com to book the Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu portion. This was in 2019. Coast for four day tour was $799 pp.
Great tour. We purchased our airline tickets from Lima to Cusco on our own and it wasn't expensive. We used Delta to fly from Atlanta to Lima.

Great tip!

Not related to your airfare, but I'll just comment that the Lima airport is really far from the historic center and traffic is horrible - takes about an hour or so. So take that in account timing wise. If you have a very late night/early morning flight home, I took the convenient Airport Express Lima shuttle bus as my hotel was in the Miraflores area. There are departure times until about 8 p.m. Of course you can also take it from the airport too - I didn't need to do that as I was on a tour.

We flew Latam to Peru from Atlanta and while in SA with no issues. We spent 8 nights in Sacred Valley/ Cusco followed by 2 nights in Lima and for all airport transfers and ground transportation (with the exception of a couple of Ubers in Lima) we used Taxidatum. We were able to book our transportation needs online, arrange a car/driver for the day and know ahead of time cost etc. While in Ollantaytambo we had had the same driver. It was nice not having to negotiate prices and payment could be by credit card, soles or US $. We loved our time in Peru and although it was more time consuming to plan than a trio to Europe it was so worth it.

Hopefully they don't code the ticket in such a way as to indicate citizen fare vs non citizen fare and realize when you check in that you are not a local. It has been known for years that Lactam has a 2 tier fee schedule. I don't know the current status, but some in the past were charged an extra fee at the airport. You can always double check from the experienced folks on the TripAdvisor Air Travel forum.
Not sure if you are traveling beyond Lima and Cusco, but there is a Hop Bus, works like a hop on hop off bus between cities. It came after my tour to Peru but a work mate used it and found it an easy way to get around.

LATAM eliminated discount fares for residents about 6 years ago. So everyone theoretically pays the same, except LATAM set up its USA website to charge Americans more, and perhaps Canadians more also, can you check Google flights for 2 prices from a Canadian home in the manner that I linked above? If you read through my method you would see that I am pretending to a Kiwi, not a Peruvian.

Peru Hop is more expensive and tends to run uncomfortable buses with only overnight options. The local bus lines run luxe buses with lie flat seats at a cheaper price. Peru Hop does do some shuttling to/from hotels at origins and destinations included in the price. Of course you are with tourists the whole time on Peru Hop, if alone and young and want hostels maybe preferable.