Santiago de Chile: €3,023 Lufthansa First Class from Budapest

Star Alliance member Lufthansa teams up with South American aviation giant LATAM to bring you first tickets from Budapest to Santiago de Chile for just HUF 1,174,500 (~€2,989). The tickets include two First Class flights from Europe to Bogota or São Paulo, two LATAM business class flights within South America and and European business class feeder flights. You will be able to access Lufthansa’s or Swiss’ dedicated First Class terminals twice during your journey.

Our availability calendar highlights all possible flight dates at the lowest price for trips up to 28 days. It will forward you to Lufthansa with your selected flight dates.

All itineraries feature two stops, one in Europe and one in South America. First, a European business class flight takes you from Budapest to either Frankfurt or Zurich. From Frankfurt, most itineraries send you to Bogota in a Lufthansa A340-600 in First Class, then you’d fly a LATAM Boeing 787 in business class from Colombia to Chile.

Trips via Zurich see you ride a SWISS Boeing 777-300ER from Zurich to São Paulo, then a LATAM Boeing 787 in business class across the continent to Santiago de Chile. You need to be very attentive when booking this option: Most flights from São Paulo to Santiago are narrow body flights, without a proper business class cabin. We recommend taking a close look at the preview before booking these flights. There are also Lufthansa flights that feature a stop in São Paulo.

Most of the discounted flights feature have stops in Bogota and Frankfurt both ways. All LATAM flights between Bogota and Santiago are Boeing 787 services.

Lufthansa First Class

Lufthansa has its own terminal for First Class passengers! This and the food in Lufthansa’s First Class are widely considered to be among the best. The First Class terminal has its own airport security control, free food, hotel-like rooms with bed and bathtub, and so on. You get driven to the plane in a limousine.

The seat can be turned into a 210 cm long bed (roughly 80 cm wide) and has all the usual comforts, such as power sockets, inflight entertainment, WIFI, and so on.

SWISS First Class

In SWISS’ first class, you’ll be served excellent food in a comfortable seat that can be turned into a flat bed. Usually, the 8 first class seats are in a 1-2-1 formation, meaning that every seat has direct access to the aisle. You’ll be allowed to check in 3 pieces of luggage and bring 2 carry-ons. In Zurich, you’ll enjoy the first class lounge, which was recently named the best in the world. You can read all about SWISS’s first class in this review.

Search & Book

These tickets are on sale until sold out for travel between September 2023 and June 2024. While Google Flights previews availabilities in 2024, we have not been able to verify any of these prices. You need to stay at least three days in Santiago to get the lowest fare.

Finding availabilities for these is a bit of a scattershot. Some 2024 and almost all 2023 flight dates by Google Flights are wrong and actually cost double. Lufthansa’s best price search on the other hand hides some flight dates, displaying no availability from January through March 2024, even though there is.

You might have to fiddle around a bit to find suiting flight dates, but the great price is usually worth it. We strongly recommend buying your tickets directly from the airline.

Why is booking with an airline better than with an online travel agency?

More often than not, online travel agencies offer lower fares than airlines do. We still recommend booking with the airlines directly. There are two main reasons for that:

Better Customer Service
In case any problems like delays, cancellations or missed connections arise, you can communicate directly with the airline. The airline has to take care of you because you have a contract with them.

If a travel agency issues your ticket, you may have to reach out to them first. You also depend on your OTA to forward information like flight changes instead of receiving them directly from the airline. In many cases, you may get a prime exhibition of responsibility shifting rather than problem-solving.

This especially applies to premium tickets. You don’t want to spend more than €1,000 to wind up with some budget OTA’s telephone hotline in case anything goes wrong.

Baggage and Other Fees
Economy fares not including hold luggage are industry standard by now. In most cases, travel agencies charge much higher baggage fees than the airlines themselves. If bags are not included in your fare, airlines are often the cheaper alternative.

This also applies to other things like food services, insurances or priority treatment. In almost all cases, you pay less for additional amenities when booking on the airlines’ website.

You can also fly business class for roughly half the price:

Santiago de Chile: €1,478 Lufthansa and LATAM Business Class from Amsterdam and Budapest

Mileage

Star Alliance frequent flyers can earn miles based on the following booking classes:

• Budapest BUD – Frankfurt FRA: Lufthansa J
• Frankfurt FRA – Bogota BOG: Lufthansa A
• Bogota BOG – Santiago de Chile SCL: LATAM J

If you fly with Swiss via Zurich, the European legs book in J and the transatlantic flights book in A, too. You can calculate earnings for your itinerary with our mileage calculator:

Destination

Hotel prices in Santiago de Chile usually start at roughly €35, depending on the hotel category. Whichever category and hotel you opt for, make sure to get the best price! Our recommendation is to search on booking.com, or even on our own Travel-Dealz hotel search:

Information & Tips for Santiago de Chile

Santiago de Chile is the capital and most important economic center of Chile. With its 5.6 million inhabitants, the city is also a key cultural center which attracts numerous tourists thanks to its location near both the coast and the Andes Mountains.

From the Airport to the City Center

Two different airport busses, CentroPuerto and TurBus, run from the airport to the city. The fare is about 3€ per person and the journey takes about 30 to 50 minutes depending on traffic conditions. Credit cards are accepted when buying a ticket at the airport counter.

Unfortunately, none of the two buses take you directly into the city centre. The buses from CentroPuerto go to the “Los Héroes” station, from there you can walk to the central Plaza de Armas in about 20 minutes and a transfer to the metro is also possible quite easily. A taxi is a bit faster and costs approximately 20€.

Best Time to Travel

The best weather conditions for sightseeing and other touristic activities are in spring between September and November and in autumn between March and May. Temperatures during these months are moderate and rainfall is low.

→ All Dealz for Santiago de Chile