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2013
11
April
Calgary to Argentina | How To Get The Best Flight Deals
11
April
Guides
The Ydeals Noise-Free Guide To Getting The Best Deal On Flights To Argentina From Calgary
 | There are thousands of travel sites out there, all wanting you to believe they have unique or special prices on airfares to Argentina. They don't. They use marketing noise to hide the fact that there is really only one source of unique prices on flights to Argentina. This guide will remove the noise and show you what that source is, so you can stop wasting so much time when searching for the best deal. |
What are the unique sources of prices on flights to Argentina from Calgary ?
Unique Source #1 - The Major Airlines
There are 5 major airlines that fly to Argentina from Calgary, and they are: Air Canada, American Airlines, Delta, Delta, TAM, and United Airlines.
Where should I look to get the best flight deal to Argentina?
All you need to do is search the major airlines, preferably all at once. My current favorite way to do this would be using Google Flights Explorer because you can just enter 'Argentina' into the 'To' box, and see current airfares from all the major airlines, at one time. Not to mention how easy it is to browse through different date combinations.
Even if you're planning to go for a longer date range than this tool supports (currently up to 2 weeks), it will give you an excellent idea of what the typical bottom price is right now to Argentina, and which airline(s) it can be found on.
You can use Google Flights Explorer as a starting point, and then use a tool with more precise search options, such as...
My second favorite way would be to search using Kayak. It has all the sort and filter options I need, and searches all major airlines. Click on 'Make my dates flexible' and set it to '+/- 3 days'. You may be surprised how often being a little flexible with your dates can result in a better price.
In the 'To' box, enter one of the places listed in the next paragraph as your destination.
Which airport in Argentina should I fly into?
Inevitably, vacationers flying from Calgary to Argentina will be flying into Buenos Aires. Even if that is not your final destination in Argentina, you'll likely be connecting in Buenos Aires and taking a separate airline from there.
You may find it difficult to find airfares from Calgary to cities in Argentina other than Buenos Aires. Find the airfare from Calgary to Buenos Aires first, and then look separately for airfares between Buenos Aires and the airport in Argentina you want to fly into. This flight is very likely to be on Aerolineas Argentinas or LAN, the only two real airline choices in Argentina.
Something to note is that Buenos Aires has 2 major airports. Ministro Pistarini Airport (EZE) is generally used for international flights, while Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (AEP) is generally used for flights within Argentina.
Why is this important? When you're using any decent travel airfare search engine, you can search airfares to both of these Buenos Aires airports at once by using the 3 letter code of BUE. An airline could be offering cheaper fares to one Buenos Aires airport and not the other, so you may as well search both of them at the same time.
What about the thousands of other travel sites that have airfares to Argentina?
This is the noise. There is no shortage of travel sites or brands trying to convince you that they have the cheapest flights to Argentina from Calgary. The truth is though, there's only one unique source of prices that they're gathering their airfare prices from, and that's the major airlines themselves. They can't offer a lower price on airfares to Argentina than the airlines themselves, as there's virtually no markup.
There's a few reasons why I think Calgary travellers waste an enormous amount of time checking multiple websites, hoping for a better deal than the one they already found (studies show it to be an average of 22 different sites over 10 periods of research!). The first reason is just human nature. We all want to compare prices and make sure we're getting the best deal.
But I think the biggest reason is simply the noise of travel marketing. With so many travel sites and brands competing for your attention, all hoping you'll book through them, combined with the fact that not one of them will *ever* admit to you that their source of prices is the same as everyone else, it's little wonder travelers waste so much time searching.
What about searching the airline's website directly?
There's nothing wrong with doing that. It's usually just a lot easier to search all of the airlines at once, with a better interface using a good search tool. It's amazing how poor many of the airline's search interfaces are. The fares found on any half-decent search engine will be the same as the fares found on the airline's own website.
One thing you can do is just use a flight search tool to scan all the airlines at once, and then go to the airline's own site to book it once you've figured out exactly which flight you want, and what the price is.
Another thing to be aware of is that the more sophisticated travel search engines can combine flights from multiple airlines to find cheaper options, especially on international flights, that you may not find on the airline's website.
What about my local Calgary travel agency or independent travel agent in Alberta?
They're seeing the same prices you are. Depending on the agency or agent, they may or may not charge you a 'booking fee' on top of the airfare price, for their time. As there's virtually no markup on the cost of flights, they can't offer you a price to Argentina that's any cheaper than from the airline, or from a search tool that properly searches the latest airfares.
When should I book a flight to Argentina to get the best price?
This is never an easy question to answer, as airfares are not 100% predictable. Airlines start by setting their price at a level they think will fill the maximum number of seats, based on the demand they expect to see.
If they experience less demand than they expected, they may decide to lower them. If they experience more demand than they expected, they may raise them. Unfortunately, a lot of factors that influence demand can be unpredictable.
How long a person can wait it out in hopes of a better price is a personal decision. Personally though, I am usually not afraid to watch prices on the major airlines up to about 8 weeks before departure in hopes of a better price without fear of the price rising. But everyone has a different tolerance for risk.
What about last minute flight deals to Argentina?
Last minute airfare deals to Argentina on the major airlines don't exist. Typical of most airfares on the major airlines, as you get fairly close to the departure date, if the airline has done their job correctly, and filled most of the seats on the plane, they feel the last remaining seats become more valuable, and often decide to raise the price.
What's a decent airfare price to Argentina?
From Calgary, flights to Buenos Aires tend to bottom out at around $1000 roundtrip after taxes. This is just a general guideline though, based on average demand periods of the year.
Airfare prices are highly affected by demand. So anytime you can think of a reason that there might be higher demand than usual for travel to Argentina (such as dates when many people in Calgary have vacation time) you can expect prices to react accordingly.
What about one way flights to Argentina?
One-way flights to overseas international destinations on the major airlines can often be expensive. Sometimes they are even more than roundtrip flights, which may seem strange!
At the moment I'm not aware of any possible way to get a great one-way price to Argentina. Even one-way flights from major U.S. cities can be expensive.
What about direct flights to Argentina from Calgary?
There aren't any airlines currently offering direct flights to Argentina from Calgary. The fastest flights are in and out of Buenos Aires (EZE), with 1 stop each way, for about 3 hours. An example of this would be using United Airlines, with 1 stop in Houston each way.
The total flight time to Argentina from Calgary, including layover time, with 1 stop flights such as those listed above, is around 17.5-18 hours each way.
The distance from Calgary to Argentina is approximately 10,800 km (6,800 miles).
The time difference between Calgary and Argentina is 3 hours. Buenos Aires is 3 hours ahead of Calgary. That's the great thing about Argentina, it's really far away from Calgary, but since you're traveling south, there's very little jet lag when you get there as the time difference isn't all that significant.
What about a multi-city flight? Such as into Buenos Aires and out of another city in Argentina?
Searching for multi-city flights to Argentina is still a bit of a pain. Even Google Explorer currently can't handle it, as there's too many possible combinations. I'm sure eventually someone (likely Google) will put enough processing power behind it and create something useful for searching multi-city fares.
But for now, you're stuck with searching one departure date at a time when it comes to multi-city fares and experimenting with different destination combinations. Most of the decent travel sites will offer a multi-city option (it should be right next to 'one-way' and 'round-trip').
Kayak would be my preferred option here. Just click on the 'multi-city' option and in the first box, enter in Calgary to Buenos Aires (EZE), or whatever airport you want to fly into, and then in the second box, enter Cordoba (COR) to Calgary, or whatever airport you want to fly out of.
You never really know what you're going to get with a multi-city fare. It can often be around the same price as a typical roundtrip fare to the same destinations (or an average of the two). Sometimes it can be slightly more. In rare cases it can even be cheaper. Of course, you're still left with figuring out the cost of getting between the two airports.
One little trick I've learned with Kayak is to keep it on the 'roundtrip' option, and make your dates flexible (3 days before and after). And then in the 'To' box, enter up to a maximum of 4 destinations, using the 3 letter airport codes, separated by commas.
For example, you could enter: BUE, COR, FTE, BRC into the box to search multi-city airfare combinations between Calgary and Buenos Aires, Cordoba, El Calafate, and Bariloche.
This will search flights to all 4 of these popular Argentinian destinations at once, and look for cheap multi-city combinations into one city and out of another. Many of the results will just be the typical roundtrip flights, but when you scroll down the results, look for the airport codes that are highlighted in pink. These are the flights involving two different cities.
To use this method effectively, you need to get to know the 3 letter airport codes for the destinations you're interested in. Just Google the name of the city, followed by 'airport code' and you should be able to find it quite easily. (Google usually shows it at the top, or on the right hand side of the page).
I do find however that you're not likely to find many multi-city results involving flights other than from Buenos Aires. You're likely better off booking a regular roundtrip flight to Buenos Aires, and then a separate one way flight back to Buenos Aires from another airport in Argentina.
What about low-cost flights to Argentina from U.S. airports within driving distance of Calgary?
If you've ever read my guide about flying out of U.S. airports within driving distance of Calgary, you may know that I feel it could be worth the drive, when you see a flight from a U.S. airport to Argentina that's at least a certain number of dollars less per person than from Calgary.
From Kalispell (FCA) or Great Falls (GTF), Montana
I feel it could be worth the drive, when you see a flight from Kalispell or Great Falls to Argentina that's at least $500 less per person than a flight from Calgary.
Realistically though, this is unlikely to ever be the case, as they are smaller airports, and their flights to Argentina are likely to be significantly more expensive than from Calgary.
I think I've found a great deal on a flight to Argentina!
Excellent! Please share it with your fellow Calgary travel lovers, they will appreciate it and thank you for it! You can post it in the YYC Deals Facebook group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive), where thousands of travelers from Calgary are crowd-sourcing the best deals, and sharing great travel advice.
Or if you prefer, you can always give me a shout through the YYC Deals contact form or on Twitter @YYCdeals or through Google Plus. Great deal finds are always appreciated.
Why should I trust this Calgary flight guide to Argentina?
 | The info in this guide is based on my observations of the travel industry over the years, including all the thousands of websites out there, and where all the different players get their prices from and how they interact with each other. The goal is to remove the noise of travel marketing, so vacationers can stop wasting so much valuable time searching the same prices over and over. |
But, as social proof of it's accuracy, feel free to join the YYC Deals Facebook Group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive) and publicly disagree with any of it, or make a comment below. Critiques are always welcome!
I think I have some info that could help improve the Calgary - Argentina flight deal guide!
Great! Please post your info in the Facebook group above, make a comment below, or contact me directly. Suggestions for improvement are always appreciated. Let me know if you see something that seems inaccurate or outdated.
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