Any time American Airlines makes international business class saver award space available that’s notable, since it’s both rare and short-lived when it does occur.
From February 27 through June 24 there’s good business class award space available on American’s New York JFK – Rio de Janeiro service in both directions.
Miami – Sao Paulo also has good space for 2 passengers in business class through March and April, becomes Thursdays only in May, and has decent availability again for June.
American AAdvantage charges 57,500 miles each way and there are no fuel surcharges on these flights. That makes them good uses of British Airways Avios as well. And you can of course book them with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles also.
If you go down there just watch your back, Jack. Brazil is perhaps the murder capital of the world.
All of these blue countries combined had the same number of homicides as Brazil last year [1292×691] from MapPorn
(HT: Milecards)
I don’t suppose there’s any availability to Buenos Aires or Santiago, is there?
Murder rates for the Sao Paulo state in Brazil in 2015 were 12.2 per 100,000. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_unidades_federativas_do_Brasil_por_taxa_de_homic%C3%ADdios
There are more than 20 cities in the US with murder rates above 12 per 100,000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate)
Of course, these statistics could be off, but at least they take into consideration the murder rates per inhabitant, unlike the one link you shared, which considers absolute numbers (and thus where Venezuela and Honduras, with smaller populations, would be safe places…).
Anyway, I’m not saying that anywhere in Brazil is safe. There are safe places, and there are unsafe places. Just like in the US. What doesn’t make sense is to consider absolute numbers, like the link you included in the post, where of course the countries with more inhabitants will look worse than the less inhabited.
P.S.: Thanks for the heads up on the AA award space availability.
Try this map…
And for novices make sure you have your Brazil visa figured out as well.
I am flying to Santiago Chile late october, returning first week november, also 57k miles business class
Gary, I have 75K AA miles and I was wanting a one-way biz class to either SEZ or MRU. Is there a way without flying BA and paying the fuel surcharges? Thanks.
This morning, I saw availability for five AA J seats to BCN and MAD in July 2018 as well.
Americans, even well travelled ones, can be incredibly provincial when it comes to judging other places, and think of their own country as much safer than it really is. The plain reality is that statistics are only meaningful if they are applied in a rational way, and looking at raw numbers devoid of meaningful context — does it really matter how many Switzerlands it takes to equal one Curitiba when I live in Detroit? — is often comparable to comparing apples to oranges and gives you false impressions. But Americans traveling to Brazil don’t live in Switzerland, or Singapore, or Norway, but in a country with its own massive crime problem — courtesy of the same drug war that the United States has so unkindly exported to Central and South America. These awful looking statistics are a result of violent crime in the North and Northeast of Brazil, where American tourists rarely go. The numbers in most places where Americans do go in Brazil are not meaningfully different than the sorts of places they live in the USA, and often much safer.
Murder Rates/100K people
São Paulo=10 (roughly the same as Los Angeles)
Rio de Janeiro=19 (roughly the same as Pittsburgh)
Chicago=37
N.Orleans=42
Detroit=50
Baltimore=50
St. Louis=59
And this puts to one side that the numbers themselves are compiled differently and not apples to apples. In the United States, the statistics don’t count people killed by cops (in some cities a very significant number) or cops killed by perps — Brazil counts that all. Also, even the numbers for Sao Paulo and Rio don’t tell the whole story, because the vast majority of those murders are committed in places nowhere near the areas where tourists spend their time. For example, the favela of Cidade de Deus is technically in the same sprawling city as Copacabana and Ipanema, but is roughly an hour away by car (or more in the usual traffic). Numbers that include dangerous slums in outlying areas tell you nothing about your risk doing tourist things (or living a normal life) in the places that tourists frequent.
Crime is simply not a rational reason for Americans to avoid going to Sao Paulo, Rio, Iguacu, or the best beaches in the world that run up and down the coast — many would actually be lowering their risk by going.