LAN’s current award chart is being ‘enhanced’ on January 18 — and I don’t care one bit. Because there aren’t going to be any changes to their business class oneworld distance-based award chart.
While at first glance those awards appear to be expensive, they become a better value when you realize that Starwood points transfer at 1 -> 2 into LAN. And the double conversion rate applies to the transfer bonus as well. So 20,000 Starwood points yields 50,000 points with LAN…. 95,000 Starwood gets you 40,000 kilometers of oneworld business class flying and 120,000 Starwood points gets you 56,000 kilometers of oneworld business class flying.
(E.g. Los Angeles – Hong Kong – Sydney and return, with stopover, would cost 95,000 Starwood points for Cathay Pacific business class, with kilometers to spare, award inventory permitting of course.)