How to book air travel?

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charles.mcintyre
charles.mcintyre

Can someone help me understand how to book air travel in Colombia?

I've been on multiple websites (vivacolombia, latam, despagar, etc) over the past 24 hours and can't manage to book a flight to Leticia. Vivacolombia is very cheap but they nickel and dime you for everything. I completed a booking there, but then my credit card (Capital One Visa) which has worked for everything else in Colombia was rejected. Google Flights came up with a great schedule on LATAM, but then when I went onto latam.com, it didn't exist. I finally went onto despagar.com, found great flights and prices, booked it, but then received an email that said my credit card didn't work and I needed to call a number to arrange alternate payment. I booked the same flights and used my AMEX, but I received the same email. I created an account on despagar and then they only would let me purchase the tickets in Argentian Pesos or US Dollars at 3x the price.

Also, when I look on vivacolombia in English, they don't fly to Leticia. They only fly to Leticia if you look at their site in Spanish.

Any advice?

Thank you!

Charles

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mstep
mstep

Try one of the flight aggregator sites like momondo or skyscanner. A lot of the deals are provided by travel agencies, so you don't need to deal with difficult airline websites.

Try several different days. I saw a flight on skyscanner for $35 US one way.

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airbn51st
airbn51st

Colombian travel sites are notoriously bad when it comes to paying with foreign cards. Many of them don't accept foreign cards outright, or they make you go through some ridiculous process in order to use your card. I remember I tried booking some plane tickets using the Colombian Despegar site, and initially, my card was accepted. However, instead of a confirmation e-mail, I got a message telling me that I had 24hrs to send them a copy of my id and credit card, in order for the payment to be processed. Unfortunately, these sites have different (higher) prices when trying to book your trip using their website for countries outside of Colombia. Regarding banking and monetary transactions on the internet, Colombia is in the stone age. I'm not sure if it's just paranoia or what, but negotiating through the BS can be frustrating. I closed my Colombian bank account, due to the fact that their procedures were so archaic and prohibitive.

However, you do have another option when booking with Viva Colombia. When you check out, use the Baloto option to pay. Viva Colombia will give you about 24 hrs (I think) to pay for the ticket(s) at any Baloto in Colombia. You can pay at the Baloto in cash, and they are all over the place in Colombian cities. Almost every Exito supermarket and Carulla will have a Baloto booth. I used the Baloto service a few years ago when I bought tickets with Viva Colombia, and the service was pretty straightforward and easy.

Viva Colombia just started a Bogot - Leticia route. It's probably just a problem with the website.

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charles.mcintyre
charles.mcintyre

Thank you mstep and airbn51st for the great tips! I doubled-down last night and was determined to figure this out. I will check out skyscanner and the Baloto option. There's an exito 5 minutes from me!

I found another site (atrapalo.com.co), which allowed me to buy the tickets with my US credit card that I found to Leticia via Latam.

Cheers!

C

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sonyain
sonyain

Hola.
We bought a Vivacolombia flight last thursday with spanish visa card and had no problem at all. Easy! With colombian website in spanish.
They charge extra for luggage like many low-cost companies in the world.
For Leticia, everyone (al airlines like Latam...) has to pay an extra Amazon fee.
Maybe try again!
Suerte.
More infos about Colombia and Leticia on our blog in spanish. We did Iquitos-Leticia-Manaus by boat.
Suerte!

www.viajesconmochila.blogspot.com
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fleischklappe
fleischklappe

I´m actually planning a four weeks trip through Comlombia in march and expierenced the same trouble on the bookings sites. The problem is their payment provider. It´s nearly always PayU
I solved my problems checking the status of my payments with my credicard number on http://www.payu.com.co/en/consumers and opened a case through the website of PayU mentioning the transaction ID and the problem. Withing 36 hrs I received an mail telling me the problem was resolved and tried to book again and it worked.
I made my creditcard working on vivacolombia and easyfly.

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