Frequent Fliers in Salvador use AAdvantage

If you live in Salvador, Brazil, and travel frequently to the U.S. or vice-versa, the best frequent flier program to use is American Airlines' AAdvantage. In my experience, it is much easier to get award tickets for international travel on American than on United Airlines. On a few occasions I have tried booking the same itinerary on both, and AAdvantage usually comes through while United almost never has availability.

Also, the only non-stop flight between Salvador and the U.S. is the TAM flight to/from Miami on Sundays. AAdvantage awards allow you to mix TAM with AA flights, so you can save half a day of travel if you leave on Sunday and use Miami as the U.S. gateway. My wife loves this option.

Another international award I like a lot is the non-stop flight between Salvador and Santiago, Chile, on LAN. Since LAN is part of the One World Alliance, you can redeem AAdvantage miles on LAN. Santiago is a great place to go for wine tasting and skiing, and bypassing the change of planes in São Paulo makes things much more relaxing.

One potential issue is that the only Brazilian airline in which you can redeem AAdvantage miles is TAM. Varig, which is part of Star Alliance, requires United miles.

Also, you cannot fly with AAdvantage miles on TAM codeshare flights that are operated by Varig. This is not a big issue anymore because of the termination of the joint operating agreement between TAM and Varig, but before it was very inconvenient because all the SSA-GRU flights on TAM were codeshares operated by Varig.

There is an American Airlines office in Salvador, which you can call directly at 3340-0303, and avoid the per-minute charges of the 0300-789-7778 number.