So even though we HAVE the visa I can't buy a bloody plane ticket to get him out of Paraguay. I am so unbelievably frustrated. After calling Lan Chile countless times to find the best price fare and the best itinerary the guy I talked to yesterday was like "I can't sell you the ticket". I was like whaaaaaaaat. He tells me that they could only issue me a paper ticket because it's technically not LAN leaving asuncion, but another carrier that works with them so it cant be electronic. (Which means for every 10 Lan reps only one knows what he's talking about). I said lets make it for a later date and mail me the ticket and then I mail it to him and they said that they cant do it. They cant issue me the paper ticket because of something about asuncion, i dont even understand anymore. So i said well how can someone LEAVE paraguay to the united states then. (I mean it's been done before for goodness sakes!!!) He says he has to go to a travel agency and they'll issue him a ticket. I said but I'm the one paying!!!!!!! They said well perhaps you can try calling different ones and see if one of them will accept your credit card over the phone. So of course, I have a visa and a mastercard and they'll only take american express. I mean OF COURSE!!! Why is this country SO DIFFICULT!??! So now I have to send him $1000. GREAT. They always manage to screw it up when I said $80, I can't wait to see what they do with my bloody $1000. Not to mention the fact that it's going to be oh so safe for him to walk around with that amount of cash on him.

Blame TAM, it's all their fault. They don't issue electronic tickets. Try despegar.com, they might be able to help, not sure.

Yeah, TAM doesn´t do that. Doesn´t AA fly Paraguay or something?

AA doesn't fly to Paraguay anymore because they said it's not profitable. It's the only capital in the Western Hemisphere that AA doesn't fly out of. Their last flight was sometime in Dec '05.
Too bad about this TAM thing...I wonder why they don't accept electronic tickets. strange.
((sigh)) Oh well, c'est la vie. Where there's a will, there's a way....

If you buying directly with AA, they also won't let you issue the e-ticket. And some of the websites that sell tickets will not accept payment charged to a credit card that is not the passenger to whom it's being issued. Also, some won't even issue e-tickets for flights going out of other countries. My fiance and I've tried some sites (when I had the interview scheduled the first time) and we've decided to check with travel agencies.

Maybe you can use paypal or another service like that to send your fiance money. Then have him deposit the check to his bank account, so he doesn't have to walk around with cash on him.

He doesn't have a bank account. But I have a solution I'm depositing the money to a friend's account and she's buying it for him with her debit card. She totally SAVED the day

Good you worked things out!

May sound silly, but are you buying a one-way or RT? The reason I ask it because I had the same problem bringing my wife from Brasil. I also found a RT to be a better deal than the one-way, and I was able to purchase the ticket for her here in the USA and avoid this same hassle you are dealing with. While you may waste the return portion (I hope), the cost is certainly insignificant.

For instance, I just made a OW vs. RT search on TAM for August 20 flying from GRU to MIA.

The OW portion cost R2.520,26 and a RT (returning on August 27) costs R2.5279,85. There is only about a R70,00 difference!

Again, if you do something like this, you CAN book from here and send the ticket to you SO.

Gook luck and many congrats to you both!

Hi Minha,
The LAN Chile rep told me I can't send him the ticket. Apparently it's not allowed, I was so bummed while I was hearing all this, that I don't remember his reasons. I've been in touch with the travel agency where my friend will be buying the ticket and they said it's cheaper with return as well. The agent emailed me yesterday an itinerary and apparently the flight they're planning is Asuncion to Buenos Aires to NY (La Guardia). I specifically said JFK (in case he gets temp work authorization) so if she can't do JFK I might as well just do Boston and save myself the car ride.