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What's Up with Star Alliance in 2013

As we mentioned yesterday, there has been quite a shake-up in the world of aviation lately, all of which is leaving some airline alliances bidding fond adieu to some airlines while welcoming others with open arms. Let's take a look at what 2013 has in store for Star Alliance, and what effects it might have on your own travel.

The world's first and largest airline alliance is set to lose at least two airlines this year with US Airways and TAM leaving after the mergers discussed yesterday, both of which see them switching to Oneworld. This leaves smaller carriers like Avianca, TACA and Copa Airlines to pick up the slack in South America.

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Up and Over the Andes: Flying TACA from Lima to Cusco, Peru

The Embraer-190 at Cusco Airport

The Jaunted Goes to Machu Picchu Series:

One week to kill in Lima, Peru. This is what happens when you book reward flights and take whatever availability. We'd learned that lesson already. Friends who'd been to Lima before advised us to get out—one week was plenty time for a side trip of several days to bucket list destinations like Machu Picchu or Colca Canyon. And so, Machu Picchu it was, but first we'd have to get our butt over to the city of Cusco.

The quick decision meant we had done little pre-planning and, searching flights from Lima to Cusco and back, the prices were already rocketing. The eventual winner, after searching LAN, TACA and StarPeru, was TACA. We went with TACA for three big reasons:
1. For the roundtrip price ($331.96 total), competitive with the other airlines at the time of booking, we could fly Biz Class on TACA.
2. We'd never flown 'em and were curious
3. We're Star Alliance Gold status and TACA is a member of the alliance.

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