We were in Buenos Aires, Argentina but had to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa.

This route between two large cities looks simple on the map, but is actually uncommon. All routes out of South America inevitably travelled through the large Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the cost was astronomical (around $1,500 USD per ticket for economy, before considering that we have four bags to check).

Seeing Iguazu Falls was on Tammy’s list of things to do in Argentina, but it is a 15-hour drive north to the border with Brazil, making it prohibitive for a visit from Buenos Aires without flying. And I was interested in spending some time seeing the megacity of Sao Paulo. Was there a way that we could do all of this, and also save money?

We put together an itinerary of flights as follows:

• Buenos Aires (AEP) – Puerto Iguazu (IGR): This domestic flight on Aerolineas Argentinas allowed us to fly from the Buenos Aires Aeropark (AEP) instead of the larger Buenos Aires Ezeiza (EZE), saving money and time on transportation to the airport. We paid using the Argentine pesos (ARS) version of the Aerolineas site, providing a better exchange rate than if we used the US Dollars (USD) version (please use a card with no foreign transaction fee). The total cost, including our baggage fees, was $75 USD/person.
• Argentina to Brazil via Iguazu Falls Travel: They provided drivers to take us across the border, watch our luggage as we spent a full day at Iguazu Falls (Brazil side), and then drop us at the airport. More detail in this post. Below $100 USD for the sedan service, so around $50 USD/person.
• Foz do Iguaçu (IGU) – Sao Paulo (GRU): Since we were in Brazil, we took another domestic flight on GOL to reach Sao Paulo. The total cost, including baggage, was $140 USD/person.
• Sao Paulo (GRU) – Johannesberg (JNB): We used Singapore Airlines miles to book South African Airways lie-flat business class. This was a direct flight, which is quite rare for this routing! The cost was 57,500 miles plus $18 USD. Valuing these miles at 1.5 cents/mile yields a total cost of $880 USD/person.

Our total travel cost was around $1,145 per person for a routing that allowed us to do exactly what we wanted at Iguazu Falls, provided a stopover in Sao Paulo, and then gave us lie-flat business-class seats on a direct routing from Sao Paulo to Johannesburg. Far better than the $1,500+ cash price for an economy ticket!

Our first step was using Google Flights to see what the possibilities were between Buenos Aires and South Africa. If there was an easy direct flight, we would have taken that. But once we knew that we had to go north to Sao Paulo, it opened up further possibilities. Since Tammy had Iguazu Falls on her radar, she used Facebook groups, forums, and travel blogs to see how people had put together their Iguazu itineraries. She decided that two days were the right timing: one day for the park on each side. From there, it was just doing the math on whether it made more sense to stay in Puerto Iguazu (IGR, on the Argentina side) and fly from there to Sao Paulo, or whether it made more sense to get across the border via land and then fly from Foz do Iguaçu (IGU, on the Brazilian side).

Although we had a small setback when there was an Argentine airport strike, everything else went according to plan. We often use the map on Google Flights to see what makes sense for the next destination: it isn’t always what is the closest, geographically!