General Info

[Rio Bob]

LATAM's phone didn't even stay connected for me. I had to wait an hour to talk to an agent, and the line got disconnected before we finished. I could not get thru by phone again. The online system let me go to payment step then told me it won't accept the US card. I went to the airport to make change.

I recently bought a ticket on Latam on site orbitz.com, I had no problems at all. I learned recently latam is a result of merging with Tam which I flew once, the Brazilian flight attendants were absolutely beautiful especially compared to flight attendants on American Carriers.

[Sperto]

LATAM's phone didn't even stay connected for me. I had to wait an hour to talk to an agent, and the line got disconnected before we finished. I could not get thru by phone again. The online system let me go to payment step then told me it won't accept the US card. I went to the airport to make change.

I tried two of LATAMs call centers. If you choose English language you'll get disconnected. You can get in contact with LATAM by opening a case.

It's incredible that GOL and LATAM manage to sell tickets to foreigners. I also had problems with them not accepting foreign cards, telling me to change country which was impossible, login not working anymore etc. The worst was GOL that changed the date when trying to pay for the ticket.

[Nounce]

These mfs! ...

LATAM's phone didn't even stay connected for me. I had to wait an hour to talk to an agent, and the line got disconnected before we finished. I could not get thru by phone again. The online system let me go to payment step then told me it won't accept the US card. I went to the airport to make change.

[Nordico]

Sometime I wished I would have accepted a domestic bank account when I got my CPF. Buying an airline domestic ticket should be done in minutes.

All these problems are due to GOL migrating from their old reservations system (Amadeus?) to Sabre.

[Sperto]

These mfs! I had a lot of problems today on Azul (where all my points are) and Gol.

Sometime I wished I would have accepted a domestic bank account when I got my CPF. Buying an airline domestic ticket should be done in minutes.

[Mr Enternational]

SteveG75 also had problems buying flight tickets. As I mentioned GOL site is really hopeless. LATAM site is almost as bad. I did manage to buy some domestic tickets for my upcoming trip with LATAM. All tickets were payed online, received confirmation emails etc. What is strange that not all tickets were charged on my account. I contacted LATAM and asked if these tickets were paid for and everything OK. They told me all the tickets were paid for and ready to go and sent me electronic ticket receipts. Maybe I will travel for free? I'll know when I'll check in.

These mfs! I had a lot of problems today on Azul (where all my points are) and Gol. Azul has my Azul number in the space where CPF goes so it says invalid CPF, but is blocked out so I can not change anything. I was on 1 hour with the agent typing. Well not dealing with the issue but a lot of waiting and dead air and switching to another person for who knows why. Finally the 4th person I was connected to told me I had to call a number. Called the number and they said this is only to make a booking.

I went to the Gol site and did not use my log in. They wanted a Brazil address but I was able to manipulate through the system. I did have to put in my CPF. Both sites charge like $5 more for payment in $ vs reais. I think I had to change my VPN to Brazil to pay in reais on the Gol site to avoid the extra $5.

[Nordico]

Tickets from Europe to Brazil are much more expensive than they used to be. I pay about 1400 euro, high season / December. I bought my ticket a bit late, in mid-October. The ticket prices have gone up a lot since September. Tickets in January-March are cheaper.

I think the reason for the higher ticket prices is that people have vouchers for their cancelled flights and the airlines want to get some extra cash for carrying the people now when the situation is better. Also the people won't feel so bad paying few hundred for the ticket price difference. I paid less than 2000 euros for my Air France / KLM business class ticket, but I bought it in the middle of the pandemic. Now they are asking 2700 for the same stretch. I think we are going to see higher ticket prices whole 2022, until the vouchers expire.

[Sperto]

My solution was using LATAMs German site (even though I don't live there). Then it worked fine.

SteveG75 also had problems buying flight tickets. As I mentioned GOL site is really hopeless. LATAM site is almost as bad. I did manage to buy some domestic tickets for my upcoming trip with LATAM. All tickets were payed online, received confirmation emails etc. What is strange that not all tickets were charged on my account. I contacted LATAM and asked if these tickets were paid for and everything OK. They told me all the tickets were paid for and ready to go and sent me electronic ticket receipts. Maybe I will travel for free? I'll know when I'll check in.

[The Cane]

European flights to Rio seem to be 2-3 times what they were pre covid, my previous trip I flew Lufthansa but even with flexible dates they are over 1500 euro.

Is this the new normal for flights? I've been using Skyscanner & Google flights to search. Has anyone found any reasonable priced flights recently?

Glad I have plenty of miles. My next few trips to Brazil will be for free.

[OJeito]

Brazilian here,

1) are you talking about prostitutes or gold diggers? Prostitutes in Brazil work as fine as anywhere you can pay them 200 dolars and spend whole day with them. If you paying for a week or so maybe you can getter better price. If you thinking you will go to a bar or beach and easily hook up with a hot girl you should consider yourself first. You aren't the only foreigner in Brazil, Brazil is full of young good looking foreigners and these "hot girls looking for fun" will certainty prefer them first. So it is possible to hook up with a different girl every night, but how hot and how much you going to spend for that will depend on how you look.

2) best girlfriend experiences will be in less touristic areas. Go to the northeast, Fortaleza, natal are good places with good girls. Rio de Janeiro is just cramped with all the tourists of Brazil, competition for girls much higher, prices super high, beaches not so good, violence and traffic jams are the worst in Brazil.

Remember that less than 5% of Brazilians speak decent English, if you are hopping to have a girl that you will be able to talk to and enjoy conversations longer than "how old are you, where are you from" you will need to dig a lot.

3) Most important thing about Brazil, stop thinking of Brazil as one single country. Brazil is the 5th biggest country in the planet 6th largest population, you cannot think of Brazil a singe "cluster" where you can apply the same rules everywhere. It is very much like USA "how much is to live in California? And how much to live in Indiana?" very same rule applies to Brazil.

Thank you for your insight my friend.

[Bolds]

Brazilian here,

1) are you talking about prostitutes or gold diggers? Prostitutes in Brazil work as fine as anywhere you can pay them 200 dolars and spend whole day with them. If you paying for a week or so maybe you can getter better price. If you thinking you will go to a bar or beach and easily hook up with a hot girl you should consider yourself first. You aren't the only foreigner in Brazil, Brazil is full of young good looking foreigners and these "hot girls looking for fun" will certainty prefer them first. So it is possible to hook up with a different girl every night, but how hot and how much you going to spend for that will depend on how you look.

2) best girlfriend experiences will be in less touristic areas. Go to the northeast, Fortaleza, natal are good places with good girls. Rio de Janeiro is just cramped with all the tourists of Brazil, competition for girls much higher, prices super high, beaches not so good, violence and traffic jams are the worst in Brazil.

Remember that less than 5% of Brazilians speak decent English, if you are hopping to have a girl that you will be able to talk to and enjoy conversations longer than "how old are you, where are you from" you will need to dig a lot.

3) Most important thing about Brazil, stop thinking of Brazil as one single country. Brazil is the 5th biggest country in the planet 6th largest population, you cannot think of Brazil a singe "cluster" where you can apply the same rules everywhere. It is very much like USA "how much is to live in California? And how much to live in Indiana?" very same rule applies to Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are the two most expensive cities in South America, prices for everything there can be compared to NY, Madrid, Paris. But as far as you get from these big tourist traps you can get cheaper. In Rio de Janeiro you will spend about 2000 to 3000 USD per month to have a comfortable stay, in Natal (3000 km away from Rio) you will live like a king with 1500 USD per month. I myself have personally lived in both cities and I wouldn't recommend Rio to nobody.

4) And 5) these questions are really relative to you, minimum wage in brazil is 200 USD per month, this means whatever girl you meet, if she has a menial job (waitress, seller, McDonalds employee) she will need to work a whole month to get 200 USD. Prostitutes will charge will about 100 USD per night or even 50 USD for 1 hour sex (this is an average you can get as cheap as 10 USD for a 15 minutes quickie) with this information in mind you can decide what are you giving to the girl.

Hi,

I'm an old European and I don't know Brazil at all.

When there is a better situation for the pandemic, I would like to stay in Brazil for about 25 days.

I will look for only regular girls, I don't like pro. I don't like to reach bars, clubs, etc.

Repeat, I'm old, even if but I look good.

I'd like to know some beautiful girls and to be with them in my rented apartment for 7-10 days with each one.

My questions:

1) I don't know if it is hard for me all that, both because I am old and because I'd like to live in my apartment with the girl for full time..

[Sperto]

European flights to Rio seem to be 2-3 times what they were pre covid, my previous trip I flew Lufthansa but even with flexible dates they are over 1500 euro.

Is this the new normal for flights? I've been using Skyscanner & Google flights to search. Has anyone found any reasonable priced flights recently?

Tickets from Europe to Brazil are much more expensive than they used to be. I pay about 1400 euro, high season / December. I bought my ticket a bit late, in mid-October. The ticket prices have gone up a lot since September. Tickets in January-March are cheaper.

[Jingo10]

European flights to Rio seem to be 2-3 times what they were pre covid, my previous trip I flew Lufthansa but even with flexible dates they are over 1500 euro.

Is this the new normal for flights? I've been using Skyscanner & Google flights to search. Has anyone found any reasonable priced flights recently?

[Xpartan]

I wasted an hour trying to purchase a ticket with GOL website. Their website suck! They asked for a lot of information, then at the end didn't let me change the country to not Brazil, and didn't let me complete the booking. I ended up paying $20 extra for gotogate, a 3rd party booking website, to book the ticket for me. Funny, all this gotogate website asked for was my name (no passport. Address. Like GOL did).

GOL check in agents are inefficient, so make sure you don't come to the airport too late.

This gotogate has horrific reviews on BBB. Just saying. Make sure your flight locator actually shows on GOL.

Did you try Google flights? I needed a flight from GRU to SDU. My trip eventually didn't happen so I had to forfeit it, but anyway, the cheapest rate was on GOL and I booked it through some OTA I don't remember. It was about $25, so I don't think it could've been any cheaper if booked directly.

[SteveG75]

An update if somebody else experiences the same problem. The GOL site for Europe continues to give tickets on the wrong date. GOL apologizes so much. BTW the GOL site had some issues this morning. They had tickets Fortaleza-Rio for 106 reais. The prices got changed to normal prices after one hour.

LATAMs site for Europe (Other countries) works very badly. I tried calling their contact centers in UK and Germany. The calls gets disconnected after a few minutes.

My solution was using LATAMs German site (even though I don't live there). Then it worked fine.

I wasted an hour trying to purchase a ticket with GOL website. Their website suck! They asked for a lot of information, then at the end didn't let me change the country to not Brazil, and didn't let me complete the booking. I ended up paying $20 extra for gotogate, a 3rd party booking website, to book the ticket for me. Funny, all this gotogate website asked for was my name (no passport. Address. Like GOL did).

GOL check in agents are inefficient, so make sure you don't come to the airport too late.