www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I am looking to spend an extended time in Costa Rica in January but was thinking a trip to MDE might be needed while down there. Is there any decent options for flights to MDE from San Jose. I would probably want to take off for a week or so and get to know some of the native Colombianas not the transplants.

I have looked at about every option for this. Cheapest I have ever seen for one way travel is $450.

IMHO the best and only reasonable option is to use 10K United miles for the one stop thru Panama. (going either direction).

You normally need to book this a couple months in advance because the 10K flights jump up to 20K and more as it gets closer to travel date..

Be sure to be aware of the Yellow Fever Shot requirement to travel from Colombia to Costa Rica. Shot (good for 10 years) must be administered 10 days before arrival in CR.

I would also recommend checking out the multi city route. I have booked ORD-SJO and MDE-ORD on the same multi city ticket. This saved me money vs. ORD-MDE round trip . Then used 10K miles (above) for the one way.

Hope this helps

No, unfortunately the airfares between SJO and MDE have remained relatively high. The least expensive flight I ever booked between these two cities was in 2007.... and that was $355 on COPA. I haven't seen fares like that since. I recently booked two r/t MDE - SJO tickets for 20,000 plus $98 each on COPA. The lowest fare I could find for the November timeframe was $675 per ticket.

I gotta 2nd what EL S says regarding using the miles. 3 times I've booked itineraries of 3 or so days in sjo then off to ctg or mde for 5 days. I buy an open jaw ticket; las-sjo/return mde-las for a decent price then use miles for the sjo-mde leg. Buying the ticket with the sjo-mde portion adds $500 or so to the price of the ticket.

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"cuz I'm a back-door man" Jim Morrison-1969

Good advice from El Silencio re: yellow fever. You must have a CDC international yellow fever vaccination card to enter CR and several other countries from Colombia. As I understand it you could go from SJO to MDE and then to USA without issue. If you are in the USA for 10 or more days as an incubation period you do not need the yellow fever card which is ironically yellow.

No yellow fever card needed to enter USA from Colombia. ES is right, good for 10 years

I have taken the YF vaccination and I have never been more sick after it. Lasted a week. I can only imagine the suffering of the real YF. Note: no contraindications with YF vac and test or Hgh.

Be well

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RideAllTheRides

In July, i booked a multi city flight from Mia to Sjo, spent 5 days there then from Sjo to MDE thru Bogota, spent 5 more days then direct from MDE to Mia and it cost me 510.00 on Avianca. It was much more had i booked the flights separately.

Thanks for the insight on the airfares. Looks like I need to get my yellow fever shot though.

Back in the day I used to do side trips between CR and Cartagena and CR and Panama. I discovered that they are many unadvertised flights between cities that you won't see online. I found this out when a chica told me that she pays $200 less for a flight to Panama than I did. She took me to the local airline office and she was right.

You need to find a local Copa or Avianca, etc office and actually go in to book the flights. It might even be a regional carrier that you may never have heard of. You may also be flying on a turbo prop just so you know.

Keep in mind my information is 5 years old so things might have changed. I am sure someone who lives in CR could give you more info.

Devo

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The most dangerous adversaries are the ones that come with a smile instead of a sword

Still not sure on what I am going to do yet but I have my yellow fever shot scheduled in a few days. I had to wait after getting my Flu shot as they are both live viruses. I got my round trip to SJO for $61.00 using miles with Frontier so no complaints on that part of the trip.