How to Book Cheap Domestic Flights in Colombia as a Foreigner

So you’d like to fly within Colombia to save time without breaking the bank? That’s wise! Colombia is enormous, many roads are bumpy and unpaved, and mountainous terrain makes drives unpredictable. Even locals prefer flying over 10-hour bus travel since it’s possible to find cheap domestic flights in Colombia. There’s just one problem: foreign visitors get ”expensive tourist prices” without a bit of flight hacking. But worry not, we’ll share our flight hacks so that you can score the cheapest internal flight tickets!

The article has been thoroughly updated in June 2019. This article may contain affiliate links: if you decide to buy something through the links, we will make a small commission at no additional cost to you. Think of it as buying a coffee for us on someone else. Thanks for your support!

The Best Domestic Airlines in Colombia

We compared Colombian flight prices online for weeks before making our choice. Our top four airline choices included Avianca, LAN, Satena, and Viva Colombia. The first thing that we check is safety: these four are labeled as safe choices for air travel. LAN (or nowadays officially LATAM) is the biggest airline in Latin America, originally from Chile; the others are Colombian domestic carriers.

Avianca was the only carrier that flew to all destinations on our 4-week itinerary, but at first, the prices on Avianca’s international site kicked us out. After surfing around forums, we were convinced that it would be safe to book domestic flights at local prices, on the Avianca’s Colombian website. This insight dropped off LAN and Satena, which had higher fares to most destinations.

Viva Colombia is a low-cost carrier with tempting prices. It’s the first credible low-cost airline in Colombia, nowadays partly owned by Ryanair. Like most discount airlines, Viva Colombia charges hefty fees on hold luggage. We were traveling with almost 20 kg backpacks, which would have lifted Viva Colombia’s total prices near or even over those of Avianca. Still, we might have saved a couple of dollars, if we have flown one to two times with Viva Colombia.

Why Avianca Is The Most Hassle-Free Choice For Flights Within Colombia

For ease, we opted to book all our domestic flights in Colombia from Avianca. One reason was that Avianca offers many straight flights, whereas the other airlines had layovers. For instance, on Santa Marta-Medellín leg Avianca has the very only straight flight.

Because Avianca is Colombia’s biggest domestic airline, they have the widest spectrum of internal flights meaning convenient flight times and quick connections in case of layovers (we flew through Bogotá many times). By booking all our flight tickets from Avianca, we saved both time and money.

How to Book Avianca’s Cheap Domestic Flights: Simple Flight Hack

This is flight hacking at it’s best: quick and simple. Just change your location when you visit Avianca’s website to unlock your cheap flights in Colombia. If you google ”Avianca” from abroad, you’ll be directed to Avianca’s international website. If you simply choose a different language, español in this case, you’ll still be offered with content aimed at foreigners. We have to be more clever to find the cheap flights!

In the domain field of your browser, just correct the end of the URL into ”/co/en” so that the domain will be https://www.avianca.com/co/en/. This will allow you to book the internal flights in English, but get the Colombian prices! It’s your time to smile.

Otherwise, Avianca’s website is very easy to use. The prices are shown only in Colombian pesos (COP) when you browse the Colombian site. Just use some web-based currency converter to see the prices in your own currency. We prefer XE’s currency converter.

After your flight hacking trick, you can see and choose any of the ticket classes, even the cheapest ”super promo” price (marked in red). On the international site, you cannot even see the best flight offers.

Can You Book Colombian Internal Flights With US Credit Card?

Here’s the last catch: You can book the flights on Avianca’s website with a credit card issued in North America and many European countries, such as UK, Spain, and Germany. At the time of our booking, Avianca didn’t accept Finnish credit cards, but now they do! Fortunately, we were incredibly lucky to have a friend in Bogotá, who booked the flights for us.

Can I Check-In Normally With Locally Priced Promo Tickets?

At the check-in and boarding, you simply need to show your passport. Avianca’s web check-in worked smoothly, supplying handy mobile boarding passes. At the moment, Avianca’s official rules still require printed boarding pass, but mobile versions proved out to be legitimate, as well.

Book In Advance For the Best Flight Deals

You’ll quite likely get the best fares from Avianca if you book your flights well in advance. However, we ended up booking ours just a couple of weeks before our trip and were still happy with the cheap flight prices.

The Mysterious Avianca Airpass

Web forums are still raving about Avianca’s Airpass. It was once a real bargain for tourists aiming to book several flights within Colombia but hasn’t been available for years. None of the other airlines offer any air passes in Colombia at the moment, either. But with our flight hacking tips, you’ll find cheap domestic flights in Colombia on your own!

How to Plan Your Trip to Colombia

Now that you know how to book the cheap internal flights, it’s time to plan the rest of the trip around captivating Colombia! Have you already seen our Ultimate 4-Week Itinerary in Colombia article? The itinerary is based on five domestic flights: our legs were Bogota-Cartagena, Cartagena-Medellín, Medellín-Popayan, Neiva-Leticia, and Leticia-Bogota.

Flying around this vast country allowed us to capture the absolute highlights of Colombia in just four weeks. Our route can be easily adjusted into 2-weeks’ or 3-weeks’ itinerary.

Where To Stay in Colombia: Find the Best Hotel Deals

Check out our article about the best affordable boutique hotels in Colombia to find field-tested accommodation around the country.

Browse here the best hotel deals in Colombia!

Have you used Colombian domestic carriers or are you planning to book internal flights? Hundreds of our readers have field-tested these flight hacks to track down the cheapest domestic fares. I hope our article helps also you to find affordable flight tickets within Colombia – happy planning!