While on my way from the hostel to the airport, now seems to be a good time to talk about trying to use a credit card in Chile. You know it's bad when I decide to make a point of it.
I booked this flight through a site called atrapalo, which was about 1/3 the normal prices, but there was an alternative website that was a few dollars less (or if only I was flying Monday through Wednesday, the tickets would be dirt cheap). So I tried checking out, and it asks me for an RUT. I try asking around the hostel and could buy initially get an answer as to what an RUT is besides it being some ID number. I check my credit card and can't find anything on the subject. I try my passport number, and I get rejected saying the number is invalid (this was before even hitting submit). This is a required field by the way.
To the internet! Apparently, this number is similar to a social security number, but unlike those, is required during every single credit card transaction in Chile. Sometimes, for someone who didn't live in Chile, cashiers put in passport numbers (already established not to work here) or just fill in with x's, 0's, or 9's. None of these options work on this site.
Apparently, there is some way for foreigners to get a temporary number. To my understanding, it must be done in person in Santiago (getting to Santiago, eventually, was kind of the point of this hassle), and good luck waiting on those lines.
So, apparently there's a message that if you want to travel in Chile, and are not Chilean, well wait who are you?
Luckily, atrapalo did have an option to use passport numbers. Thank you to those insightful product managers. My other options would have been paying nearly $400 (though $178 isn't that great for a domestic flight in south america), taking a bus (16 hours? No.), waiting until Monday (with the prices of San Pedro outweighing what I would save with LAN, plus skipping la Serena), or have a Chilean pay and I pay them back (this came close to having to be reality).
I booked this flight through a site called atrapalo, which was about 1/3 the normal prices, but there was an alternative website that was a few dollars less (or if only I was flying Monday through Wednesday, the tickets would be dirt cheap). So I tried checking out, and it asks me for an RUT. I try asking around the hostel and could buy initially get an answer as to what an RUT is besides it being some ID number. I check my credit card and can't find anything on the subject. I try my passport number, and I get rejected saying the number is invalid (this was before even hitting submit). This is a required field by the way.
To the internet! Apparently, this number is similar to a social security number, but unlike those, is required during every single credit card transaction in Chile. Sometimes, for someone who didn't live in Chile, cashiers put in passport numbers (already established not to work here) or just fill in with x's, 0's, or 9's. None of these options work on this site.
Apparently, there is some way for foreigners to get a temporary number. To my understanding, it must be done in person in Santiago (getting to Santiago, eventually, was kind of the point of this hassle), and good luck waiting on those lines.
So, apparently there's a message that if you want to travel in Chile, and are not Chilean, well wait who are you?
Luckily, atrapalo did have an option to use passport numbers. Thank you to those insightful product managers. My other options would have been paying nearly $400 (though $178 isn't that great for a domestic flight in south america), taking a bus (16 hours? No.), waiting until Monday (with the prices of San Pedro outweighing what I would save with LAN, plus skipping la Serena), or have a Chilean pay and I pay them back (this came close to having to be reality).
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