I used this process to structure my airlines tickets in order to visit Costa Rica, Cartagena and Panama. You can apply the same process and substitute Costa Rica for just about any other major city in Central or South America. I will refer to San Jose, Costa Rica as the "extra destination" and Panama as the "hub city".

1. Arrange your ticket from the US with "open-jaws". This is considered a round-trip as you depart from and return to the same city in the US. However, the destination of your outbound segment is different from the origin of your return segment. For example you depart Houston-to -San Jose and return-Panama-to-Houston.

Note that in order to use Copa Airlines in step#2, your return segment must be Panama-to-US as Panama is their hub. However, for outbound you may use any other Latin American city with service via Copa.

2. Arrange a second round-trip ticket on Copa Airlines from your extra destination (San Jose for example) to Cartagena, Colombia. On the outbound make sure that your connection in Panama DOES NOT include an overnight stay. On the return, DO include an overnight stop-over in Panama. I highly recommend you have this issued as a paper ticket.

3. When you actually travel use all segments of your tickets except for the Panama-to-extra city on the return of ticket#2.

Note that you will connect in Panama for the outbound extra-city to Cartagena. However, you will never leave the international transit area of the Panama airport, never pass through customs or passport control, and never pay arrival-depature taxes here. Of course you will offically enter Panama when you actually stop over on your return trip.

If you make a mistake on ticket #2 then you could never see your checked baggage again or get to pay $10 entry and $25 deparure along with a nice long wait on both ends.

I paid about $600 for the open-jaw trip from the US and the Copa ticket was free for 20,000 miles through Continental Onepass (5,000 less miles than a US domestic ticket). The paper ticket on Copa worked well because I was able to visit the Copa office in downtown San Jose and make changes for no charge. I recommend that you stop by the Copa counter upon arrival at your extra city and get the address of their local office. You can also look this up in the phone book or call their US toll-free reservations line before your depature.

IMPORTANT - Don't explain your entire travel plans to any travel or airline agent. Make sure the tickets are purchased seperately and have different confirmation numbers. If you create one big itineiary then you will find your ticket home canceled after you miss the last segment of your Copa ticket.

Also, consider paying cash as Copa could decide to later change you for the price of two one-way tickets. If you refrain from using a credit card then there isn't much they can do to you. I recommend that you purchase from them directly from Copa or use a travel agent on a one time basis. The US based airline from ticket #1 will have no problem with your travel plans as your are using all your segments on this ticket.

Good Luck,

Tanus