[TO BE CLEAR: This is not written by Dan. He and his wife already have 6 kids and aren’t currently planning to adopt any.]
For just over three years now, my wife and I have been in the slow process of international adoption. We are seeking to adopt 2-3 children from Costa Rica, and it has been a roller coaster experience (and they are not even home yet). We are hoping to finally be matched with our kids by the Costa Rican government sometime in the next 1-3 months.
Since I am an avid travel hacker, I’ve been planning out how to get us to and from Costa Rica for months now. I’ve carefully been holding on to some miles in a few different currencies. The main options I am considering are:
- Southwest – My wife and are are sitting on about 64,000 Southwest points between to two of us. If I decide to pull the trigger on the Companion Pass before March (via a Marriott travel package before that loophole closes), we’ll have plenty of RapidRewards points. One-way tickets to Costa Rica start at ~11,000 points plus $22, return is the same + $58. The main benefit to using Southwest points is that we are guaranteed award availability as long as there are any seats still for sale. My hesitancy here is that we’d (a) have to drive to the SF Bay Area, (b) it is a one-stop, and (c) I am not sure I actually want the companion pass at this point. We may not travel much for a while once our kids are home.
- American – My wife and I have nearly enough AA miles to get the two of us to Costa Rica, and then 2 kids home. Just need a bit more credit card spending to put us there. The main benefit of using AA miles would be the cheaper price in miles (15k normal, 12.5k off-peak). The cons are (a) we’d have to drive to the Bay, (b) many of the options are a red-eye with a 5:00 a.m. arrival (ew…) in Coast Rica, and (c) getting 4 award seats back is not easy.
- Delta – This may be a good time to put the SkyPesos to use. While Delta charges more than American and (on average) Southwest, they offer a better routing, with a single stop in LAX. We would have to fly out of the Bay area, but most of these options require that. The main pro is that there is a good amount of award space, some of which does not require an awful red eye.
Delta award availability is good.
- United/Avianca – We’d have to do this with a combination of both MileagePlus miles and Avianca LifeMiles, and the routing could be on either carrier (both in StarAlliance). United and Avianca charge about the same (17.5k/18k, respectively, one-way) for tickets in economy, and many routings include flights on both carriers. The benefit here would be that we could fly in and out of our local airport. The cons would be the routing. They are mostly awful. Many are 3 stop, and some are overnight and/or red eye. Heading to Costa Rica, that wouldn’t be terrible. My wife and I can handle it. Heading back with the kids it is pretty much a deal breaker.
A 1:05 a.m. arrival? No, thanks.
Which to choose?
One of the biggest bummers is that there aren’t any non-stop SFO-SJO options. Not on any carrier. If there was, that would probably win, and I would have dug up the miles needed by now.
Coming back with the kids, a non-stop would be ideal. I so badly wish there was an option. The kids will almost certainly never have been on a plane, and could be extremely freaked out. It will be hard to judge how they will react until we are actually in the situation, unfortunately.
At this point I am leaning toward a combination of Southwest and Delta, but I am still weighing out the options. I’m still very undecided on the merits of the companion pass in our situation, and the window on that is closing rapidly. We can’t book anything yet, obviously, since we have yet to be matched and find out our travel dates. I’m just exploring the options we do have currently.
What are your thoughts? Which option seems the best to you?
Header image courtesy of Arturo Sutillo under CC 2.0 license.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I bet the kids wont have any issues flying. They will be extremely excited to try it out. I’ve traveled a few times with people who haven’t flown before from developing countries. In my travels with first timers I find less issues with the plane and more issues with funny things like how to get on a moving walk way or how to get through revolving doors.
If they are under 5, then OK stops are bad for YOU the parents. I’d go with delta to avoid the redeye.
Thanks for the insight! The kids will be between 3 and 9, so maybe it will be more exciting than terrifying for them. We’ve talked with other adoptive parents, and it seems like the kids’ can have a wide range of reactions.
What’s wrong with American kids?
Haha, there’s nothing wrong with American kids. There are just a few issues with American adoptions that we wanted to avoid with our first kids.
Could you elaborate on what issues you want to avoid? I don’t know much about the process, but over 3 years and rollercoaster ride going through Costa Rica does not sound pleasant. Could anyone compare that experience to local US adoption?
I can’t compare to US domestic adoption as we adopted all of ours while in Canada, however, there is no question that, in Canada, the entire process is much easier and transparent for domestic adoptions than international adoptions. The long wait and rollercoaster, unfortunately, are usually part of the process no matter how and where you adopt.
Discussing your reasons for adopting and the process you choose for adopting are very personal and the comment section of a blog is probably not the best forum for the discussion. No matter the reasons for your choices, there will always be critics of your choices and adoptive parents, especially first time parents, definitely don’t need that grief.
Hey Binny,
We mainly want to avoid the issue where parental rights may or may not be terminated right away after you adopt. Many states in the U.S. (as far as I am aware) allow for a period where the birth parent(s) can change their mind about the adoption. My wife and I want to save ourselves the heartache of having a child in our house for a number of months, and then having to face that loss. With international adoption, the process is usually clearer.
We will likely be open to U.S. adoption later, but this isn’t something we wanted to go through with our first kids. It’s the same difficulty you can face with fost-adopt. We’ve known a few families who tried to adopt a kid but had it fall through.
For me, from Northeast -Southwest. Plus companion pass helps. Going in April
Unlike the other commenters, we actually have adopted internationally. While every adoption story is going to be different, we do have some insights. When we adopted two of our children from Ethiopia (at nearly 3 and nearly 5), they were terrified of the plane, particularly of being trapped in a seatbelt, so especially at the beginning of each flight. It took everything two adults for each of them could do to keep them in seat belts and I am sure it sounded like we were torturing them. I am sure not every internationally adopted child will react the same, but if yours do, then you want as easy a schedule as possible coming back and if you can swing it, having additional family members travel with you can be very helpful. I would also err on the side of caution even for the trip down. You don’t want to be exhausted when you receive your children, you will need to be at your best for the transition to being a family.
You didn’t mention exact schedules, but I would definitely, if at all possible, make your decision strictly by schedule, not by the best use of points.
Thanks for the advice! My wife and I have given this a good amount of thought. We’ll probably opt for the best schedule, as you’ve said. We’ll have 6 weeks down there, so I am guessing we will have to book the return tickets separately. Might have a better idea on how the kids will respond by then.
How exciting! We adopted two kids from Russia, on separate trips. Let me just say that one thing that got me through the flights home was knowing that I would never have to run into any of those people who were on our flights again. 🙂 My kids were 3 1/2 years and 17 months old.