Flying on Copa Airlines feels suspiciously the same as flying on Continental Airlines. The interior looks the same, the seat pitch is the same (cramped 32-inch pitch in coach, decent with leather seats in business class), and the logos are similar. None of this is coincidental: Continental had a 51% stake in the airline at one point. They sold off shares a bit at a time until May of this year, when they sold the remainder for a tidy profit. Copa Air passengers still earn Continental OnePass miles on all flights, with the same (recently hacked down) bonus levels for elite members.

There’s a big difference in one key area though: service. The gate agents are noticeably less harried, the flight attendants are more pleasant, and you don’t have to pay for a cocktail or glass of wine in coach.

Here’s what happened to me though on my last trip to Panama though that really showed me what a great airline this is. Through my own fault, I had said “go ahead” to an agent who sent me an itinerary, not noticing that my flight back was returning to Miami, not my connecting airport of Orlando. A well-tipped concierge at the Bristol Hotel worked it all out for me with Copa on the phone so I could switch the flight with no charge.

At the gate, however, the system wasn’t letting the switch happen without a fee, despite gate agent Cecilia’s attempts to make it right. She spent ten minutes trying to work it out, another ten with her supervisor, then headed to a back room. Another ten minutes went by, but she returned with a smile, handing me my boarding pass, and said, “Please enjoy your flight.” All set, and upgraded to business class on my Y-up fare.

That Cecilia was dedicated! Somehow I can’t imagine any U.S. carrier’s gate agent working that hard to help a customer avoid an extra fee. Even more rare, there were plenty of agents on hand, so there weren’t people behind me in line ready to throw their suitcase at my head.

Don’t expect to get blown away by lie-flat beds, seatback entertainment consoles, or amazing cuisine, but considering that Copa’s fares usually deliver better service at a lower price than others competing on the same route, check them out when comparing options. Business fares and Y class fares are a downright bargain sometimes. Copa flies from five U.S. airports to destinations in Panama (their hub), as well as Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile.

Copa has been named Best Airline in Central America and the Caribbean for the five consecutive years by the aviation-industry research company Skytrax.

Oddly, this is one of the few airlines that hasn’t released its data to SeatGuru.com, so you’ll have to rely on the sites own seating chart when booking online.

Related info:

A Luxury Yacht Cruise in Panama

The best luxury hotels in Panama

Finding worthwhile, well-researched travel destination information on the web can be a frustrating and time-sucking endeavor. In most cases you’ll spend half the time and learn twice as much by just buying a good guidebook. There are exceptions now and then, however, which brings me to this great series of posts on Mendoza from the Global Nomad blog at Planeteye: Dining at the wineries of Mendoza.

If you’ve landed on my post here after September ‘08, just go to the September archives of that blog and scroll back from September 17. There are great roundups of the restaurant scene and meals you can have at local wineries. At someone who has dined at a few of them myself, I’d say it’s an accurate and comprehensive view of the Mendoza, Argentina wine and dine scene. Our own article, Touring the best of Mendoza wine country hits a few of the same highlights, including an impressive meal at the Club Tapiz restaurant and a tasting at Nieto Senetiner.

If you’d like to do more than just pass through the region, check out our interview with David English, who helps clients make good choices when searching for Mendoza real estate and Argentina vineyards.

At long last, we have reviews up of five of the top hotels in Mexico City. Frankly we weren’t in a huge hurry since the city gets far more business travelers than people on a vacation, but if nothing else a lot of travelers end up needing to overnight there at some point or another.

A correspondent of ours who lives there was able to give us some insight on the current scene and review the best hotels in Mexico City with an eye on local perceptions. We will likely be adding more reviews later as time permits, but here are the ones we have posted now:

Four Seasons Mexico

Casa Vieja (pictured here)

Condesa df

Habita Hotel

W Mexico City

We have our eye on a few others, but if you’ve experienced an over-the-top luxury experience in Mexico’s capital, leave a note for us in the comments here.

Have you had 10 bad margaritas for every good one? You could be using inferior tequila that is not 100 percent agave, but a more likely reason is that you are using a distasteful concoction for the other main ingredient.

One of the best articles I’ve ever seen on the perils of bar mixers just came out from cocktail expert Eric Felten. Called Prefab Mixes: Buyer Beware, it bring to light why most of these chemical collections range from bad to undrinkable.

The core problem with cocktail mixes is that they almost all involve lemon or lime juice, which are notoriously difficult to bottle. Sara Risch, a food chemist and member of the Institute of Food Technologists, told me why: “Among the major components of citrus flavor are terpenes,” she explained, compounds that are grievously subject to oxidation, and that break down quickly, especially when cooked (as in the pasteurization process such bottled juices require). The volatile terpenes in the juices and oils of lemons and limes turn inexorably toward the piney taste and smell of turpentine.

Even with preservatives, the off-sour taste of vintage citrus comes through. I suspect that lemon and lime concoctions go as heavy on the sweetening as they do in an attempt to overwhelm the terpene twang. The result is a mix guaranteed to make your teeth ache in anticipation of dental trauma.

In my home city there’s a restaurant that wins the “best margarita in town” award year after year from every local newspaper. “It’s not that hard to make a great margarita,” the bartender told me once. “It’s just that most bars use some kind of premade sour mix.” Since this particular restaurant never does, she explained, even the house ones made with Cuervo Gold are so far above the norm that people immediately notice the difference. Here’s a clue: if your drink looks like the one pictured here (from an article in Epicurean.com) or lighter, then it’s probably drinkable. If it looks neon green and like it would glow in the dark, beware.

If you’re going to mix up a batch of margaritas, of course buy quality tequila and go light on the Contreau or triple sec. It’s the last step that’s most important though: don’t ruin the whole thing by tossing in something made of chemicals and high fructose corn syrup, even if it does come from Williams Sonoma.

Related:

Tequila Gets Ready for its Close-up

Taste Test: Siembra Azul Tequila

I was quoted a few times in Travel Weekly last week in a long article about the impressive tourism numbers coming out of Argentina and Chile. I’ve been saying for quite a while that there is a good bit of “Europe substitution” going on—travelers deciding to head south instead of across the Atlantic. Now we have some hard numbers to back it up. The number of Americans visiting Europe this past July was down 15 percent from 2007. Meanwhile, the number of Americans going to Chile in the first half of ‘08 increased by 15.8 percent. Coincidence?

No, it just makes lots more sense from a value standpoint. When the Ritz-Carlton in Santiago costs in dollars what the Ritz-Carlton in Barcelona costs in euros, that’s a difference of 40 or 50 percent. Stroll around town for a meal and a bottle of wine in Santiago or Buenos Aires and the difference is even more dramatic, as in a tab that’s 1/4 to 1/3 a comparable meal in Europe, even at the best restaurant in town. There’s value even at the very top of the possible budget range, whether you are looking at hotels, adventure tour packages, or villa rentals.

LAN is stepping up flights as a result, says Travel Weekly. “The carrier now fields four nonstop flights per week from New York Kennedy to Santiago plus daily service from Kennedy via Lima, Peru; 10 weekly flights from Miami; and three weekly, nonstop flights from Los Angeles plus four via Lima. This month, the airline is set to launch service to Toronto.

Luxury Chile Travel page

Luxury Argentina Travel page

[Photo by Lorie Bennett, from our review of Explora Salto Chico in Patagonia.]