I’m one of those cranky editors always whining about my inbox being jammed up with press releases I never open, much less read. But every once in a while I get something interesting like this that’s worth sharing.

The lovely Las Ventanas al Paraiso resort in Los Cabos has worked out an arrangement where they’re getting advance copies of books from U.S. publishers. These “galleys” are the copies sent out to reviewers well ahead of the book being commercially available, so that they can write their review far enough ahead to make it into the magazine when the book is hitting the shelves. Las Ventanas is handing these out to their guests to read by the pool or in their room, giving them a rare chance to read a novel before the book clubs have even heard of it (and before Oprah has given her blessing).

The currently available novels include:

* The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller
* The Third Rail by Michael Harvey
* 29 by Adena Halpern
* Zoo Story by Thomas French
* The Ark by Boyd Morrison
* The Other Family by Joanna Trollope
* The Poet Prince by Kathleen McGowan
* Beautiful Maria of My Soul by Oscar Hijuelos
* A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White
* The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert Remini

Las Ventanas is known for rolling out unique services, like having a bath butler get your room all set up and romantic while you’re having dinner. Hey, they even have a Department of Romance. This advance book Hot Type program is another service that’s unique and surprising—which is kind of rare in the post-Dubai hotel world.

See our full review of Las Ventanas al Paraiso and a blog post on their guest culinary program.

The first W hotel opened in South America recently, in Chile’s capital of Santiago. We’ve got a detailed review of it, turned in by our man on the scene in Chile: W Santiago Hotel review.

This isn’t the only W hotel in Latin America, as the W in Mexico City has been a trust fund kids’ social magnet for years. I’m kind of surprised Starwood hasn’t opened more of these in the region, actually, since they are struggling in the U.S. and have lost two key hotels because of financial problems. The concept might not fly in a place like Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo, where there are already more than enough designer hotels without bringing in a corporate version, but in many other Latin American capitals there’s a serious dearth of hip hotels with good aesthetics that will appeal to people under age 50.

This Santiago version is too large to be considered a “boutique hotel” since it has 196 rooms and is attached to a huge real estate development with “a convention center, offices, luxury apartments, a sprawling gym, and several boutique stores including a local wine store—a store that is installing on the premises the largest wine cellar in Chile.” It’s got all the right visual touches though and has quickly become the place to see and be seen in Santiago.

If your taste runs to the modern rather than the frilly antique reproductions you’ll find at the Ritz-Carlton Santiago, then Chile’s new W Hotel is ready to welcome you. See the full review here.

Just two months after instituting a reciprocal visa fee for tourists to Argentina (meaning an extra $131 per person for Americans), the government of Argentina seems to be determined to rankle as many people as possible.

The latest is “the biggest inflation surge to start the year in two decades,” according to the Wall Street Journal, as Argentina Confronts Soaring Inflation. The worst part of this, for locals and tourists alike, is a 25% rise in beef prices. Chronic overspending is to blame, which has led to a big soap opera of the former head of the central bank being fired for not handing the government the bank’s foreign reserves to spend, his refusing to step down, then his being forced to step down when he was barred from his office. Kirchner’s yes-woman replacement is not sitting well with economists or the business leaders.

Bad government policies are mostly blamed for the beef inflation since price controls and export bans have led to a reduction in cattle, from 61 million in 2007 to 50 million today.

Good news for us is, the peso has dropped against the dollar to a nearly 4-to-1 ratio from around 3-to-1 in years past. So prices are rising, but so is the value of the dollar or euro for those coming in from elsewhere.

Your cruise stop in the Falkland Islands may cost extra though. Argentina is trying to force ships to get permission from Buenos Aires to pass through Argentine waters to get there. This move has gotten the support of Hugo Chavez, which tells you how well it’s going to play out with more sane leaders…

Keep an eye on international news if you’re planning a trip to Argentina. Hopefully an international recovery—or new elections—will right the ship before things get ugly.

[photo from Living in Patagonia blog]

“Central America” and “great golf courses” haven’t exactly gone together like chocolate and peanut butter, despite all the opportunities for scenic vistas and locations next to the sea. Mostly this has been a matter of economics since the local demand wasn’t there and the stream of upscale tourists wasn’t dependable enough.

In some places the situation is improving though in the lands south of Mexico and La Reunion outside of Antigua, Guatemala is a great example. We just posted a review of La Reunion Golf Resort in our luxury Guatemala hotels section. Even if you’re not a golfer, how about that view in the picture here? If you’re a golfer, can you think of any other place where you’ve teed off having a view of four volcanoes? Nice.

“Its designers, Pete and Perry Dye, gleaned inspiration from the Mayan Solar Calendar, which consists of 18 twenty-day months. Each of the course’s 18 holes is named after its corresponding month on the Mayan calendar. The 19th month, Wayeb, is a five-day month dedicated to rest and contemplation and so makes a fitting name for the bar and restaurant. Facilities include a driving range, putting green, chipping green, practice bunker, and pro shop. Incidentally, Pete’s eldest son Perry Dye recently spent the last days of 2009 on vacation at the resort with his family and nailed a 178-yard hole-in-one on the course’s 12th hole.”

This review was from the author of the Moon Handbook Guatemala guidebook and Living in Guatemala. See our interview with Al Argueta for more.

There are a lot of elements that go into the price of a flight, from staff costs to government fees to landing gate charges at airports. One big variable—and the ones most airlines use to justify all kinds of add-ons and extras—is the price of fuel. Well how much does it really cost to carry each passenger a thousand miles through the air?

Spirit Air is doing its best to figure that out and share it with its customers. It has published a handy dandy chart showing how much it costs them in fuel to go a certain range of distance. You can see the full breakdown at this link, but here are a few examples:

• A short hop of 400 to 599 miles costs them $21.67 at current fuel rates
• Going 800 to 999 miles is a shade over $30
• Their longest hauls of 2000+ miles costs $78 per passenger in fuel

So to put that in real terms, for Ft. Lauderdale to Cancun, fuel is only around $22. Flying all the way to Lima from there, fuel is more than $78 per passenger. All these rates assume an 80% load factor, so if the flight is jammed full the actual cost per person would be a bit less. I’m not sure how cargo is figured in. And what if my seatmate weighs twice as much as I do? Should those who can’t fit in a regular airline seat multiply by two?

Think about this next time you see a $300 “fuel surcharge” on your legacy airline flight to Europe. Where’s that money really going? Why isn’t it just included in the price of the ticket?

When you see these fuel prices though, it makes Spirit’s cheap fares look even better, especially if you’re part of that $9 fare club. If you can snag one of those rates, you are flying for less than the cost of the fuel, never mind all the other costs the airline bears. So smile when you pay that checked baggage fee or a swipe your credit card for a cup of coffee in the air. Chances are those fees might not even get you back to even.

If you just want to get from point A to point B and have plenty of cash left over for spending after arrival, Spirit Air serves many Latin American destinations besides Cancun and Lima. They’ll get you to Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, and four locations in Colombia.

More on airlines serving Latin America. Thanks to SmarterTravel for the original post on this.