Here’s a little bit of creativity on Flyertalk that requires a more adventurous spirit than I have, represents a great deal, and also teaches a little something about global economics.

Venezuela imposes currency controls. If you buy your tickets there, the dollar price of the fare is converted to Venezuelan currency at the official rate. But you can buy your Venezuelan funds at the much more favorable black market rate. So you wind up saving about 60% on your tickets.

This only works for tickets issued in Venezuela. There’s some discussion of whether the tickets need to be purchased in Venezuela or just from Venezuela, and whether tickets would need to originate in Venezuela (think flying from Caracas to somewhere else as the first segment on a much larger itinerary with stopovers taking you to several places in the world). One Flyertalker points out the value of premium class round the world tickets, and crediting the miles (as an already requalified Gold member) to the british midland program to earn 625% of flown miles.