I just booked seats to the RSA in July. Business class on Delta was $14,700 per ticket. I was stunned.

I booked these anyway as I had some large credits that would otherwise expire. I would have never booked these absent the credits that we had.

I have loyally flown Delta for many years. I have flown approximately 4.7 million miles with them. Given these prices and the changes to the frequent flyer program, I see myself being a lot less loyal. A hell of a lot less loyal.

They don't call their mile points Sky Pesos for nothing. I've stopped flying them except to SLC as it's the only direct flight there. Still have a pile of miles to use.

Not a chance would I pay 14k for business when you can fly Qatar for about 10k less.

Larry,

I just went through the same thing. Checked flights in December and they were in the $7k area for business class. Now they are double. Same boat, points needed to be used, and they got the cost in line.

All of the other options either burn another vacation day on each end or create firearms transit hassles. Well, more so than JNB does. United pricing did the same thing into JNB.

Sad. Trying to bring my own rifle is getting stupid.

Jeremy

Sadly, I had the same experience recently.

Checking airfare to take my dad and oldest son to Botswana. Total cost, Delta Economy was only $800 cheaper than Ethiopian Business class for our entire group!

MIA- JNB is currently about $4700 for Emirates BC with a 5 hour Dubai layover….

Addendum to my post above. I decided last night to book my Emirates tickets. When I went to google flights, the same tickets had increased to $12,400! I held off and tried again tonight. Price had gone down back to $9380 for both and I jumped on it. A plus was that the Dubai layover had had dropped from 5+ hours to 1’10” outbound and 2’30” on the return. I’m very pleased!

.

Booked business Turkish FFM - Istanbul - Joburg at USD 2.750,- pp. Return!

Also just booked business Lufthansa Dusseldorf - Munich - Split Croatia at EUR 650,- pp. Admittedly a short trip but nevertheless a bargain.

Seems the US pricing is at the other end of the scale!

.

Flew Delta business to jnb last year, airfare was more than the hunt, it won’t stop until people stop paying it.

Damn prices vary on a daily basis and weekend travel seem to have the highest rates.

Just for comparison I booked Qatar to Joberg last month for $8600. I booked Qatar to Harare yesterday for my son and I for $11.5ea and on certain days of this month it was 14Kea.

In my experience, travel agents are way better than I am at finding the best available rates.

Anytime I check business its 8k minimum even on qatar or ethiopian.

I would book at 4700 in a heartbeat in business.

Instead I am stuck in cattle class for 2k-2.5k.

quote:

Originally posted by TGDjr:
Anytime I check business its 8k minimum even on qatar or ethiopian.

I would book at 4700 in a heartbeat in business.

Instead I am stuck in cattle class for 2k-2.5k.

Just curious. What international US airport are you flying from, destination, and months? I found multiple fares from IAD and other departure points well under $6k, using google flights.you might want to try multiple departure points such as MIA( usually the cheapest), ATL, DFW, IAD, and Chicago…

The pricing for Biz Class fares lately is a bit perplexing. I just booked fares for my wife and I for May on Emirates from San Francisco to Jo’burg, then on to Vic Falls. Biz class was over $8,000 each, so we are giving premium economy, which is a bit less than 1/2 biz class fares, try to see how the experience is.

In contrast, I’m looking at fares to Lusaka for October on Qatar and the best deal I’ve found is from Sacramento via American & Qatar at $5,770 biz class. Flying out of Sacramento through Dallas is significantly less expensive than out of San Francisco, which is usually just the opposite.

San Francisco is often one of the least expensive departure points in USA, but lately has not been the case. I was very surprised to find Sacramento less expensive than the major west coast departure points such as SFO or LAX.

I booked Premium Econ for 4000.00 Sioux Falls,SD to Joburg as it was as it was 9000.00 at the time now I get emails that I can upgrade to 1st class for only 5300.00 more not going to happen at that

Dan,

I've done Premium Economy on several trips. On Emirates I'm sure it will be very comfy.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by Wesheltonj:
They don't call their mile points Sky Pesos for nothing. I've stopped flying them except to SLC as it's the only direct flight there. Still have a pile of miles to use.

Not a chance would I pay 14k for business when you can fly Qatar for about 10k less.

Miles have worth about a penny each for over a decade.

Biz pricing has gotten out of hand. Probably due to demand from all the influencers pushing first class experience, and lots of naïve people are booking business class, thinking they’re gonna be in an Emirates suite.