I am a few months out from booking my flights for my first safari. I have been saving money since I booked the hunt, and should have enough to pay for two business class tickets. I also have about 120k ff miles. Do you guys who use mile frequently think I have enough miles to get any kind of deal on upgrades? Thanks Josh.

you can decrease the price of your tickets with you ff miles.

Your 120K should knock $1200 off your purchase price

http://www.delta.com/content/w.../pay-with-miles.html

Josh: We usually use FF miles to book our flights with Delta, in the past couple of years it has been increasingly hard to purchase or upgrade with miles...we book as soon as the dates we need are available for booking.

Karl

I called about using FF miles to Africa and they told me it would take about 200,000 miles to guarantee a seat. Sounds like using the miles to reduce the cost would be the best route.

quote:

Originally posted by Randy W Martin:
I called about using FF miles to Africa and they told me it would take about 200,000 miles to guarantee a seat. Sounds like using the miles to reduce the cost would be the best route.

No need to call, here is the chart.

http://www.delta.com/content/w...-the-u-s-canada.html

Good luck on getting something from Delta. I used I believe 200,000 miles for a round trip coach/comfort seat. From Minneapolis to JoBurg.
And I booked 5-6 months in advance.

I may just be unlucky, but I've never been able to get upgraded or first class with miles.

Free tickets in coach, yes. I've done that.

Last year it was 100k miles for coach in June. Freight has clearly gone up since then.

In 2010, I flew First/Business class from Colorado Spring to Joburg for 220,000 miles. I'll be booking another trip in the coming weeks for June 2014, as my dates are not available yet. Preliminary searches tell me it's gonna cost me 380,000 miles to go round-trip in First/Business class this time.

quote:

Originally posted by df06:
Good luck on getting something from Delta. I used I believe 200,000 miles for a round trip coach/comfort seat. From Minneapolis to JoBurg.
And I booked 5-6 months in advance.

I got an expert to work on it for me. I ended up getting a business class seat on Air France with 125,000 Delta SkyMiles from Washington Dulles to Joberg.

I also used an expert and got a Houston to Yaoundé business class seat for 120,000 miles. On my own the best I could do was 500,000 plus miles to go from Dallas. I have always booked my own flights using miles but I will give Steve a call first from now on.

quote:

Originally posted by Duckear:

quote:

Originally posted by Randy W Martin:
I called about using FF miles to Africa and they told me it would take about 200,000 miles to guarantee a seat. Sounds like using the miles to reduce the cost would be the best route.

No need to call, here is the chart.

http://www.delta.com/content/w...-the-u-s-canada.html

That chart is a bit misleading. It quotes the mileage needed for each way based on round trip tickets. So you'll need to double these figures for a round trip ticket.

3 weeks ago, I was quoted 175,000 miles for a single economy ticket, round trip, to HRE from DFW in December.

I did buisiness class twice this year with miles from SLC to Joberg. One was 250k miles and the other was 325k miles. The 325 I believe I only booked 6 weeks prior so it was more.

120K miles may get you an economy round trip to JNB. Depends on the dates. After mid september, your chances are better.

I got a round trip using Capital One miles (takes 10 miles for every dollar) but I had to fly the scenic route via Frankfurt and I had to originate in Chicago not Portland. Try booking with departure from ATL on Delta. Then fly Spirit on your own dime to ATL.