last year i booked a hunt in Namibia for Oct at DSC( early Jan). as soon as i got home, i started trying to get a first/business free ticket to Joburg. long story short, even with 10 months lead time, i still ended up in coach for the London to Joburg leg. i kept trying during the entire 10 months to get upgraded on that leg without success. fast forward to this year. booked another Namibian hunt and checked with Gracy travel at their booth to see if they arranged freq flier tickets and at what cost. answer- they do it for $300 fee. i figured it was reasonable but just for the hell of it, i decided to try it myself after i got home. again, long story short, 30 minutes on the phone with Am Airlines and the deed was done. first or business all the way with multiple date options in both directions. i have no idea why last year was such a pain and this year was so easy, but there you have it. moral of the story, try it yourself first and if you fail, spend $300 and let the pros do it( and they may not have any more luck than you- a seat is either available or it isn't- the advantage of using an agent is that they keep trying so you don't have to)

Jerry,

How many points or miles did it take to get a round trip business class ticket?

about half the flight is first and half is business- 185,000 miles

I tried to ge a business class to RSA last year, started eight minths in advance. I was a platinum flier on Delta and had 225,000 miles to spend. It was worth nothing. I couldn't even buy a coach seat and upgrade with miles.
They did put me in comfort class which has a bit more recline and leg room.

Using air miles with United has worked for me for the last 5 trips. This year they doubled the amount of miles it takes to get a business or first class ticket but using their website, I got first class rt for 215,000 miles. they allow you to book 331 days in advance and if your schedule is fairly flexible, a couple of days either way, it's fairly easy.

Last year I tried to use AA FF miles to get from DFW to Bulawayo. A coach ticket was $1700 thru Steve Turner. AA had to route using BA thru London, and the taxes on the FF ticket would have been $900.00. I decided that I'd rather use the 75,000 miles for air that did not have the high taxes on, and just buy the full fare ticket thru Steve, circumventing London and BA & both of their gun policies. Am I missing something, or are there ways to avoid the high taxes on some FF tickets?

The airlines seem to only release a certain number of tickets available for each fair/FF points class. I've never tried First or Bus Class to Africa but starting with the first day tickets were availble to a trip to Thailand that my wife and I are going on I tried to book Bus Class seats using miles. I was able to book one at 120,000 miles but the second was 240,000. I altered days but there was no getting around it. Only one seat at the 120,000 level and I didn't have 360,000 miles/points. I finally called AMEX and a travel specialist worked some majic and got them for 120,000 each. Just try every angle you can and be polite with whoever you talk to.

One other time I needed 4 tickets on an international flight for the family but ran into a similar problem. I had enough points for the lowerer points class but once I booked one, the following were almost double and there were tons of seats available. I ended up booking one seat at a time over a period of days as lower points class seats were made avaible and got all the seats I needed for the lower points tier.

Start early, be flexible and creative, and if all esle fails, pick up the phone and sweet talk someone.

So how late can one realistically expect to be able to book a flight over with miles? I would think that time of year for travel (high period or low period) would have great influence. I'll be going to Zim this year in December which is obviously non peak travel time for Africa. I currently have 110,000 miles on Delta but expect to have double that by December of this year.

Would you guys think it possible to find a First Class or Business class ticket around June or July for travel in December of this year.

Sorry to sound like a rookie here but as a former airline pilot, I have never used FF miles. I always traveled non-revenue except for when carrying rifles, which I just purchased tickets outright for. My experience with AA miles, the company I flew for BTW, was that no matter where I wanted to go or when, there were never seats available so I had just written off the mileage concept. But reading of how many guys use mileage here on AR has reignited my interest.

i have always used FF miles for my tickets( 10 trips). i always try for business/first. most times i can get them if arranged 8-10 months out but occassionaly have to settle for coach on 1 long leg( happened last Oct and it really sucked). the key to success is date flexibility going and/or coming back. my miles are with Am Airlines and unfortunately their major African connection is with BA. YOU NEED TO BE AWARE THAT THEY ARE ALSO PARTNERS WITH ETIHAD AIRWAYS WHO FLY DIRECT FROM CHICAGO/NEW YORK TO ABU DABAI TO JOBURG.since it is easy to get to either departure city, then onward, it works out sometimes. the problem is the AA agents zero in on AA/BA and don't check with Etihad unless you mention it. another problem mentioned earlier is the taxes charged. this arises because the British government requires that taxes be paid on the full, retail value of the legs flown on BA- even though it is a "free" ticket. as a result, my "free" ticket is costing me almost$1000 in taxes- STILL A SMALL PRICE TO PAY FOR A COMBO BUSINESS/FIRST CLASS TICKET TO JOBURG! as a matter of fact, i am spending 2 days in the UK visiting friends on the return and 1 leg got changed from business to first coming home- increasing the taxes from $850 to $1000. it also raised the number of miles required from 175,000 to 185,000....overall, a damn good deal. if have been playing the frequent flier game for a lot of years and ALWAYS come out a winner vs riding in the cattle car and paying $2000 plus to do it.

There are many options that are relatively reasonable, as long as you are a bit flexible.

With United miles you could fly from IAD or JFK direct to JNB or fly through Zurich or Frankfurt then to JNB or even through Sao Paulo all for 120,000 miles all in business.

Delta has a non stop from Atlanta, for 120,000 in business. Or, you could connect through Paris in the bigA380 business for 140,000.

American, you are kind of limited to British Air and the fuel surcharges. If you can use American or say Iberia to get Europe you can limit those fees somewhat.

I don't know much about the redemption rates of Emirates, Qatar or Etihad are, but they may pose an option as long as you don't have an Israeli passport stamp.

My favorite option would be Alaska Air miles (140,000) from western US to JNB with a stopover in Hong Kong in first class on Cathay Pacific. Not a better first class product.

It pays to do a lot of research and don't be afraid to call and call and call and call until you get what you want.
There are tools (for a fee) that will monitor the different airlines and send you notifications when seats open up.

I just got off the phone with AA(Alaskan Air partner) about re-routing my Oct trip via Hong Kong in first class on Cathay Pacific from either LAX or SFO. it is about 275,000 miles in first class and 235,000 in business. i thought 140,000 in first on Cathay Pacific was too good to be true- and it was.... more like 140,000 EACH WAY! also Iberia( AA partner) no longer offers a direct flight from Madrid to JNB. they code share a flight from Madrid to Heathrow, then pick up the evening BA flight to JNB- for more total miles than a direct AA/BA flight from the states to Heathrow to JNB.

I have had pretty good luck with United. It used to be 140-160,000 for a bus/first class ticket. Last year after the merger with Continental, they doubled their air miles rates. On the website, a first class ticket is 280,000. They do have a booking section to select your ticket and I got mine this year bus/first for 215,000 because they had a saver fare on the list that was less miles. So far, they have been good for me.

On the Cathay first it has to be Alaska Airline miles.
American miles follow American redemption rules.

You can look at the Alaskan Air charts or call them to confirm.
Had a few friends do it and for 140,000 miles.

On the AA/BA trip to JNB, any way you can get to LHR on anything besides BA you will avoid a portion of the fuel surcharges that BA applies. I didn't mean to imply that Iberia flues to JNB as I knew their routes no longer included JNB. Thay are a sub of BA and BB serves that route.

If you book the 330 days out, United has good availability (within reason and some flexibility) for business in the saver award category.

Point is you have to do some digging and research or you will pay more in miles and/or dollars.
As the above example, I said Alaska Air miles and someone thought..."I have AA Award miles and Alaska is a partner..." so they wasted time and effort calling an airline that could not do what they wanted. It aint easy, it takes work, but you CAN get business tickets for between 110,000 and 150,000 miles.

I've found that free business or first class tickets can be found far in advance as well as very short term. Last year I was able to book a business class ticket for my wife from LAX to Prague on Air France leaving the next day. If you're considering using miles spending some money to subscribe to First Class Flyer (an internet based newsletter) is well worth the $180 or so that a subscription costs.

Ive us Alaska Air miles for 3 trips on BA in First and Business class and never had a problem using them, except FCO to LHR in business.... I had to fly coach, but this was during the Olympics..... so that was a no brainer. the other trips have been either PHX or DEN to LUN or JNB on BA in first or business ... both in September. I too used Gracy and that was worth the $300. One thing was I had to be a little flexible on my dates...... other than that.... all is good. I recently noticed that Emirates flies from DFW to Harare and is an Alaska Airlines partner... 200k miles though for first..... I hear it is worth it though.

I got first to London on United and coach from London to Jo'berg for 80,000 miles roundtrip.

This seems to be getting worse all the time. I use amex points and we used to fly Seattle to Stockholm several times a year on SAS for I think it was 80 or 90k miles for business class. It seems nowadays flying overseas with anyone is 235-325k points. I am flying to Windhoek in may with a friend from Sweden and our business class tickets were 70k points, from Stockholm. Now I'm trying to find a ticket from PDX or SEA to Sweden and back and absolutely nothing is available in business on Delta, BA or Lufthansa. There's coach for 260k points, I think it was...

To continue my rant, Lufthansa seems to not open their awards tickets until nerve rackingly close to the departure date.

Rick, you might want to check Air France/KLM (Flying Blue). You can transfer AMEX points directly to a Flying Blue account and they seem to have pretty good availability from larger departure cities. I just did a quick check and from San Francisco you can get a round trip business class ticket from SFO to Stockholm any day in May for 200,000 miles and a round trip ticket in business for 100,000 miles on about 40% of the days in May.

PM me if you have any questions.

So, what about routing through South America if not changing carriers?

i have tried a few times through Rio and Buenos Aires via American partners. no luck... also tried going west via Hong Kong, Seoul, Toyko- no luck unless you wanted to use 225,000 miles or more for business/first