I can get a ticket to Jo'burg with miles from the following airlines. Suggestions? Opinions?

British Airways

Air France

Cathay Pacific

Delta

You can with Delta, I have not done it personally but know a guy that went with his whole family and used miles for all 4 tickets in business class. Also, now Delta will let you pay partially with miles if you do not have enough miles for the full fare. I think it is something like $100 off for each 10,000 miles used.

Antlers,

I also have the Alaska Air CC. Take my word for it BA is the way to go. I've personally traveled on my mileage with them 9-10 times. Several of those trips originated in AK so I've done the exact route you fly. Call me if you'd like to talk about it.

Mark

We will be taking our second trip to South Africa in about 26 days on American Airline air miles. They partner with British Airways so we have to go Dallas to London on AA and London to Johannesburg on BA.

Doing it on air miles you may need to book well in advance. We book our seats the day they open up seats for the return flight.

CharlesL;

Are you traveling with firearms? From what I was told AA won't let you fly into London with firearms even if you are transferring to BA. We have had to book BA all the way from LAX when traveling with our rifles.

Regards, D. Nelson

I am not traveling with firearms.

The first time I didn't travel with firearms because we were scheduled to fly into Gatwick and transfer to Heathrow (AA moved to Heathrow prior to our trip). This time I didn't even look into carrying my own rifles. As it turned out I enjoyed using my PH's 375 H&H and I plan to use it again.

Frankly if my air miles were on BA I would use them for the whole trip. I have to use AA for the first leg.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Antlers,

I also have the Alaska Air CC. Take my word for it BA is the way to go. I've personally traveled on my mileage with them 9-10 times. Several of those trips originated in AK so I've done the exact route you fly. Call me if you'd like to talk about it.

Mark

Thanks Mark, I'll give you a call this week sometime.

I'll be using FF miles this year to travel to RSA on Delta.

It cost me 230,000 miles flying First class to/from Colorado to ATL and business class on the flight to/from ATL to Joburg. Cost was $65.00 for all the taxes. Then, I purchased a separate round trip ticket on SAA to/from Joburg to East London, and cost was about $170.00.

All costs were about $230-240 bucks roundtrip.

quote:

I'll be using FF miles this year to travel to RSA on Delta.

How far out did you book?

In the past I was able to book 8 BE tickets on Delta to RSA for 120k each, doubt i will find that again. This year and last we had to buy BC seats to Tanzania.

quote:

Originally posted by tradewinds:

quote:

I'll be using FF miles this year to travel to RSA on Delta.

How far out did you book?

In the past I was able to book 8 BE tickets on Delta to RSA for 120k each, doubt i will find that again. This year and last we had to buy BC seats to Tanzania.

The tickets were booked in October 2009 for our hunt in Augsut 2010.

I've done this once with Delta with Kathi and she will be putting another together for me to ZIM in 2011 with Delta FF miles. Do this early as Kathi already has my info saved for the upcoming trip next year.

Typically they open up the frequent flyer seats 330 days (11 months) before the flight.

I had to book 3 FF tickets to Japan for this fall and couldn't do it until February of this year, the soonest that I could get seats was November 6th.

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
Typically they open up the frequent flyer seats 330 days (11 months) before the flight.

I had to book 3 FF tickets to Japan for this fall and couldn't do it until February of this year, the soonest that I could get seats was November 6th.

As I recall Alaska Air was 330 days out but British was longer, something like 356 days out. I booked my own mileage route, with Kathi's help, and had to book each leg the day it was available just to be safe. It was a lot of calls but worth it.

1st class the whole way using miles on Alaska and British for my wife and I. Used a total 320,000 miles.