After hearing all of the gushing reports of South Africa from my friends and other travel bloggers, I knew at some point I would need to visit South Africa myself. That opportunity appears to be coming sooner than later, because my father and I jumped at a deal to stay at the Vuyani Safari Lodge when the property was featured on Jetsetter last month.
This place looked great in photos, the ratings were high from visitors and the price was right at just over $1,000 for 3 all inclusive nights at the lodge. So we picked a random set of dates in April of 2014 and booked the Safari lodge. Now it’s time to plan the rest of the trip!
Help Me Plan a Trip to South Africa
Here are the ground rules for planning the trip:
- We only have 6-7 nights to stay in South Africa. 3 of these will be at the lodge and we are looking at 1-2 nights in Johannesburg and 2 nights in Cape Town.
- Our preference is to use award tickets to get to Johannesburg and my preference is to fly in Business Class.
- We need to be on the same flight and we will need to leave from Minneapolis, MN.
- We have the following airline currencies/transfer partners to deal with:
- 500,000 Delta Skymiles across two accounts
- 150,000 Membership Rewards points
- 400,000 Ultimate Rewards points
- There may be some other currencies available, but trying to stick to using these 3.
- Hotels in J-Burg and Cape Town will be booked using points
While I would have thought that these parameters would make the trip easy to book, I have found that it is actually quite difficult to find business class award availability to Johannesburg. I guess that this is why I’m asking for help!
The Easy Part: Delta Business Class from MSP – LHR
As of today, there is solid availability for direct flights from Minneapolis to London Heathrow on Delta in business class. This would be for 100k Skymiles round trip per person.
The Not So Easy Part – LHR to JNB in Business Class
Getting to London opens up possibilities of using the rest of our miles to fly from LHR to JNB or perhaps route through a European city like Frankfurt. The problem I am running into is that I can’t find a single business class ticket on the British Airways website or when searching Star Alliance on Expert Flyer for my desired travel dates. I also don’t have enough Membership Rewards points to book this flight using KLM or Air France miles in business class. If only Delta showed business class cabins on KLM and Air France as available.
This is where I need help from readers or fellow travel bloggers: Is there a way to get to JNB from Europe in Business class reliably? Would the miles that I have available get us there? Should I just book a coach award ticket on an airline and hope that business class seats open up as the dates near?
The Paid (and Uncomfortable Route)
The paid option is to route through Atlanta in Economy Comfort. This would involve a 8,439 mile, ~16 hour flight in Economy Comfort class. While this wouldn’t be the end of the world, I would not be looking forward to that 16 hour flight, even in Economy Comfort.
Why Am I Obsessed with International Business Class?
This is simple: I have been amassing large amounts of points and miles for a long time, and I would like to use them for aspirational travel. That is the reason why I play this travel game and what keeps me motivated to keep on earning points and miles. Sure, I could pay cash to reach my destination, but trying to find a cheaper and more luxurious option is much more appealing to me.
Any Recommendations?
I realize that by asking for recommendations I may be opening myself up to criticism for not having this all planned out, but I am fine with this for a simple reason: it will be a great learning experience for us all. Even though award ticket bookings may appear easy to those who run award booking services, it is actually quite time consuming for those of us who only book a few international flights a year. If one reader learns from this experience, then it was all worthwhile.