concordian

Yes and enjoying planning for a self-drive safari with a 3 day Sabi-Sands private safari.

bhrubin

Excellent. I highly recommend the Dock House if you stay in Cape Town--we liked its suite more than the Presidential at the Cape Grace (and saved a bundle, too), though for a family maybe a bigger full service hotel is more appropriate. I also recommend staying in wine country outside Cape Town if time allows, as it is the most beautiful wine country in the world IMO.

opushomes

Last year we booked two business class tickets to Cape Town using AS miles. Outbound was AS and AF via SFO and CDG and return was using Emirates via Dubai and SFO. We used a combination of purchased miles, miles in our account and Visa bonus miles. As I recall, the cost RT was 140,000 miles.

Fairly good availability was found booking about four months out. Alaska Visa cards offer 25k miles with no minimum spend but a $85 fee. Periodically, Mileage plan offers 40% bonus miles on purchased miles getting one 56K for slightly more than $1100. I believe that the Starwood card still transfers to AS at 20k yielding 25k. A little creativity can get one to southern Africa for less than the cost of coach ticket and in much more style.

Absolutely do not bother with Delta as a means of doing the trip for a minimum amount of award miles.

Sabasi

But Delta miles can be used on its partner airlines, including Ethiopian Airlines.

racer7400

i am trying to book a trip for 3 plus an infant to jnb for summer 2015 but I was planning on starting to look for availability at about January. That will leave me 3 months to accumulate enough points and 7-8 till the flights and hopefully that will b enough time to find the availability.
Right now I have 108k Alaska
73k delta
50k united
50k SPG (just got approved for a spg bis so thats 25k more
80k UR
72k MR
But in 3monthes I can add a lot
should i try for a OW with cathey pacific in first or try for business rt? thanx in advance

bhrubin

You have more options for Business than First on most airlines/alliances, but it depends on the total spend you do in the next few months, I guess.

If you can get CX LAX/SFO-HKG-JNB, I'd call that a big win--especially if you're coming from the West. You can try using AS miles plus your SPG points, but you have to wait for the SPG transfers.

You can also try using AS miles (supplemented with SPG) for Emirates to DXB and then DXB-JNB. Harder to get than CX usually, but you never know.

You'd need a lot more Chase URs to get DL ATL-JNB in BusinessElite--and award availability on that isn't great.

You also may be able to piece together a *A itinerary that goes through Europe--unless you can get the SAA IAD/JFK-JNB flight using UA miles, but you'd definitely need more UA miles since their devaluation.

You obviously need to know where you should spend so you can go for the right award, but you won't know until your 3-4 months out whether or not there will be award availability. So be patient. I'll be curious what others think, too.

racer7400

thanx this is a great help. i have relatives in SA so i don't really need the SPG points so i can almost have enough for 3 tickets and by signing up for a alas bis that should complete it.
as to originating airport i actually am near nyc but i have no problem going cross country in coach if it means a business/first flights