scottymon

Hi friends - I've been travel hacking for a couple of years with good success. Next summer I want to travel to Kenya to work in an orphanage for children whose parents have died of HIV/AIDS. I just used up my miles and points on another trip so am back to square one for the Africa journey. Amex has Delta cards - personal and business - that I can get with a 50,000 mile bonus each, and if my wife gets them both we'd have 200K miles available. Need to travel business class because I am too tall for coach for a journey that far. So could book two one-way Delta business class tickets using my and wife's miles, but give up any possibility of a stop over doing this.

My question is - can you recommend any other cards or airlines where using signup bonuses I could get to Kenya next July?

Thanks!

rmott1

How about the barclays usairways (for travel on saa)

emma dog

DL is tough as flights to Africa at low mileage are a challenge. At this point you can't book one way awards on DL.

The problem with AA specifically is if you end up on BA, you will pay fuel surcharges. I'm flying US-LHR (stop for a few days) LHR-NBO on BA in F next summer and am paying $1106.80 in fuel surcharges and airport taxes. My schedule isn't flexible and there aren't any AA tickets available for my travel dates so I can't avoid even some of the charges. As an alternative, you can take Qatar for minimal fees. I'm paying $67.40 for NBO-DOH-US in business.

The other alternative is UA/LH. I'm not a "pro" on their nuances, so I'm not going to chime in. However, they have one-ways and I believe the fuel surcharge situation is better.

So... how to fly? Personally I wouldn't latch on to DL because of the one-way thing and the fact that I value the miles at less than 50% of what I value AA miles as. I'd personally sign up for Chase cards and transfer the points to UA or I'd sign up for a citi card and the amex SPG card (and transfer the miles over) and fly Qatar if possible (or AA to LHR and BA to NBO).

Good luck!

VLtone

I just took a trip to Zambia via *A using US miles. US is now part of One World - so you'll most likely fly on either British or Iberia. But you can use the US miles exchange rate which is pretty good.

If you each sign up for a card, you'll get around 50k miles each. You'll need 110k miles each for business class.

Currently US is running a gift/buy miles program. If you do it the right way you can both end up with 110k miles.

bhrubin

It depends on what you can get by the time you have enough miles to book. We've had good luck getting to Egypt, Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia/Zimbabwe, and Mozambique using UA and Star Alliance. You have more options, and the mileage costs are about the same as for DL and its SkyTeam partners--with very small or no fuel surcharges except for LH. The easiest route for you is likely USA-Europe-Kenya using UA, Lufthansa, Brussels, Turkish, or SAS. You also can try to fly UA's IAH-LOS route and then connect to Kenya. You can each get the UA Explorer card with 50k bonus and then add each other for another 5K bonus each--that's 110K UA miles. You can also each get a Chase Sapphire (their UR points transfer to UA) and get their 40K bonus (and you get more bonus points and no forex fees for Kenya!) and refer the other for another 5K--that's another 85K. You'd have 195K miles right off the bat, not counting your actual charges.

Previous posts have indicated already the severe fuel surcharges you will face with BA awards in premium classes. Chase Sapphire URs points as mentioned above transfer to BA, so you'd have this option if needed.

Your other best bet is with AF going from USA-CDG-Kenya. Air France is pretty good for business class awards. You can get those with DL miles, though DL sometimes restricts access on some flights it seems, but also with Amex Membership Rewards transfers to AF. Chase Sapphire URs points transfers to Korean, which is a SkyTeam partner of DL and AF, so you can still use the Chase Sapphire.

StartinSanDiego

Go with Star Alliance! What is your home airport? There are transfers via Europe or Cairo, some Ethopian airlines routes, etc.

BTW-- great that you are going to do some work for such a worthy cause. Bravo and good luck!

susiesan

If you want to go next summer, e year from now, you have probably already missed the biz class award seats available 11 months in advance since you don't have the points yet. By the time you accumulate enough for these award tx you may have trouble finding seats when you want to go. The other option is to wait until the last minute, less than a month before you go and maybe seats that are unsold will open up.

I just redeemed UA points in August to fly on SAA to JNB next April at 9 months in advance. The only reason I got the 2 biz class tickets was we are flying on Easter Sunday 2015. The return is through GRU with a 4+ hour layover. And I still was not able to get flights to/from my home airport, MCI, to connect with the overseas flights as there is no award availability on the short domestic flights at this time. I will end up having to spend around $300 each to buy 2 one way flights to and from the int'l gateway cities.

CO FF

I've been trying for June 2015 for weeks now -- both OW & *A -- and am finding this to be among the toughest awards to find.

My only rules "no Y" -- PremEc or better -- and no connections in the Persian Gulf.

Thus far, I"ve been able to find 2 WT+ on BA LHR-JNB, but nothing to get me TO those seats. The GRU-JNB seats are actually cheap enough to buy, but getting to GRU is painful with AA's devaluation.

bhrubin

South Africa is about as distant a trip as most Americans can make. If you want to fly there on miles, you need to be flexible. I'm not sure why you're worrying about connecting in the Gulf if you can get what you want--since those airlines are among the best in the world. If you can find free tickets using miles/points on them, I suggest you consider them. You also can find quite some good deals on them (I PAID for F for first time ever for Jan 9 on EK CPT-DXB-LAX for $3200 per person OW).

If you don't want to fly through the Gulf, then you better prepare to suck it up with the AA devaluation. Or look at options through the Gulf/Istanbul or Cairo or GRU or whatever can get you to South Africa as inexpensively as possible. You may also need to adjust your dates a bit.

Since you're on the West Coast, you also can consider 2-3 segments via Asia. CX has a HKG-JNB flight that is pretty good in economy, and you might be able to find mileage awards on the various carriers that can get you to JNB or CPT as needed.

concordian

I got 4 tickets on CX going from SFO-LAX-HKG-JNB-CPT booking 11 months out. I used US Airways miles for 2 tickets and AA for 2 tickets. AA will cost you 2 awards(SFO-HKG & HKG-CPT) but well worth as we are flying together.

bhrubin

That's a good get! Flying CX in Y or J?

Sabasi

This is changing in 2015.

Sabasi

I agree.

concordian

All the way in J ^.

Icing on the cake was free stopover at Hong Kong for 3 days.

bhrubin

Very nice. May be the best routing possible from the West Coast USA. First time to SA?