bertheike

As per award chart a ow. within Africa cost 10k / 17,5k
But there is not even one legal way to fly from north Africa to South Africa with a oneworld or partner airline.
all connections are via LON or via DOH / AUH /AMM ( which is all in another zone ). So which sense makes the pricing, if there are no routes available ?

ajeleonard

BA operates flights from Johannesburg to Southern Africa, that's why there is an award chart

JDiver

The only oneworld 10,000-17,500 mile awards are within Southern Africa (Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) from its JNB hub. (The sole exception is Durbs-Cape Town.)You can not fly between other areas of Africa and Southern Africa on a single award.

bertheike

thanks for explaining.
that's a very poor availability, or a very expensive with AA miles.

JDiver

You're welcome.

Indeed. One might say the chart's wording is illusory.

Even in Southern Africa, I can't get to Gaborone, Katima Mulilo, Lilongwe...

PHX_Flyer

If you can get your hands on some Avios the flights are pretty reasonable. I used Avios award between JNB-CPT, and JNB-LVI for very cheap (February 2016).

Side note: If your visiting vic falls don't fly into Livingstone, unless you're staying in Zambia. Zambia Tourist Visa is very expensive for a 2 mile drive to the border!

SpammersAreScum

You really need to be in both Zambia and Zimbabwe to get the full Vic Falls experience anyway, in which case it wouldn't matter.

Happy

1) Before using Avios one should check the LCCs prices on the shuttle route, i.e. JNB-CPT. Kulula, a 100% sub of Comair operates this route as a shuttle - in fact you can find both their flights an BA flights on Kulula.com. We paid less than $50 per person to fly Kulula.

Also if Kulula has any issue (rarely on this route but might on the once or twice a day routes), it would put the passengers on the BA flight numbers.

An FTer friend flew Mango, the LCC sub of SAA in Nov. He paid like $40.

With that kind of pricing, there is no reason to even use Avios as BA's surcharges aint cheap on the Comair flights.

Now if you need something like JNB to PLZ, or CPT to Durban, that using Avios may be slightly cheaper as those flights tend to me twice as the shuttle route.

2) I believe now there is a combo Visa for both countries so it saves a little bit of money to use that instead of individual visa.

SpammersAreScum

Is this info recent? When I went Dec 2015 I was told that they had just stopped that program. 'Twould be nice if they've resumed.

http://www.victoriafalls-guide.net/u...we-zambia.html

Happy

I read about it last year when trying to decide if we had enough time to go to Victoria Falls if we axed our stopovers in Hong Kong or shortened it as we had a week in Hong Kong before and after South Africa. Well, no availability on CX made the idea a no go. Turned out the JNB-HKG route is a very heavy load route. No wonder once award seats are booked even cancellation would not get back to inventory.

bertheike

I not want to fly within Southafrica. I simply thought to find a good deal for our AA miles and studied the award chart, where I found the 10/17,5k for flights within Africa. So my first idea was to search for TUN-JNB/CPT, which would have been a good deal, if it would be available. But quickly i found out, that there are no oneworld or airline partners flying from anywhere in northafrica to southafrica, without routing via a 3rd. region.
I still have half a million AA miles which were transfered from USair.
And our main traveling is/was between Europe and Asia. Bevore when them belonged to *aliance, i used 100k for a roundtrip in first class on TG/LX/LH/SQ between Europe and HKG with a stopover in Thailand. Now the same award costs 180k and is much more difficult to get.
Since the last devaluation there are no more sweet spots in AA's chart ( @ least not in premium booking classes ).
Or do i miss something ? @:-)

SpammersAreScum

I don't think you're missing anything, as far as Africa is concerned. According to the OneWorld route map, none of the northern African airports (even Cairo) have direct connections to other airports in Africa.

If you look at the MileSAAver Scarcity thread, you'll see lots of folks noting how in particular the Bus/First MileSAAver availability has drastically gone down lately. If there is any noting of exceptions, you'll probably find it there.

For example, right now DFW-HKG has Bus MileSAAver available on a direct flight for 32,50070,000 miles on Sep 26 and 27, while cash price is $4312. So they exist but they're real scarce.

GetSetJetSet

Trying to get around southern Africa. The Comair flights come up on the BA search tool, but can they be booked as part of an award with AA miles?

bertheike

Does bus mean business ? I only find eco awards priced for 32.5k

jerry a. laska

See this thread started yesterday:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ba-comair.html
See also:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26532845-post1585.html