Africa - Trying to get to Africa

First post here. My wife and are considering a trip to Africa the last two weeks in June for our 25th anniversary. Trying to figure out if we can get there economically. We have about 100k Amex MR points. These can be transferred to BA Avios for a 50% bonus. Also have about 40k AA points. So with close to 200k points Avios/AA does anyone know if we can get two tickets from St Louis to Nairobi? Trying to figure this out before I transfer our MR points to Avios.

Thanks in advance.

Jim

What class are you looking to travel in?

Beware that if you go with BA you will have to pay quite high charges which make coach tickets poor value.

Don't know about the Amex points, but we used AA miles to get from DFW to JNB (DFW -> LHR on AA, then LHR -> JNB on BA). You should be able to use both AA miles and BA miles, assuming BA flies LHR to Nairobi.

This only cost us 35,000 per person, so even with the fees, it was definitely worth it. Note that if you book the U.S.to London leg on an AA flight (codeshare with BA), the taxes/fees will be lower. You should be able to do this even though you are using BA miles.

Thanks for the replies. With regards to ticket level, economy I suppose would get us the most for our points.

Jim

Don't know about the Amex points, but we used AA miles to get from DFW to JNB (DFW -> LHR on AA, then LHR -> JNB on BA). You should be able to use both AA miles and BA miles, assuming BA flies LHR to Nairobi.

This only cost us 35,000 per person, so even with the fees, it was definitely worth it. Note that if you book the U.S.to London leg on an AA flight (codeshare with BA), the taxes/fees will be lower. You should be able to do this even though you are using BA miles.

I'm curious how you got from DFW to JNB for only 35,000 miles per person. That seems too good to be true.

BTW, Welcome to Flyertalk!

I have found a lot of my clients with AA or BA miles having success going to Southern Africa on Iberian connecting in Madrid. They usually fly from the USA to Madrid on AA or Iberian. Hope this helps.

Craig Beal - owner - Travel Beyond

Oops, that should have been 35,000 miles each way. But still worth it. We were a little ahead of peak season to get flights for that little.