Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - SAA Conundrum

My daughter is traveling TPA-IAD-JNB-CPT with a college group in January.

She has messed up her knee playing rubgy and will have an ACL replacement in February. Doctor has okayed the trip, provided she can elevate her leg (in a big brace) during long haul flights.

SAA says they only book bulkheads at check-in. We are concerned that if she ends up not being able to elevate leg, she will have problems on arrival and with 3 week trip. (She'll be working in an AIDS orphanage amongst other noble things--and what is interesting is that we adopted her from a US orphanage at age 12.)

She has, of course, a medical letter and SAA does have a medical office. What do you suggest? Have the travel agency that booked the group work on this or have me work on it through the medical section or ?

Also, which alliance is SAA in so we can get her appropriate miles?

Thanks,

Can't help with the medical/bulkhead issue. As for alliances, SA is slated to join *A next year some time. But nobody's holding their breath or prepared to bet exactly when - the best guess is probably May/June. In the meantime they have bi-partisan agreements with various airlines (DL, LH, CX, EK, QF, AF... to name but a few) but these differ from partner to partner and are in a state of flux as SA realigns for joining *A. Unless she wants to join the SAA Voyager programme, I suggest she looks at her current FF programmes and sees which will allow her to accumulate miles on SA.