I need some help here please. While my parents were visting family in South Africa, my dad got seriously ill. It's been a long journey, but we can now tentatively start looking at how on earth we are going to get hime home.
I'm not sure of what clas code they were traveling on, but it is discount economy SEA-ATL-JNB-ATL-SEA. The return portion has been cancelled for now since up until now we really had no idea when my dad will be able to travel. His doctor will not clear him for it sounds like at least 2 more months for the trip back. Delta has been very gracious so far and waived all cancellation fees for both tickets.
Most likely, they will not travel back together since my mom needs to come back to work (been there two months already). She'll fly economy, no problems.
Now the problem is that my dad will have to fly back first/business or something with lie-flat seats since he cannot sit completely upright for long periods of time. Unfortunately, this is a costly experience already (health insurance is covering the hospitalization, but on a reimbursement basis because of the hospital being out of country) and money is a bit tight. How do I get him into first/business?
Secondly, he'll be fairly disabled and might need some help on the plane and he will most likely be traveling with oxygen and other medications. I'm hoping here that they can actually travel together, since my mom is a RN. Is anyone familiar with some kind of medical travel assitance service or something along that line? We are already planning for my nephew to travel with him if my mom can't.
If you have a few months, you could do a big credit card churn to get miles for an award ticket. Getting the DL Amex, the AMEX MR Gold, SPG AMEX, etc would build a lot of miles, especially with multiple people getting the cards. You could get the AMEX membership rewards cards and SPG card and xfer the miles over to their DL account. Or if you have a bunch of miles, you could have them transfer you the miles to top it off.
Even buying the remainder of miles from DL would be a cheaper alternative than paid J from south africa.
Very sorry to hear this so I guess there was no type of medical travel insurance in place prior to the start of the trip, right?
No, there was no travel insurance (and yes, they are kicking themselves in the hiney for that right now.) Their regular medical insurance would have paid for an evacuation to the US if adequate care was not available, but he is recieving top notch care there so the request was denied.
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If you have a few months, you could do a big credit card churn to get miles for an award ticket. Getting the DL Amex, the AMEX MR Gold, SPG AMEX, etc would build a lot of miles, especially with multiple people getting the cards. You could get the AMEX membership rewards cards and SPG card and xfer the miles over to their DL account. Or if you have a bunch of miles, you could have them transfer you the miles to top it off.
Even buying the remainder of miles from DL would be a cheaper alternative than paid J from south africa.
This might be an option. My husband is sitting on heaps of AS miles as well that we might be able to utilize. That's another option.
The Delta flight JNB-ATL has wonderful full lie flat seats -- I would say to run the numbers and do everything possible to get him on this flight, be it with miles or cash.
I'm not familiar with AS, but investigate to be sure you are getting the same thing. On Delta, JNB-ATL is a nonstop, with great seats, and no one seated next to you in business, so you can rest without anyone climbing over you to get to the lav or without having to wake anyone up to get to the lav yourself. Really good for someone who is not feeling strong. I slept most of the way, and it's almost 16 hours. Very peaceful.
It might be a false economy if the AS flight does not have equivalent seating or a nonstop to the United States. Just double check to be certain. Clearly, if there is a suitable flight, the best thing to do is to arrange to fly him back on miles you already possess.
I hope he gets well soon. Also, DON'T kick yourself. If you'd had duplicate insurance, then the primary insurer might have threatened not to pay, and it would all be a big mess. Every time we have a claim, our medical insurer tries to find out if we have any other insurance so they can deny the claim. Your parents may well have done the right thing. It's easy to second guess yourself when something goes wrong, but we have no guarantee they'd be financially better off if they'd bought travel insurance. They might be in an even worse mess, frankly. You never know. I've heard some real horror stories about people with duplicate insurance, it takes years to get either company to pay up.
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AS doesn't fly outside of North America, so OP is looking at using AS miles to book on DL (or another AS partner). I'm pretty sure you need low mileage availability to book on a partner using AS miles, and as we all know low availability on DL can be tricky to find.
I would definitely check in to the partner options. eg: Perhaps you can find JNB-CDG-SEA on AF+DL or JNB-AMS-SEA on KL. While DL's JNB-ATL flat beds are nicer, the EU routing will have acceptable J products all the way to SEA and may be able to reduce the number of transfers required.
Keep in mind an award ticket in J will require a lot of miles... eg 120,000 for a DL r/t (even though you only need one way).
Also, check in to each airline's requirements for traveling with oxygen, etc.
Search DL.com for JNB-ATL in business for miles. I saw a few dates (Jan 21, 23, 28). Problem is that one way award is the same as round trip. AS miles should be able to book any DL flight that is at low level. And if you are using miles, you aren't stuck with DL. You could get UA miles with Chase Sapphire, Freedom, UA Explorer, etc.
Once you get to ATL you could just buy a revenue ticket back to SEa or use AS miles.
I've got an hr or two on my flight with nothing to do (and wi fi). I'll see if I can give you a few options.
And if any of the new DL reps see this... This would make for a great story in helping them out. If the flit isn't going out full, let them buy a Econ ticket and travel in J.
The Delta flight JNB-ATL has wonderful full lie flat seats -- I would say to run the numbers and do everything possible to get him on this flight, be it with miles or cash.
I'm not familiar with AS, but investigate to be sure you are getting the same thing. On Delta, JNB-ATL is a nonstop, with great seats, and no one seated next to you in business, so you can rest without anyone climbing over you to get to the lav or without having to wake anyone up to get to the lav yourself. Really good for someone who is not feeling strong. I slept most of the way, and it's almost 16 hours. Very peaceful.
It might be a false economy if the AS flight does not have equivalent seating or a nonstop to the United States. Just double check to be certain. Clearly, if there is a suitable flight, the best thing to do is to arrange to fly him back on miles you already possess.
I hope he gets well soon. Also, DON'T kick yourself. If you'd had duplicate insurance, then the primary insurer might have threatened not to pay, and it would all be a big mess. Every time we have a claim, our medical insurer tries to find out if we have any other insurance so they can deny the claim. Your parents may well have done the right thing. It's easy to second guess yourself when something goes wrong, but we have no guarantee they'd be financially better off if they'd bought travel insurance. They might be in an even worse mess, frankly. You never know. I've heard some real horror stories about people with duplicate insurance, it takes years to get either company to pay up.
Thank you very much for the kind words. Even if they had travel insurance, they would have hit the coverage limit already. We're talking about a 2 month hospital stay including at least one month ICU care with 5 or 6 surgeries. Luckily reimbursement checks should now be coming in.
I was also thinking about the possiblity of breaking the trip up into two or three segment, but depending on how strong he is, it might just be better to not have to be on the go, even if it includes an overnight or two in a hotel somewhere.
Now my next issue, since he is already ticketed and finished the outbound leg, would Delta use the return leg in conjunction with the fare difference to get to F? Or would the return leg just be cancelled and re-ticketed as a one way? If the extra fees are not too exorbitant, 60 000 skymiles for $2100 might not be a bad deal if I can manage to come up with the equivalent amount. I'm sure I would be able to if I signed up for a Delta Amex card. I also have a few thousand miles in my never used Delta Skymiles account. That certainly beats $6 000 cash as shown on Delta's website. My mom can sign up as well.
As for oxygen, already talked to Delta about that too. The appropriate FAA approved equipment can be rented from Delta directly. Big relief there. I'm not sure if what other special medical equipment he'll need.
I instructed my mother to call Delta in the morning (South African time) to see how they would ticket the return leg and how much it would cost. She's already so overloaded with so many other things so I'd like to make this as easy as possible for her.
Search DL.com for JNB-ATL in business for miles. I saw a few dates (Jan 21, 23, 28). Problem is that one way award is the same as round trip. AS miles should be able to book any DL flight that is at low level. And if you are using miles, you aren't stuck with DL. You could get UA miles with Chase Sapphire, Freedom, UA Explorer, etc.
Once you get to ATL you could just buy a revenue ticket back to SEa or use AS miles.
I've got an hr or two on my flight with nothing to do (and wi fi). I'll see if I can give you a few options.
And if any of the new DL reps see this... This would make for a great story in helping them out. If the flit isn't going out full, let them buy a Econ ticket and travel in J.
Thank you very much! That's the only drawback I noticed....award prices are the same amount round trip vs one way.
A more realistic one way award I can definitely swing. But if one way = roundtrip... that's gonna take some work.
Thank you very much! That's the only drawback I noticed....award prices are the same amount round trip vs one way.
A more realistic one way award I can definitely swing. But if one way = roundtrip... that's gonna take some work.
It sound like your dad is getting good care -- the one recommendation I have is to check with the people treating him and his physician in the US to see if it's a good idea for him to be traveling right now.
Grab a Delta Amex if you don't have one already. The sign on miles will absolutely help, but you will also get access to pay with miles. That way if you don't have enough to do a BE ticket entirely on miles you can cash in whatever you have and just pay cash for the rest.
Alternatively you could buy him a Y,B,M,H,K,Q fare in coach and then upgrade the ticket with miles to a BE seta if again you aren't able to come up with all the miles for a full BE award.
This might be an option. My husband is sitting on heaps of AS miles as well that we might be able to utilize. That's another option.
Well if you're interested in using AS awards, I recall there being a discussion about one-way partner awards starting up towards the end of this year.. not sure what happened with that.. (FT thread discussing it here)
If you do end up using AS miles, the best option in my mind is JNB-HKG-YVR in Cathay First and then picking him up from Vancouver. This would price out to be 140,000 AS miles (perhaps 70k if one-way awards are indeed possible soon?). Would definitely be the most comfortable and best service, albeit ~2500 miles longer than any other routing.
Thank you very much! That's the only drawback I noticed....award prices are the same amount round trip vs one way.
A more realistic one way award I can definitely swing. But if one way = roundtrip... that's gonna take some work.
What is your starting point? Do you, your husband, mom, or dad have any airline CC's or AMEX cards already? What about starting mileage balances? I think something could work out to get both your mom and dad on a flight in business. Worst case your dad gets in business and mom in economy on the same flight.
Also, you can get a cheaper one way by booking a low business class ticket home, and then book a dummy econ ticket in low on the return (or somewhere else as an open jaw). Then in that case you'll get 70k for low J plus 50k for low Y for 120k miles instead of 140k. You could get more creative and do an open jaw with JNB-ATL-XXX where XXX is some city in europe that is within the open jaw rules. The ATL-XXX could be in Y for 30k miles, making the total trip only 100k miles.
