Background and Planning

I've been reading many of the trip reports on here green with envy but as a poor student, there's not much worth contributing; other than a couple of Euro trips in Y! My last long-haul trip with BA was LHR - EWR and JFK - LHR in CW during the 2013 Easter break (CCR at JFK access for being under 21!!!) for a Uni field trip to NYC and paid for in Avios by my benevolent BAEC Gold father. Unfortunately I've never got around to ever writing a trip report. However, the time has come to get my act together and get one started for an upcoming family trip to Namibia, culminating at the Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi.

We do a big adventurous long haul family holiday every three years or so, in 2011 we did a road trip to Cuba and in 2008 we did Aus and NZ. My parents have fancied Namibia for quite some time and this holiday is to be particularly special as it could well be the last grand family holiday for a while - originally being planned to coincide with my graduation and my sister's completion of her A Levels.

Over the past couple of years, my dad's job has shifted to focus upon North America which he runs out of the organisation's London Branch. This has meant regular transatlantic travel in J/F accompanied by lots of those very generous (TP wise) intra-US AA domestic flights. In doing so, he's accrued lots of Avios and a couple of GUF2 vouchers. Historically, we've travelled long haul as a family in WTP or CW, but as this is to be a particularly special trip we've gone all out, booking F. Somehow I managed to cheat the Avios availability gods and booked the four of us F both ways using Avios in combination with Amex 2-4-1, supplementing this with a GUF2 post-booking to get two of us from J to F. The downside being the slight annoyance of my mother and sister having to travel out together separately to my father and I the night before because of availability reasons. Fortunately, they're not complaining about the free night at the Hyatt Regency in Jo'burg, thanks to my father's Hyatt Gold Passport... also possibly because of him organising a trip to the lion cub sanctuary to keep them quiet!

So the itinerary as of now is for those two fly out together on the 4th of July, followed by my father and I on the 5th, with us connecting on to the Comair flight to Windhoek after having met them at JNB on the 6th. A bit of an inconvenience but hopefully it will run smoothly, touch wood. We've not bothered with upgrading to Club for the short couple of hour hop to Windhoek, which my dad sees as an unnecessary extravagance unfortunately, much to my disheartenment !!! Comair Club looks great (providing you get the A-C seats) compared to BA CE, especially with regards to catering. Never mind. From there we're doing self drive in a 4x4/Toyota Hilux type thing, staying at various lodges and camps along the way. We eventually end up transferring on to a house boat for 2/3 nights (can't remember exactly) arriving at the falls for a night or two, where we then fly back to JNB and onwards back to LHR.

Flights

1.
Date: 05 July 2014
Route: London Heathrow (LHR) T5 - Johannesburg O.R. Tambo (JNB) Terminal A
Flight: British Airways Flight BA0057
ETD: 21:20
ETA: 06 July at 09:05
Seat: 2A (First)
Aircraft: Boeing 747-436
Flight Time: 10hrs 46mins

2.
Date: 06 July 2014
Route: Johannesburg O.R Tambo (JNB) Terminal B - Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport (WDH)
Flight: British Airways (operated by Comair) Flight BA6275
ETD: 12:00
ETA: 13:00
Seat: 10A (Traveller)
Aircraft: Boeing 737-400
Flight Time: 2hrs 00

3.
Date: 26 July 2014
Route: Victoria Falls Airport (VFA) - Johannesburg O.R. Tambo (JNB) Terminal A
Flight: British Airways (operated by Comair) Flight BA6282
ETD: 13:55
ETA: 15:35
Seat: 10A (Traveller)
Aircraft: Boeing 737-400
Flight Time: 1hr 40mins

4.
Date: 26 July 2014
Route: Johannesburg O.R. Tambo (JNB) Terminal A - London Heathrow (LHR) T5
Flight: British Airways Flight BA0056
ETD: 19:05
ETA: 05:05
Seat: 2A (First)
Aircraft: Airbus A380-800
Flight Time: 11hrs 00

Additional Notes

I've booked the two of us in for T5 Elemis Spa appointments at 18:40 and 19:00. I've also requested via YouFirst that they email us the onboard menus upon their publication, which I hope to post here for anyone that might be interested. Please feel free to ask me any questions and to contribute any advice of any sort. I apologise for any rookie errors! Also, if anyone with any familiarity with these routes could post some info with regards to the lounge offerings at these airport, I'd be most grateful. I also have a question, I understand that the lounge offering at VFA is poor (unsurprisingly) but does anyone know whether the four of us could blag our way into this lounge, with a connecting flight in F? Or will it just be my dad +1 guest, with him being a GCH? Any contributions would be great.

Thanks and I'll update when I can