Originally Posted by
susiesan
I am planning to make a vacation trip to South Africa in 2015, between Sept.-Nov. I will need 2 seats in J as awards. I have figured out how many miles I need using AA or UA and ideal routes. Now I am looking at what it would take to use skymiles. I have 450K+ Starwood AX points that I can transfer into to DL. I'm wanting to know how easy it is to get these award seats in J for the current cost of 160K skymiles each, or if it's impossible to do.
If there are never award seats on the DL flights then perhaps there are on partners.
I've found it difficult to get the DL ATL-JNB nonstop using miles (in business), and I'm Delta Plat! After 4 tries, I've never been able to get it--perhaps I'm looking too far in advance (usually start around 330 days prior).
We've gone 3 times via UA miles. First trip was nightmare but LAX-LHR (NZ Business), LHR-FRA (LH Business LOL), FRA-JNB (LH First), and JNB-CPT (LH First) back when you could do that. Second trip was LAX-FRA (LH First), FRA-JNB (LH First). Third trip (for our wedding!) we originally had LAX-FRA/FRA-JNB on LH First, but the outbound got screwed by the Iceland volcano, so we had to outbound last minute on LAX-IAD (UA First), SAA IAD-DKR-JNB (SAA Econ), and SAA JNB-CPT (SAA Econ). Star offers many options, but you usually have to go through Europe unless you use SAA or fly UA's IAH-LOS route.
This fourth trip in Dec 2014/Jan 2015 we are flying using UA predevaluation miles LAX-LHR (UA GlobalFirst), LHR-JNB (SAA Business). Our return was JNB-LOS (SAA Business), UA (LOS-IAH UA BusinessFirst), IAH-SNA (UA First)...but then we just found an incredible Emirates fare of $3200 in First CPT-DXB-LAX and couldn't resist.
You can also try Turkish through Istanbul with Star, though they are notoriously difficult on the IST-JNB route with premium awards.
Don't be afraid of the IAH-LOS route...though LOS is a dump, you can connect easily onto SAA into JNB.
Still, if you can get ATL-JNB on DL, and for not too many miles, it's a great option.
I can say that no matter HOW you get there, South Africa is totally worth the nightmare. It really is amazing...not to mention how amazing some of its neighboring countries/sites are, as well.