Originally Posted by
KHTravelBitten
My gf and I came to the same conclusion this weekend. If we routed through Europe, that essentially makes it 2 days of traveling. With award availability dwindling, we booked biz class flights there on Ethiopian leaving from IAD, stopping in ADD. We'll be taking a United flight to get from Boston to DC. Waiting on some bonus miles to post and then we'll book the return flights. I know we missed out on the free stopover, but wanted to be sure we could still get there with only one day of travel.
Does SAA typically open up award space late, closer to the departure date? Currently we saw no award availability in biz class from either JFK or IAD.
I would keep checking the flight availability. We tried to do what you did and gave up and booked through BA. I have heard SAA availability opens up verrry close to the flight date if you are booking through UA.
Our friends are flying biz to GRU and then on the SAA flight on to JNB and CPT. They couldn't get anything on the return. They booked much earlier than we did. They ended up buying an economy return on VS.
I was advised that people do the flights 364 days in advance. We are flying BA in first (on points) through LHR and then JNB. 3 flights in total. I just finalized the routing a few weeks ago. Stuff definitely opened up for us. Before that we had an award on Air France (if you've got miles) from Paris to JNB. You can add a leg on from LHR for the same points.
For our dates on UA (end of August, returning mid-Sept) there is nothing available in business at all other than Egypt Air.