I just flew SAA last week from Cape Town and their restriction seemed to be on the number of bags rather than weight (could be that I was under the kg. restriction so they were looking for something else. With finance in tow I had five (yes, souvenirs from Africa) and had to resort to tying plastic around two bags to make it one to be within the four bag limit so as to not pay extra. This was only possible when i emptied the roll aboard of clothes so i could carry 12 bottles of fine South African wine (Thelema!) aboard and emptied my back pack so i could wrestle in a 100 lb. piece of stonework art from Zimbabwe.

I asked SAA about their Voyager award that allows members to redeem miles for extra kg. or pieces of luggage and they mentioned it wasn't used very often. My immediate comment was - well, could it be that since you have to redeem that award in advance (couple weeks) it would be difficult for most people (except traders) to know in advance if they might be over in weight/piece of luggage. They mentioned they will be working on making such an "instant" award available at the check-in counter. At that time I suspect award redemption will rise.