be careful with that sa jfk flight, every so often the flight sked reverts to a different equipment which makes a stop over in dkr or acc. used to be during northern summer only, then northern winter, then ???. so keep track of that.
They did not do this last year. In some past years between Dec and Feb (peak summer season in South Africa) the A340-600 on JFK was substituted with an A340-300 which required a stop on DKR on the west bound leg. They didn't do it last year and won't be doing it again this year (with the A330-300s arriving).
also there's turkish airlines which i love flying on, i know they fly out of sfo and iah for cheap. and i'm pretty sure you can get a stopover on a business ticket. also you have long connections in istanbul so you can wander out if you're keen enough.
Agreed, Turkish is great and they also fly into CPT and DUR in addition to JNB.
for schedule especially out of san ba is hard to beat.
Well, they have a lot of capacity, but the schedule lacks diversity, all overnight flights in both directions meaning long layovers in Europe on the return journey.