Originally Posted by Waterford

I've just joined FT and I'm quite overwhelmed by the display of research and expertise on offer. I have to fly regularly to the Middle East (Beirut, Abu Dhabi/Dubai) and particularly to east/southern Africa (Nairobi, Jo'burg/Cape Town). At the moment I'm funding most of this due to trying to develop a new business plus some charitable activities. Unfortunately most of my travel is reactive/hard to plan far ahead so I get hammered on price. Most of the threads seem to be about transatlantic and Far East routes. Can anyone advise how to a) reduce the cost of premium flights ex-EU to these ME and African destinations plus the best positioning/feeder destinations to achieve this (I normally start my journeys from LHR or LGW), and b) the best TP runs as I'm trying to get back to Gold after several years of missing it?