Update for
jsloan and
guv1976 . Went to book the flights today.
Plan was to book
- 2 return flights for $5700,
- 4 outward flights for 190k each
- 2 return flights for $190k each and
- 2 return flights for $220ish'k which equites to 190k CPT-EWR plus 30ish'k for economy EWR-IAH.
only to find out the cheapest IAH-EWR-JNB flights are now $8k and the 2 return flights available for 190k each are now not available. So cost is approximately is about $800 and 20k miles PER PERSON more than it was on Friday :-( There are still $5700 tickets available but they are via Frankfurt not EWR and theres no reward travel available that route - and we're not keen on splitting the family up like that.
Back to researching ! (On a unrelated note I tried using expertflyer and unless I'm doing something very wrong it's search results are worse than UA's own search).