Rules for Star Alliance Africa Pass
The Airpass is available in Economy Class only.
• The Airpass is available for travel within Africa only
• The Airpass is valid for travel from 10th April 2006.
• The Airpass is available to non-African residents.
• The Airpass is only available in conjunction with an intercontinental ticket to/from Africa on a Star Alliance member airline.
• All flights taken with your Star Alliance African Airpass will be with South African Airways.
• Eligible flights taken with your Star Alliance African Airpass will earn miles towards your nominated Star Alliance frequent flyer programme – so you can earn status much quicker.
• You must confirm your first coupon at the time of purchase. All other coupons can be booked at any time subject to availability.
• Minimum 4 sectors, maximum 10. Minimum mileage 750.
Advanced purchase: Reservations are required at least 7 days prior to departure.
• Booking class is V.
• Minimum stay: 3 days. Maximum stay: 2 months.
• Tickets can only be sold or ticketed outside South Africa before arrival.
• Cancellation fee: 25% of the fare.
• Changes: free of charge provided V class is available and ticket does not have to be reissued. The first sector cannot be changed.
• Baggage allowance: 20kg for adults and children, 10kg for infants.
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V class on SAA will only earn 0.5 * miles (at least on bmi), which is disappointing and no coupons can be upgraded to business class.
The other difficulty is that V class may have limited availability at certain times of year on certain routes. For example, I have been told there is no V class availability from JNB to Mauritius in December, which means I cannot visit a college friend who went back home to work in the family business;-(
The coupons themselves are quite good value for money (0.15 cent per mile), but the taxes can add up. I was given on example of a 6 coupon pass where the taxes were more than the coupons. On a 10 coupon pass - with a number of longer routes, the taxes were relatively a smaller amount of the overall cost.
I hope this is useful to others.
Please let me know if you are interested in having two example routings with pricing posted for future reference.