ElephantGin

We're hopping pretty quickly through East / South Africa next March. Most stops only 3-5 days.

Most flights are handled through three main operators: Ethiopian, Kenyan and Air Madagascar.

Using Kayak to look for pricing. When I price it with each leg being one-way only, I get a price of: $3,812.
If I group a few legs together (ADD-JIB-ASM-ADD) with their 'multi-leg' tool - I get a slightly lower $3,333

There has to be a way to get lower ticket prices?

$1,200: MNL - ADD (RT - into ADD / out of TNR)
$138: ADD-JIB
$251: JIB-ASM
$153: ASM-ADD
$230: ADD-NBO
$63: NBO-MBA
$227: MBA-DAR
$231: DAR-SEZ
$372: SEZ-MRU
$319: MRU-TNR
$375: TRN-HAH (rt)
TNR-MNL (part of original fare).

Are there no air passes from Ethiopian Airlines, or any better way to price out multiple legs like this?
I prefer to travel with 'firm' dates so I can lock in hotels through booking.com etc.

Thanks!

stimpy

All those prices look pretty normal to me. I'm not aware of any air pass deals.

ElephantGin

Well, I came across three things:

1. I read that if you come into the country (internationally) on an Ethiopian flight - that you could get your other Ethiopian 'in-africa' flights for a discount (40 or 50%)
2. Read that if you're on the ground and book tickets directly through vendors (vs the site) you could get a significant price difference (like 20 - 30%)
3. Also read if you book your tickets via their mobile app you can get a 10% discount.

Was hoping someone on Flyertalk.might know the details, or for the other carriers like Kenya etc.

Guess not.

ChiefNWA

1. They do offer that for intra-Ethiopia flights (for example, Addis to Lalibela) but not for international intra-Africa flights. I'm not sure what the booking process is for the discount though.
2. Sometimes. That's something you'd have to risk though upon arrival, maybe it'll be less, maybe it'll be more. As you noted, nothing is guaranteed either so hotels could potentially become an issue. Keep in mind though, this is Africa, things (even when booked confirmed) may very well not go as planned.
3. I've seen a few carriers offer something like that, but not many. If they do, it would be pretty clear in the app.

Also, flying out of TNR may be inflating your costs. Try looking at some larger African city pairs as your entry and exit points. For example, flying into JNB and out of ADD on random dates in March gets the big legs out of the way for $905, you should be able to find a cheap flight to somewhere on your list from JNB to reposition.

Round trip MNL-JNB in March can also be had for $781 if you can find cheap flights to position to JNB on the return. You'd have to play around with all your potential destinations to see what works best. Also, HKG-JNB can be had for $601 rt if you can score some cheapo flights to/from Manila.

ElephantGin

I ended up getting a good fare BKK - Addis, then out of Madagascar to BKK for $724 on Kenya Airlines - have read dire accounts of the airline.

HK also looked good, but I have some business I can do in BKK.

Thanks for the feedback.

stimpy

I've flown roughly 200K miles on KQ and they are a pretty good airline to me. I fly business class on the long hauls and eco on the short flights. No complaints from me as the few faults they do have are common to most all airlines.