CRhighflyer

My wife and I will be traveling to JNB roundtrip March 31 2025 returning April 10. I know it is too far in advance to find rates but I am looking for any input on suggestions to find the best business class ticket. We can travel out of anywhere in the USA. Thanks in advance.

jsnydcsa

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Are you looking for the best in quality, service, amenities for a business class ticket from the East Coast to JNB?
Or, are you looking for "best" routings on metal that offers business class?
Or, are you looking for current (as compared to March-April 2025) "best" deals on purchasing a business class seat with cash or with miles?

You also should peruse this forum as there are numerous threads dealing with different levels of service on different carriers between the US and SA. Mileage v. cash options. Routings, etc.

tkelvin69

Set up alerts on google flights.

lewisc

United operates non stop flights from some airports, Newark for example.

CRhighflyer

I'm looking for the best rate. Thanks!

jsnydcsa

I'm no Rhodes Scholar of dynamic pricing of business class tickets. But, that far out, you're likely to see full boat rate for just about every routing possible. That said. I've had too many opportunities to have to research costs (both Economy and Business) between NY and DC (and to some degree ATL) and either JNB or CPT. Here's my general thought.

Lately, United seems to have "cornered the market" on US-based flyers looking for their one-time adventure to SA on UA's EWR and IAD to SA routings. The latter (IAD) also seems to pick up what appear to me to be a good number of business/govt apparatchik types traveling on the taxpayer dime between USA and SA. So, United doesn't need to really (IMO) compete on price. So, IMO (YMMV), United will cost you the most. Right behind is generally (IMO) Delta running out of ATL.

Then I would say your major European carriers between the east coast, then a hub/layover in Europe then southbound to SA are probably next in line pricing-wise pretty pricey but not as bad as United.

After that, coming in a close third are the various ME carriers hubbing through ... the Middle East ... they often pop for me with decent prices. Though candidly, I would say the pricing I'm looking at with them is for Econ and not their influencer-occupied skysuites or whatever.

Actually, to revise and extend, I'd say number 2 1/2 would be Ethiopian. I've seen them pop with some halfway decent prices and have seriously given them a chance several times - just could never book b/c of timing issues.

If all you're looking for is the best price. You can just start with Google Flights or other type alerts and buy when you think the price is right based on the historical pricing info those same sites provide.

Hoyaheel

We've been pricing tickets for a July/August trip. They're all high. But for a bit, Turkish air (with Istanbul layover) had great business rates to CPT (half of Delta, which seems EXTREMELY high at the moment). That's out of EWR, I think. Not sure what other airports they might use.

jsnydcsa

For reasons completely unrelated to this thread or even FT, I haven't considered Turkish. So I blanked on it as an option.

I know a good number of people who have used them from Europe to/from SA bookings (through Istanbul, duh). I've never heard anything "bad" about Turkish and the folks who've taken it have said to me decent prices and nice service (YMMV on both). Just on occasion per folks I've talked to mentioned the flight gets cancelled to/from SA from Istanbul and it has a knock on effect b/c they didn't roll out new equipment right away and rather tried to cram delayed pax onto later (or next day) flights. Emphasis on "on occasion." This obviously isn't solely a Turkish problem. I've had it happen to me on SAA many times back in the day. It's just that I've "noticed" it as a problem with friends, family members and colleagues using Turkish when they've discussed their trip/experience. Given what I just said, I'd put Turkish in a "tie" for position 2 1/2 with Ethiopian.

BTW. If "Hoya" "heel" is a moniker for a dual university degree, depending on your age and your interest in college basketball, you should be ashamed of yourself! See e.g. Chris Farley's ESPN exposition on why NC should have beaten GU by 2. That's a 100% joke. Otherwise, my bad and I apologize. You could also speak Greek and have nice feet or shoes. Again, a joke.

Hoyaheel

[my user name does represent some places I've lived and studied, but at no point have I ever followed college basketball Ironically, I now work at another big basketball school. Still don't follow it at all, will tune out of the first 10 minutes of all meetings Nov through March]

WandertheWorld

Hi, we are headed to SA next week on UAL in business on their n/s flight from IAD.. We are paying 4300 USD pp from our home FLL airport.

I am a “value seeker” business class flyer. Which means I seek the most efficient routing at the most reasonable price on a carrier that can guarantee direct aisle access from every seat. For instance Turkish has a -2-3-2 layout on its widely deployed 777. I seek to avoid them because of this. South Africa is 20 plus hours of flying from most US airports other than a couple of hubs. So, comfort is number one. As long as the food is edible I am fine.

We started following pricing about 10-11 months out to get a sense of what pricing bandwidth is like. Qatar was the cheapest from our home base near MIA at 4300 r/t. The thing is we had no interest in stopping in Doha for a long layover (>=8 hrs). The total outbound transit time from the US was at least 30 hrs. Vs UAL/DL at 20 hours. European connections might be a tad shorter than 30 hrs, but unless you live in certain east coast cities with morning departures to LHR, there is typically a lengthy layover at a hub airport. For instance from MIA LX routes you via ZRH but the layover is 10 hours. No thanks.

With all this said, the DL/UAL flights seemed best for our purposes as we are headed to CPT, not JNb. Admittedly, there may be a few other reasonable options to JNB as it tends to have a bit better service from Global airlines. But the UAL/DL options are still the most efficient in most cases. If you have morning service to LHR from your home then BA/VX might also work. When I started monitoring pricing, UAL was north of 7k pp while DL was about 5k. However, prices suddenly dropped to approx 4.3k on both airlines when we wanted to fly (late March/early April). But, before we could pull the trigger DL jumped up to north of 5K while UAL remained at 4.3k. So, UAL it was to be.

If you don’t mind a rather lengthy transit time at DOH, in our experience, QR pricing remained pretty steady at 4.3k for a long time. As we don’t have morning LHR flights, I never really paid attention to BA/VX since I did not want a lengthy UK transit time. But you may want to monitor their pricing as well if the routing works for you.

Hoyaheel

Geez, for the dates we need, premium econ on delta and united is running $4500-6000, forget business ...

sweetsleep

OP, do you have any FF miles on AA, Chase, AMEX, etc that you can transfer miles into getting at least 1 ticket?
I have used an amazing online mileage TA who gets me great tickets both on miles or cash. PM me if you need help. I found this TA on FT but would rather not go afoul about this.

Additionally, I have a fabulous Cape Town, SA based travel company for any bookings you need. She takes care of everything you would need and I am using her services yet again for my trip in late September. Just give her your budget and wish list and she can work magic.
I have used her since 2016 for many trips to the African continent.

cheltzel

My wife and I are planning a trip with another couple who has never been to SOuth Africa and will be going to the Western Cape for a few days after a Kruger Park area safari. On our last trip we solf booked everything (wine tours, drivers, etc) and to be honest, it was a bit of a hassle. Please send me the contact details on your travel company. I'd like to reach out to them and see if they would be able to help.

Lonedaddy

We are going in December, and I have been using kayak to see prices. I found that early 330 out UA had some of the best priced fares. Turkish and QR were also competitive. You can set an alert to monitor prices and also look at fares on expert flyer. Or just have a good TA work on it.

we were able to get a QR avios award for 95K pp so amex miles went to that. Hard to find return awards mid dec to mid jan on QR but we found a flight JNB DOH for 90K avios pp (flex) and then AA from DOH to PHL to DFW for 200K AA miles pp(yes! now it is 300K but it is holiday season) We opted for a multi-night stay in Doha using hilton points to break up the long return going westward. If you have a little flexibility you should be able to find something. Using miles saved us 6500 pp in air credits for our cruise. Good luck.