Dallas to Johansburg using AA miles - next month. Help please
 

If I am posting this the wrong forum I apologize.

Family situation has arisen and my wife and I are going to take our daughter (who is 19) on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Africa next month.........this is MUCH sooner than we thought.

We live in Dallas. Want to leave on July 9 (flexible a day or so each way) and return two weeks or so later. We want to use AA miles (I have 1.6M) and fly Biz Class. We do NOT have to fly out of Dallas as we could use SW miles to start/end anywhere in US.

Not picky about which One World airline. Would love to have a couple of days layover on the way home if we would a cool/fun/interesting place.

I am a moron on how to do any of this and would greatly appreciate any help.

Thank you in advance

Two words for you - good luck.

Traveling in a peak season with miles without any prior preparation? You would need a great deal of luck to score a seat. Changing your plan sounds more practical in this case.

<redacted>

When looking what have you found?
Availability/airlines/routes?
3 biz class awards on the same flight is a very long chance. Look at flying differnt days/routes
Why only JNB and not CPT? (restricts otions)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._R._...tional_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_T...tional_Airport

https://www.awardhacker.com/#f=DFW&t...=0&c=j&s=2&p=0

• HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance
  
• AA oneworld & Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (master thd)
  
• EY----> Booking AA Award travel on Etihad / EY (master thread July 2017 onwards)
  
• BA IB----> Help avoid YQ Surcharge: AA award on BA / British (& Iberia) (master thread)
  
• CX---> AA Award: Cathay Pacific / CX, KA availability, etc. (master thd)

Consider these Award booking services - a list and some reviews

Well, thanks for the input. The reason I am doing so last minute is that a member of the family has had a potentially life-changing medical issue arrive. We are hoping this isn't any type of "last trip", but not sure.

I can't imagine flying this in OneWorld without wanting to fly Q suites through Doha. No idea on availability given your timeframe, though.

It looks like from the old desktop search that there may be availabilty in saver J (75k points one way per person) on etihad for 3 people leaving JNB on the evening of July 23rd:

- EY 603 JNB to AUH in J
- EY 151 AUH to ORD in J
- AA 312 ORD to DFW in Y

It's not Q Suites, but it's a pretty decent J saver redemption with only ~65 bucks a person in fees (i.e. you don't have to fly BA).

That's all I have time to suggest - good luck. You could google tips on how to search on Qatar, and also google for what routes/plans have Q Suites if you want to dig into that.

Your first step is to go to aa.com, and see what -- if anything -- comes up on an award search. If nothing, then you should call AA, and see what might be available on other partners which can't be displayed on an aa.com award search. If still nothing, you can ask about routing through HKG or GRU, but that will require two separate awards.

Since AA AAnytime awards are not valid for travel on partner carriers, and since AA does not fly to JNB, your flights in and out of JNB (at least) will have to be on (capacity-controlled) MileSAAver awards.

Edited to add: Must all three of you travel on the same flights, or are you prepared to split up, 2 and 1?

There are currently three 75,000 mile awards routing DFW-ORD-AUH-JNB on July 9 (DFW-ORD segment is in Economy, ORD-AUH-JNB is in Business on Ethiad), and the same returning JNB-AUH-ORD-DFW on July 23 (again ORD-DFW is in Economy but the long hauls are in Ethiad Business). Total 450,000 miles. What are you waiting for? Book it now before it goes away!

Seriously, you're not going to find anything better with AA miles. AA does not fly to JNB so AAnytime awards are not an option. That leaves mostly BA with their "carrier imposed charges". So you are extremely lucky that there are awards with minimal "fees" available, and three of them, no less, on your desired dates.

Edited to add: I found these with the standard award search on AA.com.

I see the outbound he has as well - just be prepared to spend an overnight at AUH on july 10th. You may want to book an airport hotel if such a thing exists there, or look into the J lounge situation there (I bring zero insight on this topic, sorry)

Make sure, when you go to look for awards, that you're using the old desktop search, not the new mobile one. That's where they showed up.

And, for the record, the flights on the outbound would be:

AA 1463
EY 150
EY 604

I cannot stress enough the recommendation from above to BOOK THIS IMMEDIATELY. You need 3 seats. If one person eats a single leg of business in EY on one of the flights, this option could disappear. This is an incredible find, and I hope that it works out for you.

If the other options dont work, I'd contact this service, Juicymiles.com. They will (for a fee) find what you are looking for-if it exists in any way, shape or form. You don't pay until they find it. We've used them twice with great success. AA miles to far parts of the world where AA agents didn't want to research-or couldnt see options. Good luck!

OP please reply and let us know if you snagged those seats.

There appears to be business class PHL-DOH-JNB on 9 July, with a ~9 hour layover in DOH but no overnight required.

You can put it on hold via AA.com and then call in to see if you can add a DFW-PHL leg (there is space in economy).

EDIT: EY looks like the best option on the return on 23 July.

Flying through PHL on QR is like a cheat code, it seems like theres always availability. The big catch of course is it isn't qsuites right now.

Honestly, while I haven't flown the QSuites yet, I've flown nearly every other raved-about reverse herringbone seat that everyone loves, and I'll take the old QR 777 J seat over any of them, hands down, any day. There is just sooooo much room (especially legroom). And it's definitely a lot more comfortable than a seat that I can't book.

I did July 10 Philly to JNB on Qatar for 75K AA miles each. Found a cheap SW ticket from Dallas to Philly that gets in a few hours before the Qatar flight.

Still haven't figured out the return.........looking at July 23 or 24.

MANY MANY MANY thanks to all here for the advice. This is going to be a very special trip for our family!

Good on you for getting the QR option! Just curious: did the EY space for the return on 7/23 go away, or are you otherwise averse to using EY for whatever reason?