rockdocs

Currently planning a trip to the Middle East and would like reccommendation on flights, hotels, excursions, tour guides etc.
First of all, my wife and I would like to see Egypt and Israel.
We live in Texas and have aa miles.
We have many points with Starwwood, Marriott, and Hilton.
How would you schedule the trip? Egypt or Israel first.
What airline would be reccommended?
Which hotels?
use points or purchase?
Which sights?
Thanks

mordey

I am unable to help you with you enquireis about the amount of points you will need to make a trip. But i can tell you, if you plan on going to Israel, and you get a stamp in your passport, you may be refused entry in to some Arab Countries.
What you shoud do, is plan your intinerary that you visit Israel the last, so you will not get any hassel, also you should ask of the Israeli Embassey in Washington, about traveling to Arab places, and than going toIsrael.

krug

Egypt is inexpensive at the moment as tourists are avoiding the area because of security fears.

So you should have no worries about getting a good hotel deal; best to save your points for more expensive locales.

PLEASE do not be put off by these fears; it is just following the crowd, and much better to experience these countries and their people than cower at home and listen to second and third hand spin found on most TV news stations.

From DFW, you can fly via LGW London LHR to Cairo, and return through Tel Aviv. It is a long journey and I would recommend at least one stop in London, probably on the outbound so you arrive fresh and ready to play when you get to Cairo.

Given the long journey, you may appreciate the fully flat beds found in BA Club World, Business Class:

www.deepersleep.co.uk

You cannot use your AA Miles to fly US-UK on BA, but you can use them for a full redemption in J or F on BA for the London-Tel Aviv/Cairo portion.

The DFW segment can be purchase in WT+ (Premium Economy) for around $1000, and then upgrade round trip to Club World for free by applying for a BA Visa at www.ba.com, which nets 15k BA Miles each, then earn the remaining 10k BA Miles by flying AA Domestic or other affiliates, or purchase. No co-pay and far superior international lounges, flat beds seats, food, IFE, service and you still earn 125% of miles flown, well on your way to another upgrade enxt time.

RMC500

When you go through immigration in Tel Aviv, you can request the immigration officer to not stamp your passport but rather to stamp a piece of paper which is temporarily inserted into your passport (and then returned to immigration at the airport when you exit the country). Otherwise, you will be denied entry into Yemen, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, among others, should you ever want to visit those countries. An Israeli stamp will not bar you from entering Egypt, however.

TeaAddict

You don't say how long you're planning to stay for, or what your main interests are, but in general I would agree that it makes sense to do Egypt first, as you are likely to do a lot more strenuous activity there (climbing into tombs and so on) and it's best to do that fresh. Then return through Tel Aviv. I also agree it makes little sense to use points in Egypt, where hotels are inexpensive, but you might want to do some comparisons of cost/points in Israel, as depending on the time of year and hotel, you might do better with points.

Assuming you plan to spend at least a week in Egypt, a fairly standard itinerary would be a few days in Cairo, fly down to see Abu Simbel, cruise from Aswan to Luxor and see the sights there and then either fly to Tel Aviv (probably via Jordan? I don't think the Cairo-Tel Aviv direct flights exist anymore) or go overland through Sinai and see the sights there as well, with a side trip to Petra in Jordan very doable as well. If you plan to go overland, you should give yourself a couple of extra days to see the sights en route.

In Israel, at a minimum you should plan on 2-3 days in Jerusalem, at least one day in the North (either Sea of Galilee or Haifa) and one day in Tel Aviv, but in general it's a much smaller country (particularly by Texas standards), so you could also just make a lot of long day trips from wherever you decide to stay.

(If time is not a factor, I would give yourself at least 10 days in Egypt and a full week in Israel, including spending Shabbat in Jerusalem, which is a unique and memorable experience.)

This is all doable on your own, but depending on how comfortable you are with travelling internationally and/or how much hassle you want to deal with, you may find it easier to engage tour guides, particularly for the Egypt portion and for particular day trips within Israel. If you do a search for tour guides on this forum, you'll see various people recommended, but if you have particular interests (archealogy, Christian history, etc.) you might find a specialist guide or tour trip more interesting. In general, local guides in both countries tend to be very knowledgable and well trained -- and speak excellent English.

I agree that BA has a very nice international product (flew them last time to Cairo) and that stopping over in London is also fun, but it seems a shame to use your points and still have to pay for US-UK segment. I don't know the AA program well, but it looks like you could fly on Swissair (or whatever it's called now) direct to Zurich from DFW, and from there on to Cairo and vice versa from Tel Aviv on your way back.

If you decide to buy your plane tickets rather than use points, another option to look at is Lufthansa, which has a similar routing through Frankfurt and generally gets pretty good marks.

BEYFlyer

You may visit Egypt and Jordan should you decide to have your passport stamped in Israel. However, as noted by RMC500, you may choose to have that stamp placed on a piece of paper instead if you are thinking about visiting other Middle Eastern countries.

janefly

Hi. I am also planning a trip to the Middle East(in December 06). I was hoping to travel to take the sleeper train from Cairo to Luxor and then fly out of Luxor to Amman Jordan. However it is difficult to find information about flights out of Luxor -although I know there is an airport there. Has anyone had any experience flying in or out of the Luxor airport? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

TeaAddict

I'm fairly sure you'd have to fly through Cairo. The Luxor airport is a small regional airport, and while it does have international flights, they're mainly charter trips going to places in Europe. Most people traveling through Luxor are flying on one of the EgyptAir domestic flights to Cairo or Aswan. So, you'd fly out of Luxor to Cairo, then to Amman. (Don't forget that domestic and international flights are at different terminals in Cairo, so allow at least an hour for the transfer.)

Ducatibiker

I would take some time to relax at either Sharm El Sheikh or at the Dead Sea. Sunrise at Massada is quite an experience.