best way to free ticket to Brazil from AF flight
 

My friend is taking a flight to Africa from JFK on Air France which will earn him about 12,000+ miles. He currently does not have miles in any program. I want to advise him in the best way to achieve his goal - to gain a free flight to Manaus, Brazil to visit family. I know that AF and DL have a partnership. What would be the best thing to do to earn his miles? Does anyone know a lot about these programs? I have never flown AF and am not familiar with whose partners can get him to that part of Brazil.

I guess these are the available options:

1) open an AF account and put the miles there.
2) open a DL account and put the miles there.
3) some other option?

Any suggestions are appreciated, thanks.

who flies to manaus that gives award tickets? ask about that work back.

[This message has been edited by clacko (edited 06-04-2002).]
edit again to add.... iirc, the time i went to manaus we were on varig from mia. i now recall getting dl mi's for that , so i guess that air france is in the right group. have you looked @ varig awards from dl or air france?
edit again to add... go to global alliances ,search under skyteam.

[This message has been edited by clacko (edited 06-04-2002).]

CO will get you to Brazil for 35,000. Its hard to beat that--most other carriers are 60,000.

CO has a credit card that will spot you maybe 10,000 miles.

CO probably only flies to GIG and Sao Paulo.

Varig no longer code shares w/DL, they are part of "Star Alliance", and have been for some time. (not Skyteam)
DL has reduced their award to Brasil from 60K down to 50K to match AA, and UA.
You could have your friend apply for the Delta American Express Skymiles card, and add a significant bonus to their DL account, on top of the 12K they will earn flying AF, plus earn miles w/purchases. Change to MCI long distance etc. To let you know DELTA will not fly you into Manaus on an AWARD ticket, they can connect you to another airline (such as RG..how strange no code share though) ONLY ON a Purchased ticket :-(
As prevoiusly stated Continental offers Brasil for only 35K R/T and Northwest uses them w/ their program at the same award level of 35K. Maybe the "NW" Visa promo for 25K is a better way to go, and use KLM for Africa giving them the NW # for the miles? It would be more than enough for a trip to Brasil but CO, NW, and DL only offer FREE tickets to Sao Paulo (GRU) & Rio de Janeiro (GIG) at this time.

Thanks. They are locked into AF on the Africa trip because they are going with a goup that ordered the tix so they cannot use KLM - unfortunately. I think the DL idea may be the best - even if they cannot use the miles for the Brazil trip, there is plenty they can do with them by topping off the account as you said with Amex and MCI.

Considering they live in the states, it is probably better to get miles on DL then AF. Most AF flights probably connect in CDG and that would not be desirable for a US resident - especially if it is a free ticket and you are not earning miles for the extra time in the plane.