How to get to Cairo
 

Dear SAS board

Feeling most at home in this forum, I hope somebody can give me some recommendations about a forthcoming trip to Cairo.

I am off on a EK first class CAI-DXB-NBO thing in october (aprox. 8000 kr.) a steal in first class in my opinion, and should ensure me plenty of Skywards miles for future use, and a nice experience one or two nights in Dubai.

Now before I get to all the fun, I have to get from BLL or CPH to CAI. All tickets are in the 3000-4000 kr. range (Y), and my options include:

Alitalia - through Milano,
Lufthansa - through Frankfurt as i recall it
Austrian Airlines
Maersk AIR (not really considered as i want to try something else)
British Airways, which i actually would have prefered on this route, but it is a bit to costly from denmark.

Hmm... this is an all day routing through one of the european hubs, but which airline would you choose. I know I am in the SK forum and therefore LH or Austrian would give me the bonus points, but then again, I do not know if it is worth it just for the miles.

I am afraid this routing will be in Y, so no business class on this routing, except upgrading for points, i have some 40000 SK miles, but feel that it would be waisting them just for an upgrade on this quite short flight.

I hope you could give me your comments on which option to choose.

Thanks!

credit the miles to right place
 

Can't comment on the options, but I would recommend you to credit the EK miles to UA MP instead of skywards as this will give you the option to spend them in *A europe or on some UA flight. I have plenty of miles in Skyward which I acumulated over the last 6 years but never found a good award so far an always scrambled to get tiny upgrades before the miles expired.

Regards Oliver

You will love Dubai! Great place, I'm going again to DXB later this year :)

Yeah, too bad Egypt Air left DK...they would have been a good option. Maersk Air is the only scheduled cai bound carrier out of cph.

Personally I'd take a nonstop any day - you're looking at quite a few segments on your itinerary, and the fun really starts to wear off after 3.

What's your purpose w/this itinerary - are you connecting through cai to get on the EK flight, or is it one of your destinations? BA & KL usually offers really good CPH-NBO fares, (KL is DKK5600) And TK on cph-ist-dbx is around DKK4000.

cph-cai is actually quite long - I'd take the Maersk flight and pay the DKK400 extra for a 90cm seat...

Snowflake could have been one option as well but the only have seats on the 31st of October.

The famous TG RTW fare is gone from CAI, so is EK now the airline for great prices ex CAI?

Well CAI-NBO in first class for 8000 dkk, or might be Dar es salaam for 7600 dkk is a fairly good deal imo. The same ticket from UK or DE would be 25k at least! or with EK in Y from these countries app the same as first from CAI.

Now the sad part is getting to CAI, which really is quite a long flight. Routing through some european hub is offcourse not optimal, but i think i will relax a day in Cairo before heading on to africa.

I think CAI is the place for RTW tickets today, so i have read different places.

This kind of opportunity doesn't come my way very often, so want to make it something special, and with EK on row 1. should be a nice treat. :)

- Dubai is nice, had one night at the mina a salam part of the jumeriah international group, earlier this year, magical, really a treat! Think i will have to make make a stopover there again this time.

I will also visit DXB early next year and I just cant wait.

If you would like to get to CAI as cheap as possible would a charterflight be an option?

Yes, CAI is still the place for RTW but not as cheap as it was until a few weeks ago. Check out the Star forum and search for RTW from CAI with TG as carrier. They had an amazing price(It later turned out that they hadnt update their price for two years or something like that).

had considered the charter option, but these are not very flexible.

I am now in favour of either trying out Alitalia from CPH (last flight was in 89 to LAX) :) or the Austrian/Lufthansa option.

I know the maersk air is properly the nicest just a straight flight, but really want to see/try something else.

If you're located in the vicinity of BLL, how about Air Berlin out of Hamburg ? By car it's only slightly further than CPH, and I believe they operate a low cost route to Cairo ?

Now that was another interesting posibility. Hmm... checked it out, but again turns out to save me 1000 kr. (the cheapest avail)over a LH or AF ticket from BLL, so really not that great a deal afterall.

Am down to a decision between: AF or LH/AUStrian from BLL.

It's still cheap for ex-CAI RTW's. I just did a *A CRTWSTAR1 (29000 miles) for EGP19500, which has gone up to EGP21450 (+ taxes) ticketed on LH.