And Kenya currently not being the epitome of peace and safety.

Successfully booked and burned all my miles for:

Business Class
IAD - CDG
Air France/Air Seychelles AF0952/ CDG-SEZ
Air France AF0963 / MRU-CDG
CDG - IAD

This was a total of 120k per ticket. The tickets had to be issued as paper tickets. Total cost was 295 per ticket in taxes and fees. Requested that the 25 Direct ticketing be waived since I couldn't book online, but no success there.

Overall I feel I got a good value for my $ and points as the tickets are going for around 12k and the points are becoming increasingly devalued.

flyfarfar, when is your trip. We are going in August. (into TNR, out via MRU). We booked in Sept 2007 and August 2007 and only paid ~$125 per ticket (~$45 for the one-way outbound and $80 for the one-way return).

Fees via CDG have skyrocketed since then. We are also on paper tickets, which is very annoying given a bunch of changes we've since made to improve the connections.

We booked tickets to the Seychelles using CO miles last year and flew from DXB to SEZ on Emirates. On the return trip, we were on Emirates through to CDG via DXB.

Good luck. A trip to the Seychelles is well worth the price, no matter how many miles you use -- truly heaven on earth!!

What fees via CDG are you referring to that have been implemented since September 2007? I ticketed a TATL award two months ago with a return via CDG for a total of $85 in taxes which didn't seem much different than previous years.

In September 2007 I paid $148 in taxes for an award to SEZ via CDG and NBO.

$295 per ticket seems like a lot even after subtracting $50 for the direct ticketing charge and partner award fee.

We are going in March of 09.

Geez, sounds like I got ripped off on the fees compared to what others have paid. My only thought is that I have 3 AF segments and 1 AF code share (IAD>CDG, CDG>SEZ, MRU>CDG, CDG>IAD). So subtracting the 50 in Direct Ticketing and partner, its around 245 a ticket.

Where did the extra hundred and 120 come from? Any guesses?

I hope they haven't started adding fuel surcharges to award itineraries ex-US (ex-Europe it's already being done). Can you post the breakdown of the taxes and fees?

Hello, All - I'm a 1K on United and never fly on Delta except for the occasional involuntary reroute. As such, I'm a skymiles dummy but have been clocking up some skymiles through various promotions, namely the Avis 4-day rental/5,000 mile deal. Since UA only offers 1,250 miles per 4 day rental, I figured I'd credit to Delta and get something out of it sooner or later.

Now I'm planning on redeeming with United to go from IAD-Capetown-Nairobi-IAD in the summer of 2009. While in Nairobi, we'd like to go to the Seychelles. I see that Kenya Airways flies NBO-Seychelles on certain dates and am interested in using SkyMiles to redeem for that flight.

I've looked all over on the SkyMiles page and on this board and can't figure out how many miles it would be to get from NBO-Seychelles, roundtrip. Does anyone have any experience with this - how easy it is to redeem, how many miles, etc? Thanks a lot!

My Fee breakdown is as follows from my paper ticket. (in per ticket dollars)

Tax:
XT 232.27
Tax:
YC 5.5
Tax:
XY 7.0

USD 245.27

Then I guess I was charged the direct ticket fee of 25 and the partner ticket fee of 25.

I too am interested in hearing about this as I cant find any intra-Africa awards on Delta.com...with Kenya Airways in SkyTeam this should be an option.

Does anyone know if nwa.com/jp shows any flights to SEZ? or is it one of those destinations that never pulls up on NW's Japan site?

Is AF still flying their own metal these days? Id prefer that over Air Mauritius, but I have a feeling AF operates it with their high capacity aircraft with the Alize degraded Business Class product.

nwa.com/jp won't show any KQ availability but it will show the AF CDG-SEZ flight operated by HM which is bookable using Skymiles. AF doesn't operate their own metal to SEZ. FWIW I was able to get my first choice of dates on KQ (keep in mind NBO-SEZ is Sun/Thu only) booking 5 months prior to departure and from comments on the NW forum, it seems that my experience was pretty typical.

When do more seats for J/C class get released on these AF-coded Air Seychelles flights. There are a few in October, but none in November. Y availability is pretty good, but Im just wondering if they havent released any yet since this is a small partner. Does anyone know how that works with them?

Flew my MK segment on Monday night. The J product has been revamped vs. the 45" economy plus discussed earlier. It is now very similar to the AF and KL products; lie-flat at an angle with ~60" pitch. See at the Air Mauritius website.

The product is very new, and there were some bugs (my seat required some maintenance attention pre-departure and my wife's AVOD was only in black and white). But overall, it is a very competitive product and I would take it again without hesitation. Thumbs up for Air Mauritius on this one.

I put an intra-Africa award on hold with DL miles at 60,000 miles in Y. I think Ive read elsewhere that NW offers cheaper intra-Africa awards, is that true?

And for those of you who have completed your trips, can you tell us about Kenya Airways and Air Seychelles service on any of these flights? I have CDG-SEZ in J class booked, but am not expecting much (although AF isnt that great either besides their comfortable, lie-flat seat)

Two of us flew NBO-SEZ last year in C. It was OK, nothing spectecular (whereas KE's 777 J product is truly spectecular). We received menus on both segments to/from the Seychelles. On the way to SEZ, we got breakfast, and were offered lunch on the way back. Note that pitch is not great on these planes, nor is there IFE. Last year, there was a new lounge at SEZ, but KE Premium-class pax were NOT able to use it, not sure if that changed since.

Overall, while certainly better than Y, I'm not sure I'd spend twice the miles on these flights.