Hello. I'm new here as a poster and want to say hi and thanks for all the help I've gotten just from reading responses to other posts. I hope someone can help with a problem I have.

I want to fly two people from IAD to CPT via South African Airways using United Miles. My problem is that I don't have enough miles to "buy" the 1st class tickets outright for 320,000 miles.


I only have 261,000 miles currently, and am told by United I cannot buy or even have transferred in from a friends' account the neccesary miles.

I was also told I could not buy a coach class ticket and then upgrade to first because it is not a United flight.

This is a very special trip, and we'll be in the air for almost a whole day, so I'm really hoping to find a way to travel first class, and paying $30,000 is not an option.

Any suggestions or ideas? Thanks for your help!

Scott

Welcome to FT!

(1) You could ride business class which would not be all that bad for 120K each.

(2) Use UA miles to upgrade a purchased fare to Europe, then use miles (75K in business, 100K in FC) to South Africa from there.

(3) Ride MaxJet's new all-business IAD-STN RT for $1K and then use UA miles from LHR.

The Europe stopovers are easier on the system, too.

Thanks for your suggestions Gardyloo. I had already considered your first point and may still go that way. I just really wanted to be in first for this trip. I'm actually now looking into buying one ticket from a mileage broker, and using my own miles for the other seat.

Scott