Cape Town on Star Alliance
 

I need to make a short trip to Cape Town in April, and am trying to make it a part of an Star Alliance RTW. Any suggestions on which cities are best to connect to Cape Town. I will be starting and ending in Milwaukee.

Don't miss Lagos.:D

CPT has nonstop links to SIN,FRA,LHR IIRC. Can you backtrack from JNB? Then the options are almost limitless, including the nonstop from IAD or JFK on SA, virtually every european capital and Dakar.

What class of service?

In Y, I guess I'd most likely do MKE-UA-ORD-IAD-SA-CPT.

In C, I'd do MKE-UA-ORD-LH-FRA-SA-CPT

In F, I'd do MKE-UA-ORD-UA-FRA-LH-JNB-LX-CPT

Outbound, go CPT-(SA(Y)/LX(C/F))-JNB-SQ-SIN

If time away is an issue, then do one way via either IAD or JFK on SA. Fastest way to CPT on *A. Also do not forget that SA does JNB to/from HKG. If you are in C, it is better than SQ for the overnight longhaul, depending on scheduling. (Boy do I miss the old UA/SA special fare--nearly $2k less than *RTW!)

And I believe you can backtrack thru JNB once.

Regardless, have a good trip.

Everyone seems so impressed with SQ C (I have yet to experience it firsthand...) - in what ways do you consider SA's C better?

Because to everyone other than the service-obsesed freaks on this board, the super-comfortable, fully-flat SA C seat beats out any angled lie-flat product SQ or anyone else could possibly offer, especially on such a long flight.

Moving this to the * Alliance forum.

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

Absolutely. SQ will have you in the foot rest in 20 minutes. SA will have you asleep horizontally within the same timeframe.
And frankly, I never cared for SQ's compressed breasts in my face. I find SA staff more real.

Just found this post - didn't realize it had been moved.
Thanks for the helpful suggestions.

Flight timing is also a little more forgiving on SA with a midnight departure, rather than the 2.30am departure (urghh...) on SQ.

For the outbound, I believe the JNB-SIN on SQ is on a two-class a/c, whereas there is a JNB-BKK on TG in a three-class a/c (346 i think). Obviously SA has a lot more options for the outbound, but if you're traveling in first, I think the TG flight JNB-BKK is the only *A flight continuing east that has an actual first class.

Not sure your class of travel, but food for thought. I also didn't look any of these up, it's just what I recall when toying with an RTW a few months ago that was eastbound and stopped in CPT. So while considering C service on SQ versus C service on SA, realize the SQ might be on an older 2-class a/c without the new C. I would do a dummy booking on SQ for one-way JNB-SIN to figure it out.

Well, I'm a big SQ fan and somewhat service-obsessed, but I beg to agree. The SA seat is the best C seat to SA by far--extremely roomy. This will only change if and when SQ starts flying its (reportedly) incredible new business class seats to JNB.