FlyingHighlander

I'm also visiting Cape Town then Namibia next year. Assuming you can find availability, it's possible to book some kind of excursionist perk flight, but everything I found via UA award searches routes you through JNB. Personally, I'm forfeiting the excursionist perk, and will likely fly Air Namibia direct CPT-WDH. Much more efficient than wasting a day in transit via JNB (unless you prioritize saving a few hundred bucks over the time).

jsloan

Sure, except if you're trying to do it in conjunction with the UA flight, be prepared for the award flight to cost a bundle of miles, especially if you plan to go in business class.

That said, there's nothing special about the Excursionist Perk -- just book a multi-city trip on the website. Sometimes, it might not show up properly during the search process, and you may need to call, but as long as the flights to each stopover are available, you can book it on the phone.

So, if you want to fly MCI-(EWR)-CPT / CPT-WDH / WDH-(JNB)-(FRA)-(DEN)-MCI, if you can find flights by searching MCI-CPT, CPT-WDH, and WDH-MCI, you can book them together and CPT-WDH will be free.

escapefromphl

There's an Airlink (SAA regional partner) flight CPT-WDH but you can only earn, not spend UA miles on that flight (as long as you book SA codeshare). Airlink flies directly to a bunch of other places from CPT that should be of interest to leisure travelers, such as VFA, MUB, SZK & GRJ but I don't expect one will ever be able to redeem UA miles on those routes.

susiesan

So I took your suggestion and tried award flights for Dec. 2019 as an example, MCI-CPT, CPT-WDH, WDH-MCI. I get 190K miles instead of 160K for a a RT MCI-WDH. The flight CPT-WDH backtracks through JNB and takes 5 hours. The nonstop EWR-CPT is not showing up yet.

sfnats

Anyone have an idea of when these flights will be for sale?

jsloan

The CPT-WDH flight should show up as 0 miles. If it's showing up as 30K, and it's not going through a separate region, that's a problem and you might need to get an agent to price it manually.

pseudoswede

Looks like it's up for sale. Full fares only.

ukinny2000

award flights (YN & JN) showing up too.

N104UA

Cheapest fares I can find on ITA is $957 for pretty much any Wed-Wed itinerary in Economy on L fares, and $3,815 in business on P fares, which isn't bad considering a P fare from SFO-SYD (on a similar flight length) is $5,548

drewguy

Any indication of when the "seasonal" flights are discontinued?

gokeeper

End of March

TBD

Inaugural flight: J0 JN0 C0 D0 Z0 ZN0 P0 PN0 PZ0 IN0 I0 Y9...

boooooo

spin88

3

I suspect that you are correct. Both Boeing and Airbus will have detailed charts on this, but they are not exactly easy to find/interpret. Given that the wing on the 788 is the same size from the 788 to the 787-10, and that the 787-10 has a substantial range penalty ( the best "high hot" performance of the bunch will be the 788 as it has more wing per pount (and as such more lift) and the ability to get more of its MTOW off the pavement. The A358 never got off the ground since its fuel performance was not so hot - in large part to too much wing - and that the A359 and A350-10 have different sized wings, with the A350-10 actually having a 300 nm longer range, my guess is that the A350 will do marginally better in hot/high situations as it should be able to get more of its MTOW off the ground.

And I might add that the comments upthread on Ethiopian having to do a fuel stop on ORD-ADD (using a 788, which is a better hot/high performer), which is 7577 mi, while EWR-JNB would be 7990 mi suggests that the B789 has nowhere near the legs necessary to do the route, and note that since it flies longer flights to sea level airports, the issue is the hot/high conditions at JNB.

We don't have all of that data, but I am sure that it is completely accurate. The eventual fuel burn will very slightly from initial specs, but the range and MTOW should be very close to what is originally projected.

I really don't understand the point of putting up a fare like this so far out.

this is more like it. That said, if they are only getting $3,815 RT in J for the route (with some of the seats then going at only 60% or so of that to corporate accounts) I don't see how you cover the costs for a ULR flight like this.

While SFO-PPT is being held up as e.g., that flight is 4188 miles. EWR-CPT is 7817 mi. The type of fares that one needs to charge for a flight of these lengths is very different. One can be supported via "leasure" fares, the other can no.

TBD

Because people booking a flight 10 mos out are ignorant of how pricing works and are going to book no matter the fare.

N104UA

This route is primarily leisure focused so I doubt there will be many corporate accounts on it. It is obvious they only want to test the waters, this flight is 3x per week for 12 weeks so only 36 round trip flights, it will be interesting to see if they get enough data to support extending or bringing back in 2020. However in any event, they are getting/will get tons of free media for this flight, so for 36 RT flights it might be worth it for just that.