Questions and Answers

Hello! I am new to the miles games as of this year and really have no idea where to start. I have done a little research, but would like some guidance. We are planning a family trip for May/June 2017 to South Africa. The flights will be for 2 adults and 2 children (6 & 8). We currently have points saved up with Chase Ultimate Rewards and AMEX Member Rewards. Our trip is taking us to Cape Town, then to the Johannesburg area and then to the island of Mauritius. Below is the flight plan I think is going to work best and would like to spend as least out of pocket on the flights as possible. I have found a DFW-CPT flight that looks good flying Lufthansa (through United) with a layover in Frankfurt, but have had no luck with the others. I am open to all suggestions as long as the fuel surcharges are not ridiculous. Thanks for the help in advance!

DFW-CPT
CPT-JNB (this flight is already pretty cheap and we might just purchase this)
JNB-Mauritius (Roundtrip)
JNB-DFW

Welcome [USER=2271]@Ginny[/USER] – are you looking for premium cabin space or is economy ok?

[USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] since we do have 4 travelers we wound’t mind traveling Economy. Wherever we can get the most out of our points.

Being ok with economy seats should make it easier.

Have you checked using Air France/Delta via the Flying Blue program for the return leg to the US? The great thing about flexible points like URs is that you fly one way with one airline/alliance and return with a different one.

For the JNB-MRU leg I see 3 airlines that fly that route non-stop (per Wikipedia): Air Maruitius, Comair and South African Airways. Air Mauritius is not a member of any alliance. Comair is a member of oneworld, so you could transfer your URs to BA (10K each way) if you can find space. SAA is part of Star Alliance but I don’t know if they’re supported on the UA website as I couldn’t even get it to price a revenue ticket for me.

Maybe someone else can point to another airline whose website would allow you to search for award space on that route.

You can also transfer AMEX MR to ANA. ANA awards in economy are 65k roundtrip with no fuel surcharges on Etihad. Keep in mind however that they don’t fly into CPT, you cannot combine the award with another airline and that you would have a long layover in abu dhabi (though you could make this a stopover to enjoy Dubai).

Good advice here. I would also second your thoughts about paying for the intra-SA flights. When we visited they were cheap enough that it didn’t make sense to redeem points for them.