Questions and Answers

[USER=4]@Lucky[/USER] and anyone else that may weigh in,

I am looking to book award travel for next June from US to South Africa. The Departure City doesn’t really matter, just want to be able to get to Cape Town or JoBurg in the front of the plane. Have some time to plan it out but finding routes is far more difficult (for me) to Africa than it has been to Asia or Europe.

I was able to find nonstop from Atlanta but for an obscene amount of miles.

I just got off the phone with Alaska Airlines and was able to fairly easily book business class back to the US from JoBurg to Chicago on Cathay Pacific.

Any recommendations or tips on which airlines or routes may easiest would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Unfortunately the only non stops from the US are on Delta from Atlanta or South African from New York. You can also fly South African to Ghana from Washington DC, connecting straight to Johannesburg.

Someone else will be better able to chime in on cost of awards, but you will most likely have to connect somewhere in Europe. Connecting in Asia is possible (obviously, since you booked Cathay), but that’s pretty much the most flying time you could possibly have!

You can also use 75k AA miles for QR business class US-DOH-JNB. QR serves quite a few destinations from the US. Use BA’s search tool to find seats.

The other option using AA miles is via BA but comes with with the high surcharges. or paying for 2 awards.

Thanks, David. that is a good idea… I will look into QR

If it helps: We are booked with (2) seats QR Biz from Miami to Doha to JNB at 75K per person in Feb 2017. We have nice 2 hour layovers and very little out of pocket expense. It was very easy to call American and get it accomplished.