Australia to South Africa - April 2018 to surprise my partner.

[twilsoncrow]

Hi wanting to surprise my partner and go to Africa in April 2018.

I have spent hours and hours with no success on finding any reasonable award space and am after some help/ideas.

Have access to 500,000 velocity points and approx 500,000 Qantas points.

Syd or Perth to Capetown or Johannesburg and then return.

Can leave from any other capital city in Australia if needed

Can leave Sydney from 6th April and need to be back in Sydney by Saturday 27th April.

My issue is that I am looking for direct flights and am not prepared to travel for 24 hours to get there.

Happy to go economy, premium, business, and potentially first class

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[Mattg]

I would suggest that you try to use the Velocity points to fly business class on South African Airways between Perth and Johannesburg (this is a direct flight). You would need to call Velocity to check availability and book - South African Airways reward flights don't appear on the Virgin Australia website.

It looks to me like there *should* be 2x business reward seats on the following South African Airways flights:

10/4/18 SA281 Perth 2340 - Johannesburg 0450+1
25/4/18 SA280 Johannesburg 2115 - Perth 1220+1

You should be able to add on connecting flights on VA between Sydney and Perth, and you can book through to Cape Town (with a domestic connection on SA from Johannesburg) on the same ticket if you want.

Booking SYD-PER-JNB-CPT return in business class (as above) would cost you 439,000 Velocity points and a few hundred in taxes. Booking PER-JNB return only would cost 312,000 Velocity points in business. Those prices are for 2 passengers.

 

[twilsoncrow]

Hi Mattg Thanks for taking the time- Wow that is a lot of points, it isnt that far maybe I could consider economy or even pay for the flight.

Its a lot of points and money (by the time I add in the activities) maybe I should just take her to Melbourne?

I wanted to thank her for supporting me while I have been doing my PhD for the last 4 years i will be submitting in Feb 2018.

 

[Mattg]

There are actually very few reward seats available in economy - so if you want to just book that then you might as well pay for the flights.

You could fly Perth-Johannesburg in business to South Africa on 10 April, then return from Johannesburg direct to Sydney on Qantas, using Qantas points in economy on 21 April. Qantas has virtually no availability on their SYD-JNB flight in April, but for some reason there are 6 economy reward seats on QF64 on 21 April. The JNB-SYD flight with Qantas would cost only 40,000 points each.

 

[twilsoncrow]

forgot to mention she is a school teacher so we are bound by school holiday dates. I spoke with her principal today about accessing LSL the week either before or after the school holidays which are 14th -29th April. I would just pay if it means that we would lose a week of the holidays.

 

[Mattg]

forgot to mention she is a school teacher so we are bound by school holiday dates. I spoke with her principal today about accessing LSL the week either before or after the school holidays which are 14th -29th April. I would just pay if it means that we would lose a week of the holidays.

South African Airways does appear to have 2x economy reward seats from PER to JNB on the 15th of April. Coming back there's no economy available - only business on the 25th.

By the way, South Africa is amazing! You should definitely go... Melbourne is no substitute

 

[twilsoncrow]

It is the only continent we havent been to yet! I love reading (yours included) the reports. Just playing around with the dates to maybe look at the July school holidays. Or just book it with Qantas with the current sale. $1500 return each in economy.

 

[twilsoncrow]

Mattg one more question then I will leave you alone (for now)...just realised the time so have missed the cutoff time to call virgin up to ask about SAA flights. Wherever you are looking is there anything coming back the week later say between 30th April and 4th of May?

 

[Mattg]

Mattg one more question then I will leave you alone (for now)...just realised the time so have missed the cutoff time to call virgin up to ask about SAA flights. Wherever you are looking is there anything coming back the week later say between 30th April and 4th of May?

Yes. SA have business rewards available on 1 and 3 May from JNB to PER.
Qantas appears to have 2x business seats from JNB to SYD on 1 May.

Nothing available in economy until 5 May - on which date there are 9 economy seats available with QF from JNB to SYD.

 

[twilsoncrow]

thanks I will have a think around the dates. This is much more fun than writing my literature review.

 

[support]

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