Pick your flights and confirm.
Russell
Any idea approximately how many SkyMiles it would take to go from Atlanta to Johamnesburg?
In '09 I was able to fly business class round trip Houston/J'burg on the accumulated miles. Plan to do the same thing in about 11 months. I don't see any downside to using and airline card. I pretty much use the card for anything over $10/20 and eventually the miles do add up.
The whole booking/redeeming thing is pretty simple for me -- I get my wife to do it.
Best of luck to you.
That got a chuckle out of me. Considering my age and physical condition, if I flew coach that far it'd be a week before I could walk. Booking well in advance gets you a much better deal.
You're exactly right about the business expenses. Until about a year and a half ago I was the co-owner of a small business. Everything I did I put on my miles card. I got the miles and it didn't cost the company a dime extra. I retired and sold my interest in the company, but still do some consulting type things for them. Still using the card.
One thing about the miles card -- book as far in advance as you can. It's just about this time of year that I can start looking for seats for next July.
Best of luck to you.
We just returned form our 3rd trip to SA in the last 7 years...All of our tickets were purchased with miles. We couldn't afford to go that often otherwise.
We used to have the AMEX DeltaSky Gold card for years, and I just upgraded this year to the DeltaSky Platinum card. For the extra $100 annual fee, it pays for itself with considering you get 2 free bags for each traveler on international flights, priority boarding, and a couple of other small perks.
Here's the bad news...Each time we have booked, the milage required has gone up considerably. This past year we made our reservations in January for an August flight and it was 175K miles for an economy class ticket, and another 175K miles more to upgrade to business elite. My wife also noticed that the miles required increases as the seats purchased with miles begin to fill up. I would suggest booking as early as posssible when using miles to purchase the ticket.
Back in 2009,it was 75K miles per ticket for ecomomy class. In 2011, we begged, borrowed, and stole miles from friends & family to upgrade to business elite and it was 175K per ticket then. This year, its 350K miles...If you paid cash, it was 10K and change back in January for business elite. So, using miles is definitely the way to go...
We splurged this trip and bought the ecomomy confort class for an extra $200 each. You get slightly more leg room and the seat reclines about 4 more inches. Book the exit row if available for even more leg room. You also get personal entertainment monitors and free drinks. The food still sucks though...Hope this helped...
I recently traveled to Namibia and it took me either 60,000 or 65,000 Delta Skymiles to fly round trip from Jackson, MS to Frankfurt, GE.
You can check the Delta website and check for required skymiles for trips. My travel agent handles all of my plane ticket matters. She has all of the needed info for get the tickets. I would personally rather rely on a professional travel agent rather than myself on international flight issues.
Hope this helps.
On the return flight home with origin in Windhoek I was allowed 2 free bags however my bow case was 38# (free) and my duffel bag was 55# ($130 penalty fee).
Based on the policy on the Skymiles website the reason it takes more miles now is because the fares are higher than they were just a few years ago.
Based on this you are looking at 160,000 to 220,000 miles to fly to JNB from the US depending on where you depart from.
I use AMEX for most purchases that I can, business and personal. When it is time to fly, I then look at most every airlines mileage program specials, even obscure ones like Alaska Airlines and foreign airlines. Most times I can find one of them that has a deal using miles for where I am going and do it on the cheap. I flew Business class to Kenya using Air Canada air program miles by transferring AMEX miles to them while they had their special. They used partners for the flight and I never was actually on an Air Canada flight. It was Virgin Atlantic and Air Kenya. (Air Kenya was a brand new 777 and was wonderful. It cost me 80k miles to do it - full business class lay down seats. It was awesome.
You can also find many times when the mileage program will have specials allowing you to transfer miles into their programs from AMEX and receive a premium like an extra 20-50% miles just for doing the transfer.
MY wife and I use this method often and rarely ever have to fly economy on overseas flights.
Thanks,
CJ
I know with the Alaska Airlines milage program (very popular program) you CAN use a combination of miles and money to pay for a ticket. I have don't that several times.
Peyton
Based on the graphic above....you can pay for a portion of your fares with miles.