Jef, what airline did you fly?

We flew Virgin to J'burg, 1time to Cape Town, Air Namibia to Windhoek, then 5 small planes around Namibia and Botswana, then back to US.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35086423 ((*))

so, it sounds like you are saying that if our luggage is shrink wrapped, we should be OK? We will be traveling over our winter holidays, so will have the warm clothes that we were wearing when we got on the plane. I would really like to stash them somewhere, along with some clean ones for the trip back. Are the shrink wrap area, and the luggage storage areas easy to find?

Momliz,

In case you have difficulty finding the shrinkwrap machines a trick that I have seen my visitors do is not shrinkwrap their cases but simply buy 2 rolls of Saran wrap and wrap their cases themselves. Works like a dream

Hope this helps.

Very proudly part of the wonderful ((r))nation of South Africa

Thanks, Selwyn! good idea, I'll make sure we have a roll or 2.

The tour company we traveled with the last two weeks (of September 2008) appears to have the luggage theft problem narrowed down to SA Airlines at JNB, by using cable ties.

Three weeks ago the tour had 17 out of 34 pieces of luggage with cable ties broken into.

On our tour, which went through JNB several times, 2 out of 25 pieces were broken into on one of the flights. One had a cell phone stolen and in the other they appeared to be looking for jewelry as every pouch/small bag was emptied into the main space of the suitcase (not good when you can't carry liquids).

There was absolutely no problem when flying with BA through JNB.

We were instructed each time we went through JNB to take a set of clothing in our carry-on bags and to put two sets of clothing in our partner's suitcase.

There is a product now available called the luggage glove, much like a cellphone cover but with a lock on it - www.luggageglove.com
To my knowledge it is not availabe at the airports yet but there are luggage shops in Johannesburg and Cape Town and I am sure elsewhere that are selling this product as they do export.
It is brilliant and I have worked it out that on the medium size I bought it will take 4 return flights to recoop the costs based on what shrink wrap costs at the airports (that is without taking into account them putting their prices up).
The luggage glove doesn't come with that big logo on the front (that you see when you go onto their website) unless you buy one that has a company logo on it.