allycb

I am looking to book my flights for my holiday to South Africa next year and have a couple of questions that I hope someone can help me with:
1/ I will be flying Barcelona - London - Cape Town. However, I would like to spend a couple of nights in London on the way there and the way back. If I use a search engine, the fact that I break up the journey makes it incredibly expensive - much more than if it was done in one go. Is this normal or can it be avoided?
2/ On arrival in Cape Town, we will fly immediately to Port Elizabeth. Is it worth trying to get this incorporated in the whole ticket, or will it work out cheaper using a low cost airline such as Kulula?
Any advice will be gratefully received!

napamatt

You might want a subscription to expertflyer.com for a month ($10). Or check out the advice on flyertalk.com.

lifelist

The problem may be that you have a stopover on the way there and back. I think most airlines give you one stopover for free, but not two. Could be wrong about this, and I'm sure I'll be corrected.

Alternatively, you could do two round trip tickets. Do a roundtrip ticket between Barcelona and London, and a roundtrip ticket between London and Capetown. If you have a couple of days in between both ends, then you don't have to worry about missed connections.

Gardyloo

Just as a note, Iberia has service from Barcelona to Johannesburg (change of planes in Madrid, but one ticket.) Iberia also code-shares a Comair (British Airways So African carrier) flight from Joburg to Port Elizabeth, so that could still be on the same ticket.

Alter

Gardyloo

..arrgh...

Alternatively you could buy two separate tickets as mentioned, although you'll need to be careful to give yourself plenty of time in London if you intend to connect on the same day.

allycb

Thanks for the suggestions which I will check out...
Gardyloo - thanks for the tip on Iberia, but believe it or not, it is often preferable to change planes in any European capital rather than in Madrid even if it means "going the wrong way"!!

amolkarnik

Why dont you consider buying a ticket to africa starting and ending in London and a seperate one for BCn-LON-BCN?

MarthaR

allycb,
My husband and I booked our Seattle-London-Johannesburg-Richards Bay flight through Expedia using their multiple destinations option. We are staying in London 2 nights before going on the Johannesburg for one night then to RB. We found that option to be cheaper than the 2 round trip tickets (Sea-Lon and Lon-JNB). And Expedia made sure we had plenty of time between flights when we needed to connect.
Hope this helps,
Martha

LAleslie

We are flying from LAX to Joburg via Madrid in late Oct. using American FF miles. It is true using FF miles that you can only have one stopover per RT flight (not sure about paid tix). But FYI we just learned after booking our seats nearly a year in advance that Iberia cancelled our Nov. 2 Madrid-Joberg flight 5 days ago, so I'm a bit teed-off. Not sure if this is unusual for them, or any airline these days. They hope to get us on a flight a day earlier, but we won't know for a couple more days. In general it's better to pass through Joburg for connections within SA, but it depends on the season.
Leslie

Gardyloo

<i>Gardyloo - thanks for the tip on Iberia, but believe it or not, it is often preferable to change planes in any European capital rather than in Madrid even if it means &quot;going the wrong way&quot;!!</i>

I changed planes four times at MAD last month and they were invariably smooth and efficient. I intentionally avoided LHR as I wanted to have clothing and personal effects at my destinations (Stockholm, Tel Aviv and Joburg.)

Momliz

I have heard nothing good about transfers at LHR. Is it really to be avoided?

allycb

I guess our personal opinion on airlines is as good as our last trip with them!
I have personally never had any problems at LHR, and generally try to avoid connections via Madrid, not because of lost baggage or whatever, but because the connecting flight to Barcelona always means a really long wait-over.
Anyway, thanks to you all for your suggestions!