Difficulty Finding Open-jaw Flights via London
 

Something has happened with Egypt Air! We are going to S. Africa in September and wanted to add on a few days in Egypt before. Several months ago Egypt Air had a nifty open-jaw, under $800 for London-Cairo-Jburg-London, all non-stops. Now, that routing has gotten horribly expensive and the Jburg-London leg stops in Cairo.

Searching on Kayak, etc. brings up these rather expensive routings that want to turn the Cairo-Jburg leg into a 22 hour schlep with a long layover somewhere. We may have to forget about adding Egypt to this trip, we don't have the time for these long journeys.

Any brilliant ideas? We live in Los Angeles, and an overnight flight to London fits pretty well. I have looked at open jaws starting in New York, but the various legs are SO long and have stops.

Just for fun, I ran a route on Vayama, using Sept. 12th London-Cairo, Sept. 19th Cairo-J'burg, Sept. 26th J'burg to London, and got British Airways for $826.

http://tinyurl.com/ctvymk

You are looking for a <b>stopover</b>, not an open-jaw. (An open-jaw is where you fly to one city, then return from another -- for example, fly from LAX to Paris then return to LAX from Amsterdam.)

Anyway, Egypt Air is now part of Star Alliance, and no one in Star Alliance flies n/s from JNB to LHR. That might be the problem.

I don't know what your total price was, but you can get a round-the-world ticket starting in LA for $2604 (plus taxes) that would let you fly n/s LAX-LHR, LHR-CAI, CAI-JNB. Then, you'd get back to LA stopping in Singapore and Tokyo. (You could stop over in those cities, or you can just make a connection.)

Actually, South African Airways is now a Star Alliance member and they fly nonstop from Jo'burg to London. I don't know that this info helps gigib, though, on their quest for a Cairo stopover.

Thanks, everyone. sf7307, maybe our dates make the price worse -- we have to be in Jburg the morning of Sept. 3, and leave on Sept. 12. On Vayama I put in leaving London on Aug. 29 and flying to Cairo that day, and the price came up $2254! All nonstops, which is nice, but way too much $$.

Flying home via Asia seems like it would take an awfully long time, but I'll check it out...