Btw, I was able to get CC Africa to drop the ZAR 931 Meet and Greet fee. All the lodges will have my documentation; and they will arrange to have a Fed Air representative meet me at the airport with my tickets and escort me over.

Congratulations lifelist for getting this all pulled together so quickly. One really great thing about not planning too far in advance is that you don't have long to wait. Have a fantastic trip.

Good thing you got this wrapped up quickly before the dollar plunged further.

lifelist,

Thanks for posting the final itinerary and pricing. This sounds like a great trip at the last minute, and/or as a solo. How did you end up with the transfer situation? All air transfers or some land transfers? Which flights might incur the single supplement? Did you talk CCAfrica into only paying the flight price for one person up front, and then have to pay extra when you get there if you are the only passenger? I believe you are beginning and ending in Capetown, so which camp first, Phinda or Exeter?

I'm only asking the detailed questions, because I might want to try something like this myself next year.

Thanks!

I ended up with going with the Fed Air flights.

The JNB-Exeter flight is ZAR 2070 and doesn't charge a single supplement. I figure this flight happens often enough that they don't have to worry about an empty plane.

The Exeter-Phinda (ZAR 8100) and Phinda-JNB (ZAR 3650) flights do require a minimum booking of two seats. They required me to buy the two seats up front. At 48 hours before the flight, they'll confirm if there's another passenger. If there is, I won't have to pay for two seats. CC Africa will refund the supplement afterwards. (Hopefully)

The Exeter-Phinda flight is clearly the one with the most risk. It's an extra $500 if I have to fly it alone. However, the land transfers take a long time. I would have had to do an overnight in JNB or Durban, or miss two game drives - I found neither option that attractive. So, I decided to roll the dice on having company on the flight.

The I priced the land transfer plus flight options for the Phinda-JNB transfer, and it was surprisingly expensive. The airfare plus taxes and fees for the Durban-JNB or Richards Bay-JNB made the transfer more expensive than if I had counted on.

Also, it should be noted that you can't escape the single supplement. Each of the land transfers require me to purchase two seats again.

If the Phinda-JNB transfer had cost half as much or less than the two seats on the airplane, I would have gone for it, but it didn't work out. So, again, I'm taking a risk.

The special on Delta requires me to fly through Cape Town, so yeah, that's where my itinerary starts. The CC Africa agent had some trouble getting me into the camps I wanted, but we ended up doing Exeter first followed by Phinda.

I wanted Exeter Dulini, but it was booked, so I ended up in Exeter Forest. I wanted Dulini so that I would be assured of only 6 per vehicle. I also wanted Phinda Rock lodge, but again, it wasn't available, so she booked me into Phinda Mountain lodge. The agent says that it's max 6 people per vehicle at all lodges in Phinda, so that's fine with me. It ended up being cheaper, too.

I have clearly been thinking about this too much.

Looks like I lost my bet.

I'm 45 days out, and nobody else has booked the Exeter-Phinda flight nor the Phinda-JNB flight. Furthermore, both Exeter and Phinda are fully booked before and after my transfer date, so the likelihood of passengers getting added to that flight is very small. That'll cost me an extra $500. Damn.

I'll likely go for the land transfer from Phinda to Richards Bay, and then SAA from RCB to JNB. That transfer is only ZAR2000 (1444 land transfer plus 650 flight). The flight with single supplement is something like ZAR3800. It adds 2-3 hours to the travel time, but I save a couple of hundred dollars.

Thanks for your update. These things do get complicated don't they.

regards - tom

Just got back, and it was a great trip. Exeter River Lodge was fantastic, and the game viewing was excellent. I managed to miss all the rain and flooding in Cape Town, and only had great weather.

I'll try to do a trip report this week, but don't hold your breath. Any specific questions, I'll be happy to answer in the short term.