SAA award ticket add-ons
 

It might be my imagination, but I recall reading here that if you have a frequent flier ticket on South African Airways, you can add-on a flight within South Africa to the award ticket. I now have an award ticket from Chicago to Jo'burg. I just wanted to cover all bases before I go ahead and purchase a flight from Vic Falls to Jo'burg on SAA that connects with my flight back to the US. Anyone know about this?
Thanks.

I think you need to ticket with your award ticket, so the route would be Chicago, Vic Falls. There are others on the board more up to spedd, Check Flyertalk.com as a great source of info.

Also Vic Falls is an international destination from SA and so you may not be able to do this.

It can be done, butI also think you need to book everything at the same time.
Last year I flew with an awards ticket on SAA: NY/JNB/CPT and returning Vic Falls/JNB/NY.
I booked everything at the same time, all on one ticket with no problem. Call SAA and ask. Good Luck.

Thanks. Unfortunately, I booked my Award Ticket a few weeks before deciding on my itinerary within Africa. If I knew I'd be flying from Vic Falls to JNB before returning to the US, I'd have tried to get that included. Oh well, now I know for next time.

What airlines miles are you using? Why don't you call and see if you can add on the JNB-Vic Falls segments? Even if there is a reissue fee, it might be less than paying for the flight.

Hi Patty,
I'm using United FF Miles to fly on SAA.
I didn't plan things optimally. Now, if I book an additional flight from Vic Falls to connect in Jo'burg, I've got to worry about missing my connection since it's a separate ticket booking. I've found that trip insurance doesn't cover missed connections unless the flight is delayed more than five hours.

combo - Using United miles, you can change the itinerary for $100 fee. (There is no fee for changing dates before travel if you don't change routing, but adding the stop would incur the change fee). If there is availability to rebook an itinerary adding VFI, it might save you money overall vs separate ticket LVI - JNB and it would keep everything in the same ticket.

based upon what you said, I think the routing would be ORD-JNB. Return LVI-JNB-ORD. If you do this, you won't be able to stop in JNB on the return because you're doing an open jaw