Discounted business class to Nairobi
 

I've posted this on the Africa board but thought I'd cross post on Airlines as well...

I'm exploring the flight options for our next trip which will hopefully take place sometime late this year. We redeemed Delta Skymiles for business class tickets last time but will not have enough miles for this time. I'm considering buying the rest of the miles we need but as of right now there are no award seats on KLM (which is the only Skyteam carrier that serves NBO) to return from NBO for any date in Oct/Nov/Dec. I will of course keep checking from time to time as I think this is still our best option if seats become available on KLM. Redemption on South African Airways would require an additional 50,000 miles each for the 2 of us which is too much.

I've been looking into the cost of purchasing discounted business class air from LAX to NBO. So far the best options that I've found for tickets which are NOT brokered mileage awards are:

1. $5093pp on KLM/Kenya Airways from LAX to NBO through www.travelbeyond.com, these are full mileage earning tickets.

2. $9584 for the 1st pax and $91 for the 2nd pax on Emirates from JFK to NBO through the Amex Platinum 2 for 1 program. There would be the additional cost of the domestic tickets from LAX to JFK and only the full fare pax earns miles.

Both options are still more than what we want to spend. Does anyone have other sources for discounted business class air to Africa that might be less but are not mileage awards?

If all else fails, we may go with BA World Traveller Plus for $2450pp and make a stopover in London to break up the flights. I've only flown Virgin's premium economy product. For anyone who has flown both PE and WT+, how does seat comfort compare?

Any suggestions or ideas appreciated. Thanks!

If you are in LAX your options are somewhjat limited. If you were flying ex East Coast there are options with Ethiopian Airlines from NYC flying via Addis Ababa ( JFK-ROMM-ADD connect to NBO ), it's Business Class might not be on par with the 'tops' but it actually has a very good overall reputation, recently we checked on some fares for someone flying Coach NYC-East Africa and their fares were in the S 1,5000 return price area.

Now, there has been talk of Kenya Airways doing a tie-up tith CO, the plan is that CO will launch JFK-Lagos non stop to direct connect with a KQ flight Lagos to Nairobi, they have had talks and this could be another option but you need to keep a close check on airline news to see if this is on it's way to being reality.

You're right, ET's fare ex-IAD to NBO is quite reasonable in business class at $2810pp. That looks like a full unrestricted fare too. Too bad it's so many stops after adding a LAX-IAD flight and a long 8+ hour layover in ADD on the way over. I'm assuming the stops in FCO are for refueling.

I couldn't find the JFK-ADD flights. Are these on their website?

I found some cabin pics on airliners.net and their 767 doesn't look half bad with PTV's even in economy. Would be interesting to read some comments. Have you flown ET? Do you know where I might find seat pitch, width, recline info?

Does ET participate in the FF program of any US airline? I'm wondering if I can put the miles anywhere useful.

I don't know what your other travel plans for the year might be, but at those levels you probably ought to look into round-the-world ticketing options through Sky Team, Oneworld, or Star Alliance.

Basically, the RTW tickets are priced according to where they're purchased and where travel begins. Not surprisingly, North America is not at the top of the list of least-expensive origin points, but there are some locations, mainly in SE Asia, Pacific Islands, or Eastern Europe where business-class or first-class RTW tickets cost about the same as you're being quoted for simple round-trip itineraries above.

The benefit of the RTW is that you get a lot more flexibility in your timing (they're all good for a year), they all earn full mileage in the partcicipating airline programs (lots of complexity here in coach RTWs, simpler with premium cabins); and of course you can (must) fly a lot more miles than a simple RT.

Basically there are two types of RTW tickets, mileage-based and continent-based. The most flexible (and IMO best value) tickets are sold through the Oneworld Alliance (American, British, Qantas, others). Called the "Oneworld Explorer" program, you're allowed up to a total of 20 flights (so many per continent plus intercontinental flights - 20 in all.) You buy 3-, 4-, 5-, or 6-continent tickets (N & S America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia/Pacific) with prices higher depending on number of continents. You must cross both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, only once each, and you must go in a general easterly or westerly direction. With a couple of minor exceptions, you can only enter and leave a continent once, but you can zigzag around within a given continent until you've used up the maximum flights allowed within that continent (6 for N America, 4 each for all the others.)

For example, to include Africa, you would need at least a 4-continent ticket, because while you can arrive in Africa from Europe, Asia, or Australia, you can't double back to any of those continents, and you still need to cross the Atlantic and Pacific as part of your trip, thus Europe - Africa - Asia and/or Australia - N and/or S America - Europe is needed, i.e. at least 4 continents.

That said, for around $5000 each in business class (if you buy the tickets in, say, Turkey - which you'd need to get to somehow) you could fly Istanbul- London- Nairobi- Jo'burg- Cape Town- Hong Kong- Singapore- Hong Kong- Tokyo- Hong-Kong- New York, then six flights within N. America (only one of them a nonstop transcontinental, but including California, Mexico, Alaska or the Caribbean - your choice) before returning to Europe, say London or Madrid or Helsinki, fly another couple of legs, the last one being back to Turkey (if that's where you started.)

Maybe more travel than you want to do, but even if the "long way around" is just flights with minimal stopovers (mostly in "flat bed" business class seats, so not a hardship) it still gives you a lot of miles, frequent flyer status for extra bennies, and numerous opportunities for side trips, exotic stopovers, and all that. Plus, if you play your cards right, you can earn so many miles that the next trip to Africa or South America or Australia is on the house. Up front.

Both Skyteam and Star Alliance have mileage-based products that allow so many miles, rather than counting continents. For travel to Africa you'd likely need something like 34-39,000 mile tickets, which are priced competitively with the Oneworld Explorer. One note is that SAA is joining Star sometime this year, so they would presumably participate in the Star RTW program once they do. In the meantime I believe Lufthansa provide the only deep Africa services on Star (connecting at JNB to Singapore Air, generally regarded as the best airline in the world. Getting from NBO to JNB might be awkward until SAA is in.)

Anyway, have a look at the Oneworld, Star Alliance, and Skyteam websites for more info, and look at the "Global Alliances" board on flyertalk.com, for pointers on these excellent programs.

Gardyloo,
Thanks for the informative post. I did briefly look into RTW fares but as you said, they are more expensive ex-US. The cheapest fares seem to be out of places like Sri Lanka (I went and downloaded the excel spreadsheet from flyertalk) and I'd still need to get myself to the starting point somehow. Not that I would mind visiting Sri Lanka and CMB-LAX in J is so cheap on SQ (only 84500 rupees!) but unfortunately not the other way around ;)

We have no other travel plans, other than domestic, for the rest of the year so I think a RTW wouldn't work to our advantage. Something to keep in mind though when time and finances allow in the future :)

I understand, but also have a look at the "Great Escapade" product sold by Singapore, Air New Zealand, and Virgin (look under "Promotions" on the SQ US website) that allows travel to S. Africa on SQ and VS; their business class fare ex-USA is around $5200. You'd need to fly on your own dime from JNB-NBO, or maybe use miles from some account, but it's an excellent price for a high-class RTW product if bought in the US.

OK thanks, I see that you also replied to my other post about the SQ product. For some reason, that thread doesn't appear when I click on my name and I'd forgotten to check that other board.

I browsed through the RTW products on the SQ US site. I initially thought the SQ+VS only product for $4850 would work but was told that offer excludes Africa when I called :(

I'd have to buy the slightly higher priced Escapade at approx. $5350 including tax. Still an excellent value for flying SQ Raffles and VS Upper Class around the world. I could do LAX-TPE-SIN-JNB-LHR-LAX with brief stopovers except for JNB and try to use DL miles for the JNB-NBO flights on SA, sooooo very tempting ;)

Are you going on your RTW soon? What's your itinerary like? Do RTW tickets typically have to be booked in the most restrictive fare classes? I was told the SQ seats are booked in D and VS in Z. I did a quick check and availability seemed OK.

Yes we're leaving in 3 weeks - to Istanbul where we're collecting Oneworld Explorer tix, then coming home and flying around the US a bit until later this year when we're going to Oz and Africa, then finishing in Europe (and maybe starting another, God and MasterCard willing.) ;)

Current itin (subject to change) is IST-LHR-YVR-JFK-DFW-ANC-DFW-SEA//
LAX-MEL-CNS-AYQ-SYD-JNB-VFA-JNB-CPT-LHR//
then home for a month or two (probably LHR-YVR-LHR), then LHR-TLV-LHR-IST. Our next one would be via Asia, N. America, and S. America, but that's the distant future.

Yes, you'll book into D inventory on SQ and NZ, Z on VS; I haven't heard of capacity problems, but your dates can be moved around easily so I don't think it's a concern. Note that VS doesn't have suites on all planes yet, and that NZ is upgrading their J product (ditching F altogether) this year, reportedly with VS-style suites in their new J cabins, which would make for NZ on LHR-LAX a dream of a trip, given their already high quality (IMO.) You only live once, Patty. Go fo it.

Meant to add for what it's worth - if you stick with SQ and NZ for all segments except JNB-LHR, I believe you can make Star Alliance Silver FF status (or better) on either the UA, SQ or NZ FF programs, which will get you seated automatically in Economy Plus seats on UA. Now that AA has undone MRTC, E+ is the last decent coach seat left on any US airline with much of a route structure. I gather you're DL/Skyteam types, but the E+ option would be a temptation for me to consider switching. (Oh hell, let's be straight - our next RTW could easily be an Escapade or a Star RTW just for that benefit.)

I decided to return from JRO instead of NBO to make the Skymiles redemption work. There were a few dates here and there to return from NBO that opened up but none were ideal. So we'll spend a few days in Tanzania after our stay in Kenya.

Here are the flights I was able to get -

Nov 15 DL956 LAX-CVG
Nov 15 DL482 CVG-JFK
NOV 15 DL80 JFK-AMS
Nov 16 KL565 AMS-NBO

Dec 4 KL567 JRO-AMS
Dec 5 AF1241 AMS-CDG
Dec 5 AF72 CDG-LAX

DL482 on Nov 15 is confirmed in coach and waitlisted for FC but hopefully will clear by the time we travel. In my experience domestic waitlists have a good chance of clearing.

We're also waitlisted for DL38 ATL-AMS on Nov 15 but I'm not sure how likely the waitlist would clear in intl BE. If it does, then we're looking at possibly only one stop in ATL versus 2 stops in CVG/JFK (we could also take Song LAX-JFK but it's all coach).

I was offered the option of taking DL1488/KL622 on Nov 14 with an overnight in AMS (even though we already have an open jaw) using the last in/first out exception, but decided against it. I didn't feel like packing an extra set of cold weather clothes and paying for a hotel night and related expenses for 24 hours in AMS.

I'm 37K miles short of the necessary 240K miles for 2 business awards, so will buy the points from Membership Rewards at $0.025 per point. I think it's worth it as I couldn't find any better business class options other than the ones already listed. There's a current 30% MR to DL transfer bonus so that at least makes me feel better about having to spend $925 on the points! :)

Well as I like to do often, I changed my mind already ;) I decided to take the DL/KL flights on Nov 14 after all. I started looking more closely at the connections on the Nov 15 flights and one was a little too close for me to feel comfortable with.

When I called back, the new agent was reluctant to change it as she thought that the additional stopover would not be allowed on my open jaw. I pressed, she put me on hold for a while, and came back and said yes it was OK. She then documented my reservation to say that it was approved, so I wouldn't run into problems when ticketing.

So now I'm off to research what to do for 24 hours at AMS :)