Issues booking South African Airways reward ticket?

[Thomas088]

Following the announcement of South African Airways restarting their Perth-Johannesburg service, I've tried multiple times to redeem Velocity points on this service through the contact centre to no success.

Each time I've called, the agents can initially see the seats but after trying to select/hold them they mention that they are no longer available and their "live system" now doesn't have any availability, and have advised trying again at a later date. I've tried both economy and business over multiple dates in November & December. In each case, the SAA seats are showing on United and Singapore Air's "Star Alliance" searches.

Has anyone successfully redeemed seats since the announcement last week or have any suggestions?

 

[Thomas088]

As a follow-up to this, I was finally successful in my sixth call - not sure why the other attempts fell over, but to anyone else who experiences this the best thing to do is HUACA

 

[AIRwin]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[joshw24]

Can you tell me how many points you needed for each?

 

[Thomas088]

Can you tell me how many points you needed for each?

78k + $86 in taxes for business one-way (economy is 42k)

 

[jase05]

78k + $86 in taxes for business one-way (economy is 42k)

That’s pretty good value IMO.
Thanks for sharing

 

[zan5hin]

I was able to book through the call centre, GRU-CPT for only 29,000 miles + $17 in economy.

There was no biz option on the date I needed.

Using miles for economy usually don't provide good value, but the price for the cash fare is $1,272 so I did quite well.... and of course my options are limited to jump between two developing continents.

Actually I just clicked through Google Flights and it's now $1,598!

 

[Mattg]

I was able to book through the call centre, GRU-CPT for only 29,000 miles + $17 in economy.

That is a really good deal!

 

[zan5hin]

The flight was absolutely empty, GRU-CPT in August 2024. I showed up at check-in and was the only passenger. Luckily I had my yellow fever vaccination proof or they would not have let me board.

I had nearly paid for an extra legroom seat, but due to velocity and the booking not being direct, it wouldn't let me purchase this extra and checkout. But when I went to online checking 48 hours before the flight, the seat I wanted was now still the same, so it put me there.

As I said, check-in was quiet so I asked how full the flight was, and the nice lady put me on an entire row of 4 seats, which I used to sleep (as well as you can on top of seatbelts) on the redeye.

I have gone through the permutation of how to get to Brazil, and the best way seems to be SYD-JNB using Qantas points or PER-JNB on South African using Velocity. I'm considering doing this next year, MEL-xSYD/xPER-JNB-CPT-GRU and then avoiding going via Dubai, Europe, USA or Chile (due to Chile visa hassles). You don't have to go via CPT but I made a new friend

 

[Ansett Nostalgic]

When will VA make SA flights bookable online?

 

[Mattg]

When will VA make SA flights bookable online?

I wouldn't hold my breath...