South Africa on the Cheap(ish)

[froggerADL]

I thought I'd add a bit about my experience with the BA bookings. I booked the JNB-CPT flight first. I entered my QF number to ensure that I get the OneWorld Emerald benefits. During the booking process I was offered seat selection for R80 per seat which I declined. I then assumed that I’d have to ring BA to do the WP seat selection. I completed the booking and paid with my 28Degrees MasterCard.

I received the e-ticket within a couple of minutes. It included a link for free seat selection. Winning . The first two rows of Y were blocked but all other seats were available. I selected an aisle and a window seat in the first available row in Y. Here’s hoping our self-selected shadow sticks.

While I was in “Manage My Booking” I printed the itinerary. I noticed this:

An Invitation to the SLOW Lounge



This surprised me as I had checked the OneWorld lounge finder and that only shows lounges in the international terminal so I assumed no lounges for domestic flights in South Africa. Excellent, I get lounge access included with my $70 flight!

I went through the same process for the JNB-DUR-JNB flights and booked the flights. I selected the same seats as the CPT flight and printed the itinerary. The SLOW Lounge invitation was there for the JNB departure but not for DUR. I assumed that there is no SLOW Lounge at DUR but thanks to Cool Cat Phil’s post above, I now know that there is. Sweet.

I nearly forgot the points and SC earn. Crediting this to Qantas will earn 275 points and 15 SC for JNB-CPT and 100 points and 10 SC each way for JNB-DUR. That will be a total earn for all flights on this trip of 475 QFF points and 35 SC each. That’s not the worst SC earn at ~$5 per SC.

The price I got lasted only one day, so I’m glad I jumped in quick. I am very happy with the deal I got. It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for google flight alerts, so I highly recommend using them in this type of situation.

 

[froggerADL]

I much prefer comair to SAA and their lounges leave SAA for dead. Seriously the best domestic lounge I have been in (but I am more food focused than alcohol).

I'm quite looking forward to our three domestic lounge visits now .

 

[froggerADL]

Enjoying this and you haven't even left yet. Such a lot of useful information.

I'm glad you're enjoying it and finding it useful.

 

[froggerADL]

That’s everything booked now. Almost ready to go.

Itinerary:

ADL-SYD QF J
One night Rydges Sydney Airport
Three hours in the SYD QF F Lounge
SYD-JNB QF63 J B747-400
One night Intercontinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport
JNB-DUR BA/Comair Y
Drive 300+ kms
Three nights at Rhino River Lodge
Drive 300+ kms
DUR-JNB BA/Comair Y
One night Intercontinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport
Epic Enabled 8 Day Kruger tour
JNB-CPT BA/Comair Y
Epic Enabled 4 Day Cape Town tour
One night DoubleTree Cape Town
CPT-JNB-SIN SQ479 J A350-900
17 hour daytime layover at SIN
SIN-ADL SQ279 J A330-300

20 Nights Total – Last 2 on a plane. 16 full days in South Africa

 

[froggerADL]

Total Cost & Value

192,000 QFF Points (+ $744)
123,250 KrisFlyer Points (+ $957)
60,000 IHG Rewards Points
$10,500 of cold hard cash (includes award flight taxes, insurance, accommodation and tour, rental car and flights).

The cash fare in J on SQ for ADL-SIN-JNB stop CPT-JNB-SIN-ADL is $5322 each. This is around $300 more than the cheapest option which is on Virgin & South African (no thanks).

If I purchased the flights as booked, the cost today is $7885 each, which is QF $5574 (yeah, right!) and SQ $2563. I won’t use this figure in my calculations as no one in their right mind would purchase this fare, however, if I wasn’t paying for it and I could use any airline I like, these are the flights I would choose.

I said at the start of this TR that I wanted to maximise the value of my points. Let’s see how that worked out.

First we need to work out the opportunity cost of using these points. I can basically cash-out the points by redeeming them for grocery gift cards. I came up with the following values:

166,000 VFF Points = $922 of Coles gift cards
192,000 QFF Points = $1095 of Wish Gift cards
I also had to pay $744 to QF and $957 to SQ for fuel fines etc.

As a result of the unusual way my brain works, I reckon the real cost of these flights to me is $3718 for two pax.

If I was paying cash for these flights I would fly QF in Y to JNB return. I can get that today for $1372 each, so $2744 for two.

This means that the real additional cost for two people to fly to South Africa and back in J instead of Y is $974 (and I don’t have to buy a CPT-JNB flight).

I also got around $900 value from 60,000 IHG points.

Do I think this is getting good value for my points? Bloody oath I do!

 

[froggerADL]

Using a more traditional way of valuing points results in this:
The cash price for similar J flights on SQ is $5322 each so $10,644 for both of us.
Fuel fines etc. = $1701.
That gives me a value for all of the QFF and VFF points of $8943.
I used 358,000 points to save $8943 off a fare I would never purchase. That gives a value of 2.5 cents per point.
If I paid for SQ J flights I’d earn a bunch of KrisFlyer points so that reduces the value of using the points a bit though.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Some food at the Capetown SLOW lounge and some of the vendors at the Waterfront Food Market - my favourite was the Samosas stall.

 

[Guvner]

That’s everything booked now. Almost ready to go.

Itinerary:

ADL-SYD QF J
One night Rydges Sydney Airport
Three hours in the SYD QF F Lounge
SYD-JNB QF63 J B747-400
One night Intercontinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport
JNB-DUR BA/Comair Y
Drive 300+ kms
Three nights at Rhino River Lodge
Drive 300+ kms
DUR-JNB BA/Comair Y
One night Intercontinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport
Epic Enabled 8 Day Kruger tour
JNB-CPT BA/Comair Y
Epic Enabled 4 Day Cape Town tour
One night DoubleTree Cape Town
CPT-JNB-SIN SQ479 J A350-900
17 hour daytime layover at SIN
SIN-ADL SQ279 J A330-300

20 Nights Total – Last 2 on a plane. 16 full days in South Africa

Did you consider driving from Rhino River to Kruger or JNB?

and +1 for the SLOW lounges, they are excellent.

 

[love_the_life]

Did you consider driving from Rhino River to Kruger or JNB?

and +1 for the SLOW lounges, they are excellent.

I think the Epic Enabled tour picks them up in JNB.

 

[froggerADL]

Did you consider driving from Rhino River to Kruger or JNB?

and +1 for the SLOW lounges, they are excellent.

I did consider driving from Rhino River Lodge to JNB but a one way car rental adds quite a bit to the cost and is also over 500 kms so I decided not to do it.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Looking forward to another great report.

Obviously you can hire a GPS with the vehicle. Alternatively, if you (or any one else) has a Garmin or Kenwood GPS with a SD or micro SD slot, you can pick up the map for Southern Africa for $A29.95 from these guys: AusNavTech

They call it South Africa because it has detailed coverage of South Africa; but it also includes Namibia, Botswana, etc., etc. but in a less detailed format. Similar product from Garmin is around $150.

We have purchased maps from them before; our Garmin was purchased from Europe so we added Aus & NZ when we returned home for around $20. It was a bit tricky to install but they give full support and now it works just fine.

We recently purchased and installed the Southern African map for our upcoming trip in Feb/Mar so I will be able to confirm its value while driving around South Africa and Namibia.

They also have GPS maps for some other parts of the world at good prices.

 

[froggerADL]

Thanks for that Jacques Vert. DUR to Rhino River Lodge is basically a straight road with a left hand turn after 300 kms or so.

I'm planning to use Google Maps with my roaming Telstra service to get out of Durban. Can anyone confirm that this will work?

 

[Jacques Vert]

I'm planning to use Google Maps with my roaming Telstra service to get out of Durban. Can anyone confirm that this will work?

Not sure about Telstra roaming.

However, I have used google maps in S Africa: saved the maps to my phone at the hotel using their internet, then used the map as we drove. Worked perfectly......until the phone's battery went flat.

 

[SYD]

I'm planning to use Google Maps with my roaming Telstra service to get out of Durban. Can anyone confirm that this will work?

In theory, "yes". But watch what network your phone connects to. Just back from SA myself (trip report in the making - but I need to extract digit....). Anyway, My work phone (Telstra) has a global roaming package but keep connecting to MNT. Hopelessly slow data everywhere. Partners work phone (also Telstra) would connect to Vodacon - but no global package to use. My Woolies prepaid connected to Vodacon and worked fine on 3G.

i had three cars with Avis (pretty cheap with Corp rates). Decided to rent the GPS with each in the end. They use Garmin units - not great but functional. Invaluable getting through towns with poor or no sign posting.

 

[drron]

4 years ago we drove JNB-Cathedral Peak in the Drakensburgs then to the coast via Rorkes drift to Tugela heads and then to DUR.Never had a problem.Before a day's driving I would print out a google map of the drive.Had no problems even when having to use a variety of minor roads to accommodation as they are all numbered.The drive from the Boer battlefields to the coast was very scenic.
If you like Belgian beer and moules et frites then Den Anker at the V&A waterfront is the place.

 

[Milboo]

We ate at Den Anker (when we were supposed to be at Test Kitchen but our host told us that was the following night when it wasn't...) and were underwhelmed with the food and the service.

 

[JohnM]

I have a TomTom which came with global maps and unlimited free updates (just had to add a SIM to accommodate them all) so I have my own GPS wherever I go. Get into rental car, choose country, enter destination, get signal, go. Too easy!

 

[Flying mermaid]

Thanks for that Jacques Vert. DUR to Rhino River Lodge is basically a straight road with a left hand turn after 300 kms or so.

I'm planning to use Google Maps with my roaming Telstra service to get out of Durban. Can anyone confirm that this will work?

the airport is actually about 20 minutes north of Durban, so all you need to do is get onto highway 2 and go north - no built up area to navigate through.

 

[JohnK]

I then went to QBE for that laugh and they didn’t disappoint. Not easy to add pre-existing medical conditions to the policy and the quote was $800. I’ll pass.

I guess you haven't tried QBE via EasyTravelInsurance which I believe is Entertainment book.

Current special of up to 30% off. My annual policy up for renewal 29 January and quoted ~$240 with $200 excess and ~$320 with $0 excess.

I haven't claimed with them but assuming won't be that different to claiming with TID?

 

[HeavyElectricity]

I'm planning to use Google Maps with my roaming Telstra service to get out of Durban. Can anyone confirm that this will work?

HERE maps is pretty good when travelling - you can download the whole countries for offline navigation (free). Available for Android and iOS.