Sydney - Johannesburg in Nov in J

[ferrariz]

Hi all,

Am looking to go to Johannesburg in early Nov (5th) and back in 4 weeks with my wife.
Looking for a J return- either straightup or upgrade.

Here's the catch. I have about 175,000 AmexMR points with a Plat charge card n am looking to see if I can use these somehow? I can always pay and buy some more points if its cheaper than buying tix outright..

also have about 80k velocity points but I doubt they'll help any.

PS,willing to settle for premium economy if it gets too bloody expensive (if i cant use any points)

Any ideas?

 

[quokka77]

Here's my N00b 10 cents worth. You don't have to send me $30!

QFF have 2J awards (one way) SYD-JNB non-stop flight 5 Nov for 168000 QFF points. So that takes care of all your Amex points but would be direct assuming you're SYD. Or you could buy a return JNB J ticket for cash in the current sale and award ticket the other through QFF

If you do opt for 2 QFF one-way tickets over, Lifemiles can get you home again home again jiggity jig for 155000 lifemiles points: once you do the cash plus points option that's going to be about $4000 I'm guessing (complete guess, check their website, you can do it without joining, the engine is a bit buggy but persevere) would have been cheaper if you bought their points last month. Limited availability for 2 in J on that route (eg closest to your 4 week return date I saw was 26/11/13). That was searching JNB PER tho so other city pairs may differ.

Not sure about USDM. Did you join prior to their current sale?

Google the Singapore Krisflyer redemption chart.

Assuming you're east coast, they are a bit cheaper than QF at 125000 points 2xJ oneway (booked through the call centre, -15% if you book online) but not direct flights.

Or if you're feeling cheap, I would look at getting those $400-$500 QF Y expedia.br return flights to Singapore everyone's banging on about, then do 2 return J redemptions Singapore to JNB if you can get them via KrisFlyer's site. This would appear to fall within your Amex points limit.

Or you could check Thai or Malaysian and see what they offer. They might be cheaper again. Phew.

 

[casanovawa]

USDM isn't like Lifemiles, you don't have to be signed up before an offer comes out, you can sign up, and maybe you have to wait 12 days before you can buy miles, so they are certainly an option, unfortunately they charge the full price for one ways as what they do for returns, so if you were to use that option you might as well buy the necessary miles and save your MR...

But you've certainly give ferrariz a bit of food for thought with that post... You could even do the QF one way awards you've found there and buy some AA miles and us them to get back one way on QF or CX or maybe MH when the next bonus promo comes up...

 

[support]

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