Well the joys of sharing information on LCT are in my mind today. THANK YOU EVERYONE. We had FF tickets on BA to Africa in July for Giraffe a combination of first and business - longest legs in business. We also had a free companion ticket so only used miles for one person the other was free - paid the taxes only and knew what to expect. So we were pretty happy with our FF tickets.

Using BA miles going through London is a killer with taxes. We have managed to use BA with out going through London (not easy but we have done it) then the taxes drop significantly.

However this thread caused me to wish we were on Qatar instead. Good schedule going to DFW - JNB. A night in the Doha airport hotel on the way down and a night in the Doha airport hotel on the way home. The hotel is IN the gate area of the airport so very convenient. It takes longer to get home hours wise but much easier on the body and the planes are GREAT.

Right now Qatar has a sale so we checked and it worked..

Two business class tickets
BA 350,000 + miles (using a companion ticket or it would have been 700,000 miles) and about $3500 in taxes
Qatar $7000 and all our miles back and a $60 charge for the change.

Yes $3500 more - (I prefer to look it as $1750 each) but worth it.

I wanted to spend ONE day in CPT at the end but on BA that was not available and now I am getting my one day in Cape Town. All about Food, Friends and Shopping. My favorite places to eat - Oceans Basket, Willoughby's and Baia, one more dinner with the Turners, and I am going to buy a wire leopard for my new office from the ONE and ONLY hotel in CPT.

Interesting Facts:

We are flying on a Saturday, if we flew home one day earlier or one day later the fare jumped to $19,000.

We are flying CPT to JNB to DFW. If booked JNB to DFW on the exact same flights the fare doubled. So the extra flight CPT to JNB is savings us THOUSANDS and we are in CPT anyway when we head home.

NUTS!

As I have always said "you have to be a brain surgeon to figure out the airlines"

Took us a long time to figure it all out last night but we were very happy we spend the time.