African Safari: Airfare

Here's the plan. 2 travelers, 12 days, 7 days of PTO, and a $5K budget. Once I had my mind set on South Africa I realized nearly half my budget was going towards airfare. Piggybacking off a federal holiday (President's Day) it was easy to outline the international flights which would serve as the backbone for our trip.

There are several carriers with routes to South Africa, and the majority fly into Johannesburg through either Atlanta or Washington DC. We settled on Delta. It had the most convenient schedules with one of the lowest costs. South African Airlines was the runner up, but I wanted to keep both my segments (ORD->ATL->JNB) on the same carrier in case we had any delays/interruptions. Its always easier to fix and negotiate changes when these trips are booked on a single carrier.

Unfortunately, I don't usually fly Delta so the 18,000 miles I'll accumulate this trip are headed towards a virgin Delta Sky Miles account which I just created. I'll have to prioritize Delta next year so I can round out a free award flight, after all I'm only 6k miles away now.

Had another encounter with the ominous Secure Flight program. Lucky me, my boyfriend has an abbreviated name, Alex, and being overwhelmed fact checking the dates/times/destinations, I almost forgot to use the proper 'Alexander' for his ticket.

For all you Alex's, Dave's, and Susie's out there, make sure you use your formal names (as printed on your passport or gov't ID) when booking flights in 2010. Check here for the rules.

In the end my round trip trip from Chicago to Jo'burg was just over $1,000 per person. This seemed pretty reasonable for a vacation in February (Africa's high season), with 4 months advance booking.

With the bookends to our trip confirmed, the fun stuff begins.

Delta here we come; Photo (c) Coleman Center