SA to USA and back

[CarlosV8]

Hi all

I'm trying to plan a trip for the summer to visit some friends. Only problem is I'm in the south of England, one friend is in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and the other is in Houston, Texas.

My trip would be something like London to Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg to Houston to London (possibly flying back from Orlando) over the course of 3 weeks. Having never planned a trip like this before I've started to get some quotes, but as there seems to be a few knowledgeable chaps on here, does anyone have any advice for companies to use for the tickets? The cheaper the better

Cheers
Carl

[Puggit]

I posted a long response here this morning - what happened to it?

Anyway - JNB and Houston are both Star Alliance hubs, so that's your best bet for simplicity.

For cheapest fares, stay over on Saturday nights - and break the LHR-JNB and LHR-Houston legs in to 2 sections (ie via Cairo/Dubai or East Coast US).

JNB-Houston might be possible via Washington/Sao Paulo/Buenos Aires, but I suspect 2 returns via LHR will come out trumps

[CarlosV8]

Thanks Puggit, very useful information and I will check out Star Alliance. I did see your reply earlier, but not sure where it went!!?

Just been getting some internet quotes for now as nothing is confirmed yet, but cheapest is around £2700 and will mean doing JNB-LHR-Houston as the middle leg. Should be doable at that price if we're careful with money until the summer, so fingers crossed I can pull it off!!

[Puggit]

Make sure you get yourself a frequent flyer card - for instance if you get a bmi card then you'll almost make silver on just the return flight to SA.