There is a little-known arbitrage you can use to save £50 of tax when booking British Airways Avios redemption flights to Cape Town.
Whilst Cape Town does have a direct BA service, it is often tricky to find Avios reward seats. Most people end up travelling via Johannesburg and changing to a Comair connection. Comair is a BA franchise and its planes have the usual British Airways livery.
This is how it works:
If you book London to Cape Town via a connection in Jo’burg, the cost (economy return) is 45,500 Avios off-peak plus £433 tax
However ….
If you book London to Jo’burg on one ticket and Jo’burg to Cape Town on a separate ticket, the individual costs are 32,500 plus £328 for the long-haul, off-peak, and 13,000 Avios plus £56 for the connection.
That is a saving of £49!
There is a small trade off, of course. As you will be on separate tickets, Comair and BA are not technically liable to look after you if you miss one flight because the other is delayed. In reality, I would not be at all worried about this as Comair and BA effectively operate as one airline and will ensure you are OK. It is also likely that you would get your baggage checked through at Heathrow and at Cape Town.
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About Head for Points
Don’t forget – you have to claim your bag at JNB even if it’s tagged through to CPT and clear customs at JNB.
You might have to claim your bag at JNB but best not to assume you’ll also claim all the items that were hitherto therein…
Currently in South Africa using a 241 and Avios for LBA/LHR/JNB then a paid Comair flight to Cape Town.
Just to clarify you have to collect checked bags on arrival at JNB then recheck them for the domestic flight.
Having spent some time in Camps Bay and the Winelands we set off on the Garden Route today flying back PLZ/JNB/LHR/LBA.
A word of advice for anyone collecting a car from Avis on Strand Street in Cape Town – allocate one and a half hours.
Cheers from sunny Stellenbosch.
You must have been unlucky! We were a lot quicker than that. I love SA, and been twice courtesy of Amex 241. Gofor a wine tour……but I’m sure you’ll have that ticked off!
You definitely have to reclaim bags at JNB. They appear to be getting the ‘light fingers’ problem under control at that airport but there are now ridiculous regulations in place regarding the weight (circa 7kg) of hand luggage on domestic flights, which have been intiroduced by the SA authorities. You are only likely to be asked about the weight of your hand luggage at check-in if it looks overly large but they can ask you to remove items because the airline could be fined. They never query the weight at the Comair gate however so perhaps a little stealth is called for. Also the SLOW lounge in the domestic terminal at JNB has an impressive food spread and is worth a visit before your flight.
This money saving techinque applies to HKG-LHR-DOMESTIC as well. Of booked together you pay £70 and 19500 Avios off peak but if booked seperately it will cost 19500+4000 Avios and £10.60 + £17.50 Tax.
To interline baggage just tell the agent the onward flight number.
Good call. Using avios at 1.17ppa is decent value
Yeah. That’s why I hate the “free domestic connection with Avios on longhaul” stuff.
It’s not!
As my flight was last minute ajd one way only it costs around £750 for HKG-LHR and around £120 LHR-EDI so if you do the maths it was of extremely good value.
If you book early enough it may be cheaper to just pay for the domestic.
Yes iv just booked one for November for £33 with SAA
So annoying that Cape Town has always been an expensive run, and as for getting redemptions. ……..
If only I could find 2 reward seats to jo’burg to do this.
Remember Iberia is launching Jo’burg soon
Want to use a 2-4-1 though. To make it even tougher I work as a TA in a primary school so will forever be confined to school holidays, even though my kids are now 23 and 18.
Economy on that route is cheap if buying a cash ticket. I paid £350 for November and will get £100 worth of avios back.
Good times also as the midnight departure means you can catch a flight after work on a Friday . (make sure to go Iberia/Ba incase delays on connecting flight)
Having a tough time getting a 2017 flight back from JNB booked with Iberia Plus.
First there was an issue where flights from JNB weren’t bookable due to a technical problem for a few weeks. Now they seem to have fixed that but they haven’t got the 2017 peak calendar put on yet so all pricing as peak.