From the beginning of our travels, an African Safari has been high on our bucket list. As we stated in “The Plan for Japan“, everything is possible with a little preparation and planning. So, this is what we’re working on and preparing for.
The Safari
Often with our travels, the flights come first. In this case, it worked out a little backward. There are dozens of safari lodges and hotels scattered around Africa that can be booked with points. Marriott is one of the most popular, but rooms can cost well into the hundreds of thousands of points, and Marriott points can be difficult to accumulate. This has always put an African safari pretty far in the back of my mind. That is until I learned of I Prefer Hotels and their rewards program.
There are two hotels in South Africa that can be booked using I Prefer points. Last Word Madikwe and Last Word Kitara. Check them out, they look incredible! They’re all-inclusive and they include safari drives and animal sightings from the property itself.
These hotels range anywhere from $700 to $1500 a night, but with points, they can also be booked with 150,000 I Prefer points per night.
Before you squawk at the price, it’s important to look at transfer partners. Most transferable points currencies transfer at a 1:1 ratio. In this case, however, Citi Thank You Points transfer to I Prefer at a 1:4 ratio. This brings the price down to 37,500, a killer redemption.
As of this post, the Citi Strata Premier has a welcome bonus of 60,000 Thank You Points. It’s not a great offer, but it’s enough for almost 2 nights.
The Flights
I wanted to find us business class flights, so I started with Google Flights to see which airlines and routes are available from the U.S straight to Africa, specifically to Johannesburg, South Africa. Two airlines make the flight nonstop. Delta from Atlanta and United from New York. My own knowledge tells me Delta isn’t happening, as they often have outrageous award prices, and I’m unable to transfer to United as they don’t partner with the miles and points I have. Normally, I could book United with a Star Alliance partner, but they have been limiting access as of late.
So, a layover it is. I’d rather connect in Africa than Europe, which narrowed things down to EgyptAir and Ethiopian Airlines. Both fly out of New York and Chicago. I figured this out using a mix of Google Flights and what I already know. From there, I went to www.pointsyeah.com and started plugging in dates and departures from New York and Chicago.
Doing this, I quickly narrowed down the best options. Since both EgyptAir and Ethiopian are part of Star Alliance, the best deal showed up through Aeroplan. I filtered for business class flights, and here we are: one-way in business class for 110,000 points. That’s a hefty chunk, but not unreasonable when you consider the flights are around 18 hours long and would cost about $3,000 per person each way in cash.
Both options already include longer layovers, but with Aeroplan, you can add a stopover for an additional 5,000 points. So, depending on how we want to do this, we may spend a few extra days in Cairo or Addis Ababa before heading off to our African safari.
Economy using Aeroplan will set you back 70,000 points each way. Alternatively, if you’re up for some higher taxes and fees, you can do Flying Blue for as few as 40,000 points + $250. You could also mix and match and fly business to Ethiopia and economy down. There are definitely options to make it more doable.
The Game Plan
Now that we have the information we need, we need to put together the plan. Right now, we actually have enough points to do the flights round-trip. 440,000 miles and points that can be transferred to Aeroplan. Recognizably, it’s a lot of points. In a normal situation, we would likely only be able to do it one way. Thankfully, we’ve been busy accumulating. Over the last year or so, we’ve opened two Amex cards as well as another Capital One card. Our Cards.
As for the hotel, we’ve opened one Citi Strata Premier. This will get us 64,000 points with the bonus and required spending. We will likely have to open a second one in order to get 3 nights. 112,500 points. The final decision will likely come down to when we decide to actually book this. Most business class flights require a good 300+ day notice, like our flights to French Polynesia, for example.
Conclusion
And just like that, we are on our way to an African Safari in business class using miles and points. We in no way use this as a “check us out” but more so a “check out what is possible!” This is a trip that’s been on our bucket list for a long time, and now we get to finally book it!
Have any questions? Or don’t know where to begin?
Don’t hesitate to reach out!