Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
As reported by Secret Flying, airfares from Orange County, CA to Johannesburgh, South Africa are available as low as $682 RT on Delta and KLM or Air France. Itineraries with Air France may qualify for the Amex Offer of 20,000 Membership Rewards points back on $1,000 spend if purchased through Air France on a card previously synced with the offer (this offer is no longer available for new accounts).
Secret Flying is actually reporting fares as low as $673, but those prices are available through travel agencies which are not listing carrier names. Prices from $682 are widely available through Google Flights:
For a quick review of using Google Flights to search for availability, see Greg’s post yesterday on using Google Flights to find great business class fares.
This sale to South Africa is in economy class and the $682 fares are available on select dates from August 22nd through December 2017.
If you have the Air France Amex Offer saved to one of your Amex accounts and you are booking for two people, you may consider booking through AirFrance for a nice rebate in Membership Rewards points. Based on Greg’s theory about getting as much as 2.17 cents per point out of Membership Rewards points towards paid flights, that bonus could be worth as much as $434 toward paid flights, not including any miles you earn on your flights. I am seeing flights that are bookable via Air France from $684 on some dates. See this example at Google flights. If the $684 fare is still available, Google should have a link to the Air France site with that price (I couldn’t find the same fare starting at Air France). Note that seat selection was not free on those flights.
For those interested in a safari, remember that August is the end of South African winter. It should be a very good time for wildlife viewing as there is typically less vegetation blocking views than in mid-summer. Those with Marriott Rewards points may want to check out the summary of my trip to Kruger National Park and stay at Protea Hotel Kruger Gate, a Marriott Rewards property located 100m from the entrance gate to Kruger National Park that costs just 7500 Marriott Rewards points per night. Alternatively, accommodations are available to fit every budget on the spectrum and other parks and reserves are plentiful.
These prices are quite good an unlikely to last for long — best of luck and let us know in the comments if you take advantage of this deal.
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I have Air France AMEX offer on 2 cards. Does this mean I get 40,000 MR points or am I limited to just 20,000 MR per account irrespective of number of cards.
Unlike the other offers which AMEX has no idea how many times we used it, MR is managed by AMEX, Is there any solid DP telling they got more than 20,000 points using multiple cards?
If you meet the spend on each card separately, you should receive the offer on each card. In other words, if you have the offer added to both Card A and Card B, you will need to spend $1,000 at airfrance.us on Card A and then spend an additional $1,000 at airfrance.us on Card B. Assuming you do that, you should receive the 20k Membership Rewards points on each for a total of 40k.
As for data points, I don’t have any points on this specific offer, but adding an Amex Offer to multiple accounts is something covered in detail in our complete guide to Amex Offers. Many people regularly redeem an offer on multiple accounts. A recent Membership Rewards example that comes to mind was a Marriott/Courtyard offer this past winter. Many people went to Marriott and purchased gift cards on multiple Amex cards and received the Membership Rewards points on each card that met the spend required in the offer terms.
One last thing — I’m not sure what you meant when you said that “Unlike the other offers which AMEX has no idea how many times we used it”. Amex does track how many times you have used offers. In fact, they list cumulative totals you have “saved” through offers in each account on the Amex app. That said, whether or not they may someday limit us to using an offer once per customer rather than once per registered card is a question I can’t answer.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Nick.
I’ve a 3k purchase coming up on airfrance which I plan on splitting into two cards ((Platinum & Everyday)
That should give me close to 50000 MR points. This is simply a great deal then
Absolutely would be. Make sure you have the offer synced to both cards separately — I don’t think it’s available anymore. But I agree — if you can maximize the offer on this, it’s terrific.