Given that we haven’t traveled much in Africa in the past, we’re kind of on an African kick right now. This post is about seeing as much of africa as you can in the most effecient way possible. It could be a great post in combination with African Safari Hotels on Points.

The idea of the African Hopper is to start and end in two different destinations within Africa. Then the goal would be to add a destination and at least one stopover.

This ticket could potentially fill-in an open-jaw ticket booking from the US (or wherever you’re coming from) to Africa and out of a different destination. You could book that ticket around whatever version of the “African Hopper” that works for you.

I’ll first start with a chart that kind of mimics the “cheapest miles to…” series charts. It will show the cheapest flights within Africa for an alliance, although it will be a few select airlines that the hopper is truly possible on, and the chart doesn’t even consider distance based airlines yet. Here’s first glance. (The first column shows economy and the second shows business class.)

Flying Blue	30k – 35k	75k – 87.5k
Alitalia	40k	60k
Delta	45k	80k
Korean	80k	120k
Singapore	30k	62k
Lufthansa	30k – 40k	55k – 70k
Avianca	35k – 42k	66k – 70k
Air Canada	40k	60k
United	45k	70k

* As I’ll discuss below, Alitalia and Korean have discounted prices for certain routes on certain airlines within Africa.

One main thing to know about the pricing is that airlines break up Africa differently. For the most part I try to price out all flights that are within Africa not including “North Africa” – countries bordering the mediterranean.

When there is a range in the price it generally is North Africa to the rest of Africa as the larger number, and the first number being flights within the rest of Africa.

 

Star Alliance African Hopper

Singapore	30k	62k
Lufthansa	30k – 40k	55k – 70k
Avianca	35k – 42k	66k – 70k
Air Canada	40k	60k
United	45k	70k

 

Right off the bat I’m really tempted because of my ease of booking and familiarity with Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa.

Lufthansa allows two stopovers and two open-jaws. Singapore allows one stopover and one open-jaw.

Star Alliance also has a number of hubs/airlines in Africa:

• South African Airways
• Ethiopian Airlines
• Egypt Air

South African Airways routes:

Ethiopian Airlines routes

Egypt Air routes

 

Using Lufthansa Miles

I’m really digging the idea of a hopper using Lufthansa miles, as they allow two stopovers. But especially if you can open-jaw on the return destination. Let me explain for a second.

So ignoring the stopovers lets just talk about a normal roundtrip from Nairobi to Cape Town. That would be a regular roundtrip. But an open-jaw on the “return destination” would mean that you could return your flight to a place other than where you started from. So we’ll return some place other than Nairobi. Let’s just say we return to Mauritius.

Now our roundtrip, without using any of our stopovers and so far only using one open-jaw would look like this. Nairobi to Cape Town, to Mauritius.

Now we’ve seen three places and have yet to add our two open-jaws.

And the beauty of it is that with most airline mile redemptions to and from Africa, you can fly into one destination and out of the other. Right? So even if we’re using AA miles, we can book one oneway to Nairobi, and then another from Mauritius back home. Then we can use the African Hopper to fill in the gap.

So now let’s consider changing the route a little and adding the two stopovers.

• Start in: Seychelles
• Stopover 1: Nairobi
• Destination: Accra
• Stopover 2: Johannesburg
• End in (return destination): Mauritius

Understand that I have not personally booked this flight, and it’s assuming I’m right about two things.

1) I think I’m right that it will let you open-jaw from Seychelles to Mauritius. I have open-jawed a ticket so it starts in one city in the US and ends in another city in the US. However, I assumed that it limited your open-jaw in order that you would have to return to the same region. So I assume because Seychelles and Mauritius are both considered in the same region, Southern Africa, that the open-jaw would work.

However, if it requires you to return to the same country, it won’t work.

2) I’m assuming the order of destinations will work. My understanding is that you can only have 1 stopover each direction.

So a simpler example would be the US to India. You can’t have two stopovers on the way to India, but instead you would have to have one on the way to India and another on the way back.

And the way I assume it chooses a destination is based on the point that is the furthest away. Above I assume that Accra is the furthest point away, and in this example it would make sense.

This trip would price out as 40,000 miles instead of 30k, and here’s why…

 

Lufthansa’s double pricing

One thing you need to know is Lufthansa’s regions. “Southern Africa” is basically everything south of Tanzania and islands like Seychelles and Mauritius. On the other hand the rest of Africa includes the Middle East. It’s a very generously large region and includes two African hubs in Ethiopia and Egypt.

If you wanted to stay in one region cut out Seychelles (because you’d have to transit through Ethiopia) and Accra.

Or try a route in the top half. Like this:

• Start in: Dubai
• Stopover 1: Cairo
• Destination: Casablanca
• Stopover 2: Addis Ababa
• End in (return destination): Dar Es Salaam

Something like that would be 30,000 miles because it sticks in one region.

 

ANA – distance based in Star Alliance

Until mid April, you’ll be able to book with the follow award chart.

In my opinion, there are hot spots of flights that are 4,000 flown miles or slightly below, or 9,000 flown miles or slightly below. But either way, you can get 4 stops total, which is huge.

In a short example let’s just say we fly into Dar Es Salaam (where you can take the short ferry to Zanzibar). In this route I’m going to try to hit 3 new countries and then South Africa… which we’ve already been to but I’d really enjoy going to Kruger National Park next time. Here we go.

• Start: Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
• Stop 1: Lilongwe, Malawi
• Stop 2: Lusaka, Zambia
• Stop 3: Harare, Zimbabwe
• Stop 4: Johannesburg, South Africa
• Return: Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Total Flown Miles: 3,325 miles.

If you match it up with the award chart above, this means that you would need 22,000 ANA miles.

Of course you can take this as large as you want but you’ll just have to pay more for longer routes. But this is a hassle-free way and potentially cheaper way of doing things, compared to Lufthansa miles. Simply because stopovers are easy to book. The rules aren’t strict since the more you fly the more you pay, they just let you keep flying.

 

SkyTeam African Hopper

Flying Blue	30k – 35k	75k – 87.5k
Alitalia	40k	60k
Delta	45k	80k
Korean	80k	120k

* Alitalia: Direct flights within Africa only by Air France: 20/30. Direct flights between Madagascar, Mauritius and La Reunion only by Air France: 20/30. All flights by Kenya Airways up to 1,500 miles: 30/45

* Korean: Within Africa/Indian Ocean by Air France : Economy 20,000/Business 30,000 miles Within Africa by Kenya Airways : Economy 25,000/Business 45,000 miles

 

The first thing I want to note are the special prices offered by Alitalia and Korean miles.

Alitalia says direct flights by Air France are 20k/30k. That’s great if you just want to add one more place since it says direct.

The Air France routes between Mauritius and Reunion and Madagascar seem to be routes by Air Mauritius, which was once owned by Air France. Because it doesn’t appear that Air France actually has such routes.

And while flying from Mauritius and Reunion/Madagascar seem like relatively short flights compared to what the hopper would normally offer, 10,000 miles if that’s for a oneway, wouldn’t be a lot. You could open-jaw from one to the other just to add a couple more destinations, and possibly see all three islands.

 

For Korean, they have a discount on all Air France flights within Africa. But what may be slightly more expensive, but more usable in this case, is the discount on Kenya Airways flights.

Like I often say, I would advise calling before transferring for a number of reasons. One, I’m not sure how it will work out in this case, plus they may not have availability.

But in theory, it could work out that one could start in a place reachable by Kenya Airways stop in Kenya, stop in a destination and return somewhere else.  But even without a stopover it should work like this:

• Start: Seychelles
• Destination: Mauritius
• Layover: Nairobi
• End in Seychelles

Very simply put, you may possibly be able to work in a stopover in Nairobi, but you can always just get off the plane and not take the flight back to Seychelles, and you can just fly home from Nairobi.

For 25,000 miles you could do Seychelles, Mauritius, and Nairobi. Same is possible for Madagascar or any other destination within Africa.

It’s a lot of flying, so you may be tempted to spend 45,000 miles to be in Business Class, but 25,000 miles is such a good deal. It’s not as many stops as other “hopper” posts, but when we’re talking Seychelles and Madagascar, it’s hard to top how cool this ticket would be.

Other island options would include Mayotte, and Comoros. But as you can see in the map above, Kenya Airways reaches most of Africa.

 

Flying Blue

Basically, Flying Blue is only 5k more, doesn’t have the restriction to only fly Kenya, and I have way more faith in Flying Blue to actually book what I need to.

There aren’t a ton of SkyTeam options that aren’t Kenya, although Air France does have a few routes, and FlyingBlue may or may not have a tighter relationship with “Air Mauritius”.

Dated Air Mauritius map:

Air Mauritius destinations within Africa:

• Rodrigues, Mauritius
• Port Louis, Mauritius
• Antananarivo, Madagascar
• Mahé, Seychelles
• Saint-Pierre, Réunion
• Saint-Denis, Réunion
• Nairobi, Kenya
• Cape Town, South Africa
• Durban, South Africa
• Johannesburg, South Africa

 

Air France routes in Africa?

I have looked at multiple route maps and anytime I go to confirm routes with what’s bookable on Kayak I don’t get any Air France results. If anyone points me to a resource of all the intra-Africa AF/KLM routes, I’d appreciate it.

 

Flying Blue allows 1 stop and 1 open-jaw and we’re talking all these Air Mauritius routes, all the mysterious Air France routes, and all the Kenya Airways routes for possibilities.

The possibilities for a cool example route are endless but wanted to try a similar example.

• Start: Seychelles
• Stopover: Madagascar
• Destination: Mauritius
• Open-jaw return: Nairobi

This would be an interesting ticket, for sure. And if you can’t open-jaw in order to return to Nairobi, you can return to Seychelles via Nairobi and just get off the plane.

Or you could start in Nairobi, stopover in Seychelles, destination in Mauritius, and try to route back via Madagascar.

As I said, the possible combinations are seemingly endless when noting we have a ton more destinations all over Africa to consider. But for 30k to 35k (for North Africa) for a roundtrip ticket like that, it would be an incredible redemption.

 

The Problem with OneWorld

Oddly enough the idea started quite a while ago when I first noticed on the AA award chart that flights within Africa using AA miles are 10,000 miles each direction! An incredible price considering that Africa is enormous. Even a flight from Cairo to Johannesburg can be 8 hours. Imagine the length of a flight starting in West Africa and connecting in Cairo and then later in Johannesburg for only 10,000 miles or 17,500 in business class.

As impressive as that is, it turns out that it’s impossible. I tried to find OneWorld routes and other AA partners that I could fly this cool route on to no avail. There are no OneWorld airlines in Africa.

So it was always a nice thought I gave up on quickly, until I saw the special pricing with some SkyTeam airlines for routes within Africa.

 

Conclusion

For me the most tempting routes are the ones that involve the islands, because you basically have to fly to get there.