UK to Cape Town return

Tom_Brine

Hi all new to the travel section of the site but have been recommended it by a friend.

I am looking on travelling to South Africa for my 30th birthday this year to fulfil a dream of seeing a great white shark in the flesh. I also plan to abseil down table mountain and a whole raft of exciting things.

However I am new to booking all of this. I am looking for the cheapest return flight possible on the 10th (or there around) of November and am looking to be out there for around 2 weeks.

Could anyone recommened the best place to find the cheapest tickets etc, there are so many sites and places to look I don't know whats best.

I will be living in Birmingham but am willing to travel to a London airport if the difference in ticket price is good enough.

Thanks in advance

Caz3121

start with skyscanner.net and kayak.co.uk

Turkish Airlines seem to do some decent connections through IST from BHX, showing about £530 return

mad_rich

There's no substitute for time spent trawling the web to seek out the bargains.

Have a look at the Wikipedia page for Cape Town Airport, and you will get a feel for who flies there, then go to all of those airlines to see what special offers they have on. Sign up for their newsletters too, in case there's any sales coming up. It might also be worth looking at Jo'burg, with a connection down to CPT on either South African Airways or one of the low-cost airlines. (Or even BA, who operate domestically as Comair.)

For fares, the first place I look is generally http://matrix.itasoftware.com.

You can put multiple airports in the to and from boxes (use LON, BHX and JNB, CPT), and search for fares across several days or even a full month.

See what you find. Any more questions, come back.

Good luck.

Equaliser123

I'd go a bit careful about connecting in Jo'burg as apparently you arrive and depart from separate terminals and have to recheck your baggage.

The only direct airlines to CPT are BA and Virgin. SAA have now stopped their LHR-CPT route. Other airlines (indirect) KLM, Lufthansa, Qatar, Emirates and Etihad.

Just back from Cape Town. Flew Emirates business class. Bit of a long way around but very, very pleasant flight and had a stopover in Dubai on the outbound journey.

mad_rich

With a very quick look, the cheapest I can see to Cape Town is £641, valid from either London or Birmingham, via Amsterdam on KLM.

If you can find a cheap flight within South Africa, there's Birmingham to Jo'burg (via Brussels and Abu Dhabi), returning Jo'burg to Heathrow (via Abu Dhabi) for £518. This is on Etihad.

Edit:

Just found something better:

BHX-IST-JNB-CPT return, all on Turkish Airlines. (It seems they fly the route to Cape Town as an extension from JNB, with the same aircraft.) £541 return, and fairly good timings.

This also has the benefit that you can't miss your connection in Jo'burg, as you're arriving on the plane you want to take to Cape Town! Not sure if you have to get off the plane and clear immigration, or whether it just continues to Cape Town and arrives there as an international flight, but that's not for you to worry about anyway.

mad_rich

Equaliser123 wrote: »

I'd go a bit careful about connecting in Jo'burg as apparently you arrive and depart from separate terminals and have to recheck your baggage.

I was surprised by this too, but it's actually not much of a hassle. You just have to remember to collect your bags (I only did because I got chatting to my seat mate on the flight from Botswana. I had assumed they'd be checked through to CPT!)

Tom_Brine

Wow thanks mad_rich and everyone else for all your suggestions. I wasn't expecting so many replies so quickly. I will look into the £541 return flight straight away

richardw

KL is much simpler than Turkish, may be worth an extra £50 each way for less hassle.