Late last year I decided to surprise my girlfriend with a trip to Cape Town. Well, when I say it that way it sounds incredibly nice of me. In actuality, for Black Friday 2019, Cathay Pacific offered Premium Economy from New York to Cape Town for just $1,600. That was a fantastic deal as it meant you could fly just over 30,000 miles and earn 45,000 AAdvantage Elite Qualifying Miles and $6,000 Elite Qualifying Miles. That trip alone would have gotten us both roughly halfway to American Airlines AAdvantage Executive Platinum elite status. So, in actuality, I booked my girlfriend on a mileage run disguised as a vacation to Cape Town!
Because I booked the trip so far in advance, I also decided to book a non-refundable hotel stay in Cape Town. This is something I never do, but I knew we’d be going to Cape Town, so why not? Well, that question was answered a few weeks ago as the Coronavirus continued to spread. Ultimately, I decided flying through Hong Kong wasn’t a great idea for several reasons, so we rebooked our flights.
This actually turned out to be a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. It was fun because I was able to completely rebook the trip and surprise my girlfriend with entirely new flights. So, I decided not to tell her anything. All she knew was that we were going to be flying from New York to Cape Town via Europe. She had no idea what airlines we were traveling on and no idea what class of service we were flying in. Little did she know, we moved from Premium Economy to a mix of First and Business Class. Needless to say, this was quite the upgrade.
Our New Itinerary
For reference, we were originally set to depart New York’s JFK airport on Saturday afternoon and return the following Saturday afternoon. We’d then arrive in Cape Town on Monday morning and depart on Friday evening. That left us about 5 days and 4 nights to spend in Cape Town. Sure, it was a short trip, but then again… this was a milage run of sorts. Oh, and let’s not forget that all of that would have been in Premium Economy with Cathay Pacific.
After scrapping the original plan, this is what I came up with:
- Lufthansa First Class – Newark to Frankfurt
- Lufthansa Business Class – Frankfurt to Oslo
- Qatar Airways Business Class – Oslo to Doha to Cape Town
- Qatar Airways Business Class – Cape Town to Doha to Oslo
- Finnair Economy Class – Oslo to Helsinki
- Finnair Economy Class – Helsinki to JFK
This new itinerary also meant that we’d leave New York on Friday night and get back on Sunday afternoon. With that, we gained a full extra day in Cape Town and an extra night. We’d also have a bonus day and night in Oslo to explore.
The Execution
This trip couldn’t have gone better. Well, ok, the delayed Lufthansa flight caused us to switch to JFK, but other than that the trip was perfect. We had an incredible flight in Lufthansa First Class followed by some amazing flights with Qatar Airways. With Qatar we were able to fly on their A350-900 and A350-1000 aircraft. This gave us the opportunity to fly their old business class and their QSuites product. I’ve been wanting to fly QSuites for some time so this was an excellent opportunity to do so.
Also, we ended up loving Cape Town. We read a lot of negative things about the city before departing. We had this idea of a very dangerous and rough city, but were pleasantly surprised when we got there. Yes, Cape Town is a bit poor in parts and can be dangerous, but for the most part, we felt perfectly safe. We also were lucky enough to stay in Camps Bay which proved a perfect place for us to be.
Lastly, I couldn’t believe how well my girlfriend handled the grueling itinerary. This was up there among the toughest trips I’ve ever taken when it comes to flight time and sleeping. At one point I even became a bit grumpy, but she kept her head up and pressed on the entire time. I was very happy that this trip didn’t break her as I suspected it might. Read: I took my significant other on a Mileage Run.
Final Thoughts
Over the next few days I’m going to try to get all of the reviews from our trip posted. This includes our Lufthansa flights, Qatar flights, and hotel stay in Cape Town. I’m going to try to keep reviews of products I’ve previously reviewed short, but who knows how that will go. My goal is to try to get all of these posted within the next week or two. I know that if I sit on them any longer than that it will become harder to write them.
So, stay tuned for more to come on our trip to Cape Town. It turned out to be an excellent vacation and surprisingly, both of us want to go back again! Next time however we will try to keep the total number of flights down to a number we can count with one hand. Taking 10 flights in just over a week proved to be a bit tougher on my body and mind then I care to admit.
