On Black Friday 2019 I ended up buying a set of round-trip tickets to Cape Town for my girlfriend and I. This is the third year I’ve purchased tickets during the Cathay Pacific Black Friday sale. The sale itself isn’t all that phenomenal, but it does offer a nice opportunity to book Premium Economy seats at a decent discount. Then, since American Airlines awards 20% Elite Qualifying Dollars per mile flown, it turns out to be a great way to earn a ton of EQD early in the year.
This year I thought things were getting off to an amazing start. A few weeks ago I took a trip from Chicago to Hawaii and earned a decent number of Elite Qualifying Miles. Then with this upcoming trip to Cape Town I was going to fly a total of 30,000 miles and earn $6,000 Elite Qualifying Dollars and more than 45,000 Elite Qualifying Miles. If you’re familiar with the American Airlines AAdvantage program I would have been halfway to Executive Platinum!
Everything seemed to be going well this year in terms of miles the path to elite status. Then the Coronavirus came into the picture. Obviously the virus has been all over the news so I won’t discuss that here. Rather, the virus has caused my girlfriend and I to reconsider our upcoming trip to Cape Town. At first I was going to move forward with our original plan to fly from New York to Hong Kong to Cape Town and back. However, with each passing day and the continued spread of the virus, we have decided agains that original.
Cathay Pacific Issues A Rescheduling Waiver
In the hours immediately following the World Heath Organization’s decision to declare the Coronavirus a global health emergency, Cathay Pacific issues a rescheduling waiver for our original flights. At first my girlfriend and I decided to press on and go forward with the trip as planned. After we looked at the situation more closely we ultimately decided to change our flights.
The reason we decided to change our flights is not necessarily the fear of infection. From what I can tell (very limited knowledge), the virus is mostly killing older people or those with pre-existing health conditions. Otherwise healthy individuals with proper treatment seem to be doing okay. So while I would never want to get sick, I’m confident that if I did I would be ok. Likewise, given our limited time in the Hong Kong airport, I don’t think we’re necessarily at risk of getting the virus at all.
Instead, the reason we changed our flights is due to the ever evolving situation. My biggest concern was that while in South Africa the U.S. would block incoming flights from Hong Kong or other parts of the world. Our fear is that we would somehow be stranded somewhere in the world. We were also a bit nervous of the mandatory quarantines for those arriving from China.
So, while we thing we would have ultimately been safe and healthy traveling on our original flights, we decided to change our plans due to the evolving global situation. I hope that all makes sense.
Coming Up With A New Plan!
With all of that out of the way, it’s time for the fun stuff; coming up with a new plan. See, I decided this trip would be the perfect opportunity to book a non-refundable hotel stay in Cape Town. That means, we either need to find a way to Cape Town next week or lose the money we paid for our hotel stay. Personally, I had no interest in throwing away money. So, I’ve spent the last several hours coming up with an alternative plan to get to Cape Town… next week.
The key considerations when coming up with this new plan was doing something that wouldn’t break the bank, but was also as or more fun that the original flights. Additionally, I wanted to arrive and depart at roughly our original times to stay consistent with our original plans. Overall, trying to find the right flights on the right dates at the right times was a bit of a challenge. Even harder was piecing together paid flights on OneWorld carriers with award flights on Star Alliance carriers.
Ultimately, I think I’ve nailed it!
Granted, it was extremely lucky that options I found were available and for a great price. Either way, I’m excited very excited by the new trip. For now though, I’m actually not going to tell you exactly what the plan is… Sorry. See, of the tens of readers who frequent this blog, one of them, is my girlfriend (so she tells me). She claims she reads every one of my posts (I’m sorry) and I don’t want to spoil the surprise just yet.
The (Now Surprise) New Plan!
So for now, what I’ll say is that I’ve managed to piece together an itinerary in which 7 of our 9 flights will be in either first class or business class. Keep in mind we were originally in Premium Economy. Oh yeah, and we went from 4 flights to 9… whoops.
This new plan also gives us a night in Oslo Norway, which I’m quite excited about and potentially a night in Helsinki Finland. We also now have a stop in the Middle East for a few hours in each direction and could even venture out into the city for a few hours.
Finally, because One Way pricing is so ridiculous, we also have a return flight to Europe later in the year to take if we so desire.
While this new plan nearly doubles the cost of our single trip to Cape Town (we are now taking two trips to Cape Town in 2020) it was roughly the same price as our original flights. That was also a key consideration in this whole plan. I wanted to keep the trip costs down to about what we originally paid with Cathay Pacific, which I’ve done.
Final Thoughts
I have to admit, I’m absolutely thrilled by this new plan. While this wasn’t what we originally wanted to do I think it’s the best we could have done on the limited time horizon. I’m also glad we are able to bypass Asia right now given the ever evolving Coronavirus situation.
However, I’m a bit sad that we won’t be transiting through Hong Kong anymore. I absolutely adore Hong Kong as does my girlfriend. We had a fantastic trip to Hong Kong last year and want to spend more time there. Hopefully we will be able to use our return flights in June to visit for a day or two.
Lastly, the thing I love most about all of this is that we are essentially booking a trip we planned on booking in the future anyway. My girlfriend and I discussed taking a trip later in the year as well as this one next week. So, while this new plan is more money, we aren’t necessarily doubling down on our original investment. Instead, we are just going to be taking two trips to South Africa this year.
Ps. The featured image is a major clue
