Need help with return flights from South Africa to Europe 2019

[jsalt]

Hi, Iberia Airlines is now promoting cheap flights from USA to Spain, as it has done from South Africa to Spain over the last couple of years. Which is great for USA, but now leaves us South Africans back in the dark ages. Could somebody please come up with a cheap return flight from Johannesburg to Madrid (via Timbuktoo or Pofadder is fine, but not Luanda) or alternatively to Lisbon, Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva or Amsterdam (but not London – because of visa issues), in September?
Jill

 

[Bradypus]

What would be a good price? Emirates are offering return flights via Dubai starting at about £425 which I think is about 7500 Rand. I found this using Kayak.

 

[jsalt]

Yes, that would work, many thanks!
It will be interesting to see how South Africans get to the camino this year now that Iberia has doubled their fares for flights departing after mid-March 2019.

 

[Dorpie]

My dad found that Ethiopian were doing the best prices for the reverse journey this year, looks like flights to and from Madrid at that time of year are around ZAR9,000.

 

[PK Smit]

We always fly Turkish from Cape Town via Istanbul. They offer a free night in a 4 star hotel of you stay over in Istanbul

 

[MaritaN]

I have done a prelimanary search Cape Town to Barcelona and found Emirates to be around R7600 mid September. Planning to walk the Aragones. I shall watch this thread with interest!

 

[Leon Ivan]

I made use of Lufthansa August 2018 from Cape Town via Frankfurt to Porto fir R7800-00.

 

[jsalt]

I made use of Lufthansa August 2018 from Cape Town via Frankfurt to Porto fir R7800-00.

Hi, thanks, but unfortunately I cannot find anything similar on Lufthansa for this year .

 

[Jan_D]

Hi Jill, which camino are you doing? I recently flew VERY cheaply back to RSA with AirFrance and I see they have return flight JHB-Paris-Madrid for about R8,500. (Sorry I edited this - I initially had the prices from JHB-Paris-JHB but I miscalculated - it's actually cheaper to go all the way to Madrid for some reason!)

(The prices tend to be very low on the "Joon" flights - AirFrance's answer to the no frills air travel trend. My flight on a Joon plane was really great, everything was brand new and very comfortable. USB chargers for every seat. The only difference I noticed was that you had to pay for extra drinks over the free ones you got with the meal...)

 

[jsalt]

Hi Jill, which camino are you doing?

Hi Jan, it’s for some friends who want to do exactly the same trip as we did last year. We flew on Iberia via Madrid to Porto and return from Santiago for about R7,500. The exact same flights now cost about R16,000. So looking at alternative options. It will be great if Air France takes over again as the budget airline for us; they were the cheapest option about four years ago, before Iberia started flights to Johannesburg.

 

[Jan_D]

Hi again - just did a random search for JHB-Lisbon in September with AirFrance/KLM, and it's coming out at R8320 (see screenshot!). Not bad.... Your friends might need to play around with dates a bit, as some days are a lot cheaper than others - the website shows a series of days in a row in both directions, so when booking you might need to play with a few combinations. (p.s. did the search on Airfrance.co.za)

Update: (sorry!) - I just remembered that I actually ended up booking through KLM last year, as their website seemed easier to navigate, and for some reason the exact same flights were R100-200 cheaper.

 

[Michael; Camino-addicted]

Hallo Jill,

I saw the following flights for example for Sept. 4, 2019 on www.skyscanner.com

1)
Johannesburg - Dubai Dubai - Madrid 350- €
19:10 05:25 07:40 13:25

flight-numbers: Emirates EK764 + EK141


2)
Johannesburg - Rome Rome - Madrid 346,- €
20:35 06:50 08:10 10:45

flight-numbers: Alitalia AZ849 + AZ58


3)
Johannesburg - Istanbul Istanbul - Madrid 384,- €
18:10 05:00 07:10 10:40

flight-numbers: Turkish Airles TK39 + TK1857


I hope I could help and it´s not too late.

All the best for you

Michael