There was an interesting fare posted on FlyerTalk Mileage Runs yesterday flying Etihad and Emirates from Rome to South Africa to Asia and back to Rome for under $500 USD. The lowest fare I found when I started checking Sunday was $547 and there was an open jaw between Johannesburg and Durban. No problem for that segment with $60 one-way flights on Kulula Air.
This morning I played around a couple of hours seriously looking at booking Rome to Cape Town, Durban to Perth and Bangkok to Rome for $862.
As often happens when debating whether to make an unplanned big ticket expenditure, Australia dropped out of the low fares on most sites I have checked in the past hour and is now substantially higher.
Still available on Expedia is Rome to South Africa to Bangkok and back to Rome for $547.
Rome FCO – Johannesburg JNB South Africa (Etihad)
Durban DUR South Africa – Bangkok BKK Thailand (Emirates)
Bangkok BKK – Rome FCO (Etihad)
$546.63 USD
Personally I wanted to skip Johannesburg and go to Cape Town instead. That pushed the price up to $614.
Rome FCO – Cape Town CPT South Africa (Etihad)
Durban – Bangkok BKK
Bangkok – Rome
$613.63
There were many choices for where to travel in Asia without raising the fare too much as long as you included the Bangkok-Rome segment at the end. I looked at Ho Chi Minh City SGN, Tokyo NRT, Singapore SIN, Beijing PEK and Bali DPS. This meant another flight segment to fill in to get to Bangkok for flight back to Rome.
Rome FCO – Cape Town CPT South Africa (Etihad)
Durban – Bali-Denpasar DPS Indonesia (Emirates)
Bangkok – Rome (Etihad)
$754.64
There are or were all kinds of potential itineraries. This deal may already be gone. The Expedia screenshots are from 9am California time Monday morning. Many itineraries are pricing higher in the past few hours.
Looks like a great deal, but I would want three weeks minimum to travel to Europe, Africa and Asia. And I won’t book that kind of trip without talking to my wife first. Looks like I’ll pass on this deal.
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