Overview: Our South African Honeymoon with Points

My wife and I have been fortunate to travel widely over the years, usually booking with frequent flyer points. It’s a never-ending cycle of earning and burning. I’m sure many of you can relate as well.

For our belated honeymoon, booking Business Class with points was a given. The question was… where to? We wanted to journey to somewhere completely new – that ruled out Asia and Europe.

Ultimately, we settled on exploring the natural wonders of South Africa.

Planning the trip with points

We’re not big points hoarders. Once we earn them, we aim to spend them as soon as possible. With our goal of travelling during Easter 2024, I began making the bookings almost a year in advance, in May 2023.

This forward planning enabled us to secure two reward seats on the desired dates.

Our itinerary ended up being:

• Perth to Singapore
  • Qantas Economy Classic Flight Reward
  • 18,000 Qantas Points + A$134 per person
  • Later upgraded to Business Class for 38,100 Qantas Points per person
• Singapore to Johannesburg
  • Singapore Airlines Business Class award
  • 78,000 Velocity Points + A$294 per person
• Johannesburg to Durban (and back)
  • Economy tickets on FlySafair
  • Around A$250 per person return
• Johannesburg to Singapore to Perth
  • Singapore Airlines Business Class award
  • 81,500 KrisFlyer miles + A$75 per person

Total Spend: 215,600 points/miles + A$753pp

OUR BASIC ITINERARY IN SOUTH AFRICA

• Two nights in Johannesburg to rest and explore the city
• Three nights at Rhino Ridge Lodge in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park for the safari drives
• Two nights at Kosi Forest Lodge in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park for river activities
• Three nights at Thonga Beach Lodge for a beach resort escape
• A final night in Johannesburg before we flew home the following day

The three lodges at the heart of our itinerary are all part of the Isibindi Africa Lodges collection. We booked with the company directly and organised an eight-night honeymoon package for roughly ZAR 91,175 (A$7,350).

We are usually quite frugal travellers, so this package was definitely a one-off splurge!

The price included all meals, all major activities (including twice-daily game drives at Rhino Ridge and various excursions elsewhere), and luxury accommodation in the highest room category.

With the honeymoon package, we were also treated to complimentary bottles of sparkling wine, massages, private dinners, and more.

As a self-drive itinerary, we decided to hire a car in Durban and drive between the three lodges ourselves. Kosi Forest and Thonga Beach required 4WD transfers as well.

But more on that another time. I really want to talk about the South African lodges in more detail, so keep an eye out for a future blog post!

Our Business Class flight experiences

Qantas

The Qantas Airbus A330 Business Class cabin is a staple of the airline’s east-west transcontinental and Asia routes. I’m very familiar with it. I love how spacious the seat is, and it’s easy to store my various gadgets along the side console.

Our flight to Singapore was a leisurely five hours. The crew were in no rush, taking almost three hours to complete the long lunch service. I quite enjoyed the updated menu, which included dishes such as Korean-style pork belly skewers and a beef fillet with wasabi butter.

Singapore Airlines

Our remaining three long-haul flights were on Singapore Airlines, and these were all excellent. We both had a particular craving for comfort Asian food, so the ‘Book the Cook’ service in Business Class was greatly appreciated.

On the flight to Johannesburg, I ordered the Singapore-style prawn noodle soup while my wife chose the char siu wonton noodles. Look at that serving! It might be ‘cheap’ hawker food, but it’s a treat to satisfy your cravings at 35,000 feet.

On the flight back from South Africa, I requested a honeymoon cake to surprise my wife with. The cabin crew put a lot of effort into presenting it beautifully, including two flutes of Champagne and a dry ice ‘candle’.

Final words

Our trip to South Africa is one I’ll cherish for many years to come. However, this overview is only the tip of the iceberg.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of this series – I want to take you deeper into the rich and vibrant country that is South Africa.