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#938331 by NYLON
12 Sep 2017, 10:33
I'm looking at JNB-AMS r/t in J.

VS (787)/BA via LHR is coming around £2k.

But Etihad (A330) via AUH is £1.2k.

Is Etihad the obvious option here? I'm not starving for VS or BA miles/points at the moment.

But where to credit the Etihad miles (Etihad matched my VS status, so I am Etihad Gold)?
#938346 by CommanderB
12 Sep 2017, 15:07
EY is probably the obvious option on both quality and price.

If I didn't care about miles and the Clubhouse, i'd be permanently flying on a Gulfstream.

I guess credit the miles to EY too...?
#938347 by honey lamb
12 Sep 2017, 17:03
I haven't flown Etihad so can't comment on the quality of service but I have done a similar routing but from DUB rather than AMS with a stop in the UAE before flying on to South Africa. What I can comment on is flying 2x7/8hours flights back-to-back on a ME carrier versus a 1 hour flight followed by a 10.5 hour flight on BA/VS and I know which I prefer. I found the second leg of the ME carrier both tiring and boring. I was tired getting off the first leg and really didn't relish the second leg - and I usually love flying. With the BA/VS option, the first leg is so short that it really doesn't knock a feather out of you and after the second leg, at least your journey is over and you're not having to find your way around some ME airport.

Next week, having done DUB-DXB-DUR a couple of times, I'm flying ORK-LHR-JNB-DUR. I've one extra flight but I know I'll arrive earlier, quicker and more refreshed on this trip rather than the other.
#938349 by pjh
12 Sep 2017, 20:40
honey lamb wrote:I haven't flown Etihad so can't comment on the quality of service but I have done a similar routing but from DUB rather than AMS with a stop in the UAE before flying on to South Africa. What I can comment on is flying 2x7/8hours flights back-to-back on a ME carrier versus a 1 hour flight followed by a 10.5 hour flight on BA/VS and I know which I prefer. I found the second leg of the ME carrier both tiring and boring. I was tired getting off the first leg and really didn't relish the second leg - and I usually love flying. With the BA/VS option, the first leg is so short that it really doesn't knock a feather out of you and after the second leg, at least your journey is over and you're not having to find your way around some ME airport.

Next week, having done DUB-DXB-DUR a couple of times, I'm flying ORK-LHR-JNB-DUR. I've one extra flight but I know I'll arrive earlier, quicker and more refreshed on this trip rather than the other.


+1 to that. I'd much rather have done one short / one long leg on our South Africa trip last year, and not just because the hard product EK offering on the DXB->South Africa legs is far less impressive than the London->DXB leg. But ultimately for me it was price wot won it.
#938361 by NYLON
13 Sep 2017, 09:44
That's a very good point about the flight lengths.

If the two prices were closer, I'd have gone with VS/BA for sure. I was weighing up the options, but upon checking again today, the VS/BA fare had jumped up to £2.5k, and EY remained at £1.2k, so I booked EY. That's a pretty good deal, I think, for a J product from SA to EU, even if EY is going through similar 'enhancements' we're seeing elsewhere.

There was the occasional decent BA fare, btw, but my recent LHR-JNB trips on BA (A380s each time) have really not been good at all (shabby/stained seats, extremely slow service) so I was looking to avoid that routing.
#938385 by Linyilee
13 Sep 2017, 15:47
I'm currently in China and for the 1st time I decided to try Qatar as I started my trip in Brussels.
Lovely flight and cabin but how I hated getting off in Doha at midnight.
2.5 hours of waiting to get back on.
Pure hell and couldn't wait to put my bed down once on the HKG leg.
Back to a direct VS/CX for me next time.
#938405 by NYLON
14 Sep 2017, 10:17
I can imagine a connection must be tough at midnight!

The JNB-AMS EY connection in AUH is around 10 a.m. in both directions, with a very quick connection time, so I hope it won't feel too bad...
#938534 by gilly
19 Sep 2017, 21:15
Etihad is the only airline we have flown where a cabin crew (in J) went in and wiped down the toilet after every passenger had used it AND the toilet had a window. Superb service and great food.
Virgin Atlantic

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