Frequent Flyer Friend
Categories : Africa, Personal, Travel, Uganda |
A few weeks back I was complaining about how difficult it is to use frequent flyer points. At the time I was completely unable to find a way to get to Johannesburg and back using my Qantas points. Not long after that I downloaded a little program that’s been siting on my desktop ever since - Frequent Flyer Friend. This nifty program automatically searches daily to see if tickets become available on the flights you want. When it finds flights it flashes up a message and sends you an email.
Since I installed it the results have been consistently negative - no flights… until today. A big smiley face flashed up on my desktop saying a flight back to Australia from Johannesburg was available. Sadly the flight I originally wanted to take to Jo’burg (which was available 3 weeks ago) is no longer there - but I found one 3 days later.
So I now have succesfully booked flights using my award points to get to Africa and back in October for the Watoto medical team mission in Uganda. The flights aren’t perfect for a couple of reasons, but at least they are better than having to pay the full cost (the money I’ve saved could more than pay for a VG stratocaster, for example…) First imperfection is that I get there 2 days later than I want to and I leave to come back 2 days earlier than I want - but it still gives me a solid 10 days in Kampala. Secondly the return flight is not to Perth, but to Sydney! So I’ll have to fly over Perth, to the other side of Australia and then catch a flight back from Sydney to Perth that day. And it cost me an 20,000 points more than if I had been able to fly directly back to Perth.
I’ll keep the Frequent flyer friend running and if better flights come up I can always ring Qantas and change my booking. But at least for the time being I have locked in some flights to get me there and back.
