You should send your credit card company a thank you note for saving you $15k.
Was American, where my points are, but not enough for this trip, and yes, I should thank my CC company. But a friend told me try Club World on British, which is business class, not first & I think it will work.
Yeah, international business class is pretty plush.
Today’s international business class is nicer than first class was 20-30 years ago.
To find good deals on flights, check out http://google.com/flights. It searches all the airlines for the flight. The default class of service is Economy, but you can change that to Business or First.
It sounds like you have a solution, but another option is to break the flight up into multiple independent flights and pay for each separately with different cards. If you have have multiple cards, you could use one card for the outgoing flight and a different card on the return flight.
And speaking of CC and international travel, be sure to contact your card ahead of time and tell them you will be traveling to these countries. If not, they may suspect fraud when it’s used in another country and lock it. Trying to clear that up while in a different country will put a damper on your vacation. It’s also a good idea to take multiple cards with you and store them separately. If one gets lost or stolen, you can use the other one.
Excellent! I love the fact you saved a bunch.
Totally right. If he’s staying overnight at a couple of locations (New York, London), he could even book on different airlines for the different flight legs, and get the cheapest options for each leg. Should not matter, as he’ll just head back to the airport and go to a different check in counter.
Thanks for clarifying. I thought it might be $30K, but I’ve legit never heard of an airline ticket in that range and didn’t even know if it was possible. Glad it worked out for you, and that you saved 15K or more by switching to Club World.
Also, if it’s in advance, any chance this can be resolved by going to an airlines ticket sales desk and paying directly with a money order? A bit old school but some airlines still have them and it could help get around credit limits assuming you have the funds.
Have you contacted any travel agents or airline companies directly to price compare? My fathe-in-law travels to Africa regularly and those rates are shocking!
I was going to suggest the same thing. It might seem a bit old school in the days of internet ticket sales, but travel agents do still exist, and this sort of international travel is the sort of thing where travel agents can still be useful. And they sometimes have access to fares that you and I can’t find on the internet.
For first class? Not necessarily. From Chicago I’m getting quotes of $13K-$15k round trip first class. Note the OP says they found tickets for half the price, so they’re finding the same as me.
Absolutely - for first class I can absolutely see the price being high. But I’m not trusting the first number I come across without seeing if I can lower it by even a small fraction.
It sounds like the OP figured it out, but this was not obvious to me before I called the bank. Their web site and even their automated phone system said there was a daily (IIRC) $15k limit. I needed ~$22k. I talked to an actual person though and they told me the limit was essentially meaningless and that $22k wasn’t a problem. It’s possible they have some percentage limit in place and that it would have been declined if it was like 99% of my funds.
No business class fare? Last time I checked, business class passengers arrive the same time as first class passengers. Cheaper, too.
Yeah, I’m seeing biz class (which is quite plush flying international) at low $5000’s, SFO to JNB. I’d bet a multi way ticket is not that much more.
EDIT: confirmed: biz class $6700 SFO->NYC->London->Johannesburg->SFO, four days in each city.
I used Kayak, give it a try.
$10K for us both, Phx, London, Jburg, Durban and back, business class, HAPPY!! Business class, British Air called Club, with bed/seats. Within my credit limit. Now on to look at Global Entry. Will the sins of our pasts haunt us??
The first time I did this, Visa and Mastercard thanked me for the information and entered the information into my file to avoid any issues. The AmEx representative thanked me for the information but told me “You don’t need to notify us. At American Express, we expect our members will travel.”
I’ve been all over the world for work, and never notified any of my card companies. The only time I ever had an issue was in Louisiana, of all places. I tried to get some personal cash from the ATM before heading to the airport and THAT cancelled my debit card.