Flight Arrangements
This is bit early since we aren't planning on going until 2015 (doing Alps this year), but just out of curiosity I was looking at flight info to/from Africa (using Delta's site and Travelocity.) We let Tauck make our flight arrangements for England, Scotland, Wales this past summer and everything was fine, but I booked our flights to Munich.
If we can swing it, we might try Business Class again for the Tanzania/Kenya Safari trip. Airfares seem to be all over the place. In Tauck's favor, payment is delayed, they have lenient change and refund policies, and claim to offer "significant savings on Business Class airfare on select flights." That wasn't the case for our flights to/from Munich which is why I made my own arrangements. Though Delta will have had my money many months early, it was actually nice, psychologically speaking, breaking the payments up into an early airfare payment and later tour balance payment, though I guess I could start paying Tauck early too.
I don't know if we have enough Delta miles to reduce the fair much, but hopefully after this next trip we'll have enough to save some, so I would like to stay with Delta (or partner KLM,) especially since our closest airline hub is Atlanta, Delta's home base.
From reading various posts it appears most Tauck travelers depart Nairobi in the late evening (on Kenyan or British AL?). The Delta/KLM flight leaves Nairobi in the AM before we get there.
So with that rather long bit of background, has anyone flown Business Class- US to Arusha/Nairobi to US? What were your experiences? Comments? Recommendations? Best fares, carriers, shortest layovers, etc., etc. Would it be worth my while to see a travel agent?
