Bumped up in Johannesburg
Monday, November 2nd, 2009We woke up at 6am, took a shower and checked out of our hotel. Then we hopped in a taxi to the airport. Our flight to Jo’burg was at 11:30am, but we decided it was better safe than sorry. It was 8am by the time we reached the airport. JFK has 7 different international terminals, and luckily for us we knew SAA’s in terminal 4, which is a new terminal. Check in was a breeze and we were off to the security gate.
Once at the airline gate, we tried to see if we could get bumped up to business class, we told the clerk it was our honeymoon and that we had lots of miles, but the clerk was unimpressed. She told us if we wanted bump up that it would cost us an additional $1050 each! We boarded the plane and saw that just about every row of the middle section was empty. So, we were really glad we didn’t bump up. These were nice seats!
The plane took off right on time and before we knew it, we were looking over all ocean for the next 12 hours, well 14 if you include the total flight time. We both were dreading this long flight, but SAA’s Airbus was a very comfortable airplane. So, our flight went by very nicely. An hour into our flight they were already passing out lunch, we could either pick chicken or beef, there were no vegetarian meals. The meal was very tasty and fulfilling.
When at the airport, we were picked up by the hotel van where we were booked for an entire 2 weeks. We had a hard time picking one of the luxury hotels Johannesburg has to offer its visitors, but when we arrived and checked in, we couldn’t believe our luck. The hotel was exquisite and we got bumped up to a honeymoon suite (yes, we used that ploy again), and we weren’t charged extra! Actually, that was one of the coolest things that happened to us during our stay in Jo’burg. So, here’s a plug for this hotel. They deserve it.
