Oneworld member Qatar Airways is offering cheap tickets to the South African city of Johannesburg. Prices start at only €415 from Oslo, but you can depart from many other European cities at similar prices, such as from Dublin for €441. One of the advantages of flying with Qatar Airways is that 25 kg of luggage is included.
Qatar Airways offers very generous Corona goodwill policies. If you can’t travel as planned, you can simply cancel the flights for free. You’ll then be refunded the full price. Alternatively, you can decide to get a voucher with 10% more value. Finally, you can also rebook the flights for free for up to 2 years after the ticket was issued (fare difference may apply).
Worldwide travel restrictions are in place to slow the spread of Covid-19. We strongly recommend gathering detailed information about the travel and quarantine restrictions that apply to your desired origin and destination.
A good start is the International Air Transport Association (IATA) website. It provides current updates on a country’s immigration policies. Even better, the Covid-19 Travel Regulations Map is one of the most useful tools you can find.
You can fly anytime until May, as long as you fly on flights that take place Monday through Friday. You can’t fly in November and December, though.
Departures for less than €500 are available from:
- Oslo: NOK 4,354 (~€372)
- Dublin: €441
- Helsinki: €441
- Rome: €447
- Paris: €489
- and more…
After flying roughly six hours to Doha, you’d get on an Airbus A350 and fly for eight hours to Johannesburg – not the most direct way, but at least you get to bring luggage and will enjoy quite a good service.
We expect further shakeups in the airline industry over the following months. Some services might be cancelled, aircraft changed or downgraded. The schedule we describe may very well change.
Search & Book
This deal will expire on August 22, 2021. You can fly from Monday through Friday, as long as you respect a minimum stay requirement of 7 days. You can fly during the following travel periods:
- August 2 – December 9
- December 29 – April 8
- April 16 – July 15
You can search for the exact availability on Google Flights, or simply use our search form above, which will redirect you to Qatar’s website.
Why is booking with an airline better than with an online travel agency?
More often than not, online travel agencies offer lower fares than airlines do. We still recommend booking with the airlines directly. There are two main reasons for that:
Better Customer Service
In case any problems like delays, cancellations or missed connections arise, you can communicate directly with the airline. The airline has to take care of you because you have a contract with them.
If a travel agency issues your ticket, you may have to reach out to them first. You also depend on your OTA to forward information like flight changes instead of receiving them directly from the airline. In many cases, you may get a prime exhibition of responsibility shifting rather than problem-solving.
This especially applies to premium tickets. You don’t want to spend more than €1,000 to wind up with some budget OTA’s telephone hotline in case anything goes wrong.
Baggage and Other Fees
Economy fares not including hold luggage are industry standard by now. In most cases, travel agencies charge much higher baggage fees than the airlines themselves. If bags are not included in your fare, airlines are often the cheaper alternative.
This also applies to other things like food services, insurances or priority treatment. In almost all cases, you pay less for additional amenities when booking on the airlines’ website.
Mileage
The tickets are issued in booking class O, meaning that you’d roughly get (based on a roundtrip from Oslo):
- 6,958 Avios + 64 Qpoints on Qatar Privilege Club
- 3,478 Avios + 80 Tier Points on British Airways Executive Club
- 3,478 Avios + 360 Elite Points on Iberia Plus
- 3,478 Miles on American AAdvantage
- 3,478 Miles on Alaska Mileage Plan
- 3,478 Award Miles on Bangkok Airways FlyerBonus
- 3,478 Points on Finnair Plus
- 3,478 Points on JetBlue TrueBlue
- 3,478 Award Miles on LATAM Pass
- 3,478 Points + 20 Elite Points on Malaysia Airlines Enrich
- 3,478 Miles on MEA Cedar Miles
- 3,478 Miles on Royal Air Maroc Safar Flyer
- 3,478 Miles on Royal Jordanian Royal Club
- 3,478 Miles on SriLankan FlySmiLes
- 3,478 Award Miles on Oman Air Sindbad
The Qatar Privilege Club is probably the best option to credit these flights.
Information & Tips for Johannesburg
Johannesburg has 9,6 million inhabitants and is the largest city and most important business and financial center in Africa south of the Sahara. The city is well connected to Europe by air, flights for under 500€ (round trip) are becoming increasingly more common.
Best Time to Travel
The best times to visit Johannesburg are during fall (March – May) and during spring (September – Novemver). Temperatures are warm but pleasant and rainfall is comparatively rare.
From the Airport to the City
One possibility is taking the Gautrain, a type of local commuter rail. A trip to the city center takes about 25 minutes and costs approximately 12€. Taking a cab or an Uber runs you about 18€ to 24€.
→ All Dealz for Johannesburg
Cover Picture: Photo by Clodagh Da Paixao on Unsplash
Comments (2)
Thanks for the info. This seems to be a recurring issue with Qatar, problems with Seat Reservations and last-minute equipment change.
Beware of seat reservations and upgrades when booking with multiple travelers, even for Privilege Club Platinum status; Qatar Airways is being inconsistent and uncooperative:
Here’s what happened to me: I booked a trip to Southern Africa, economy, for 3 people. As a Privilege Club Platinum member, I was able to reserve seats for all 3 travellers free of charge, which I was very pleased about. Since I was able to redeem my QCredits for a business upgrade, I was able to do that successfully for one leg of the trip. The nasty surprise: the booking is then split, meaning my companion travellers received their own booking number. I was made aware of this in the course of the upgrade request and as a precaution I called Qatar Airways twice to ask what would happen to the seat reservations of my 2 companion travellers. I was assured that the existing seat reservations remain in place. Only in the case of a desired change, these would be subject to a fee because I am no longer in the same booking as a Privilege Club Platinum member. So far so good. Therefore, I did the upgrade, we got 2 different bookings, the seat reservations remained.
Then the bad surprise a few weeks later: for the flight VIE-DOH the flight schedule was changed by 1.5 hours and the aircraft was changed from A350 to B787. It came as it had to come: the seat reservations of the companion passengers were GONE. But not all, but only from those 3 flights that remained UNCHANGED. On the flight VIE-DOH the seats remained reserved.
A subsequent call to the Qatar hotline brought nothing: the system does not provide for free seat reservations; any restoration of the original seat reservations would be subject to a charge (approx. Euro 200!). A complaint on the Qatar website has also been unsuccessful so far. The argument: after the split of the two reservations, the system automatically deletes the seat reservations for the fellow passengers, since they would have no status and therefore no free seats. But this is total non-sense, because firstly, the seat reservations remained after the split, only when the 1st flight was changed, it came to the deletion and secondly exactly the changed flight was not affected by the cancellation of the seats, but only the 3 unchanged flights.
What remains: despite assurance of the airline that already booked seats remain, these were deleted. The airline refuses with inconclusive arguments to restore the reservations. I find this procedure extremely unfriendly to the customers. If Qatar Airways does not finally agree, I must advise every Privilege Club status holder not to make a similar booking with several passengers and then upgrade only for themselves, because the other passengers lose any advantages of the joint booking.