Hey everyone! I’m new to Points Hack and thrilled to know that there’s a community like this in Australia (I’ve been living in the US for the past two years where hacking is a very active area!). My dream trip is to go trekking with gorillas in Uganda or Rwanda. Anyone have any tips or insights on how we should book award flights to Africa from Australia? We’ve got points with Qantas, AMEX Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Appreciate any advice or pointers in the right direction! 
With your US points currencies, you have lots of options to get to africa. The quickest would likely be from Sydney to Johannesburg on Qantas and a separate ticket to Uganda or Rwanda. However, award space on this very special route rarely opens up so your next quickest and easiest option would be flying middle eastern carriers. Using your oneworld currencies (Qantas, Avios, etc), you could redeem on Qatar for Sydney to Kigali. Or consider getting to Asia and then flying one of the African airlines like South African and Ethiopian of which you could use United Airlines miles (from Chase) and other star alliance currencies.
1 Like
Thank you!! That’s super helpful
I’ve just booked flights MEL-SYD-JHB in J and added a Mango airline ticket to get to Zanzibar. Our travel agent looked at the Middle Eastern airline connections and Qantas ended up being the best for us. We’re trekking gorillas in Uganda next February.
Sounds like an amazing trip. Enjoy!
Thanks, that’s great! I just saw some bargain flights to South Africa as well so may actually work out better paying for this and trying to use points to upgrade.
Your trip sounds incredible!! I’m going in Feb too!