This weekend I have been trying to finalise my flight bookings and the problem is the Dubai leg. This is a must do stop over as this is a 3 day exercise to open my new bank account and arrange my crypto off ramp. The plan was to do this part of the trip first and then fly on to the UK to visit my mother who is not well.
I had a price in my head of around R25K ($1.5) and boy was I way out and the cost without going flashy and basic economy was R52K or $3K per ticket. This is astronomically high and is just ridiculous and one of the reasons why I have avoided Emirates flights in the past. Not only is Dubai out of the way as when flying to Europe you are basically flying in a easterly direction away from your destination. A 10 hour direct flight becomes a 19 hour flight with a 4 hour stop over. Why anyone not needing to fly to Dubai uses this airline makes very little financial sense.
The crazy part is I can fly from Johannesburg return to Dubai and the price is R12K ($700) so the additional flight to the UK is where the big money is and is R40K or ($2.3K) for that leg of the trip. Why it is nearly 3.4 x more expensive is the crazy part.
If I book this Dubai trip as one trip and the UK trip later in October flying directly I can fly on a return ticket for as little as R11K ($600) and is a R30K saving ($1.7K) and makes more financial sense. I have no problem sitting in economy if I am saving $85 per hour over the 21 hour combined return flight times.
Airline flights have increased so much since covid and even since last year when I flew to Paris and the UK. At the time we priced Emirates and they were expensive, but not this expensive. What is worrying is if this price inflation of airline tickets continues at this rate then how can we afford to fly in 5 years time.
The Rand Dollar rate has not changed much over the last 12 months and can only imagine once it does start to depreciate how bad things will become. Mt brother in law is flying to the States in December on business and his ticket is R45K ($2.6K). The difference is this is being paid for by his company so this is a tax write off. Going forward this is the answer and why having a good accountant is vital as my entire trip would be paid for or at worst a 40% rate.
My mother will have to wait until October before I can visit which will save me enough to visit her maybe three more times just from these savings. Right now I have no choice and under time pressure to open a Dubai bank account as my UK account closes on the 6th October. Having the off shore bank account up and running this month knowing this has been sorted is what needs to happen first and I cannot justify $3K per ticket besides all the other costs.