Carol,

I deal with many South African skippers. The "main man" for discount airfare from the US to SA is David at Premier Travel in Phila PA (800) 545-1910 -- [email]info@premiertours.com.[/email] I have used him and gotten $900 RT from ATL - CPT.

Having done the trip several times, it is worth extra money to go direct, it is a long flight, but less airtime and layover time and less chance of connections getting buggered.

On the ATL-CPT flight remember every other day it stops CPT first then JHN. So plan your flight well so you don't have to sit on the ground in CPT. There are a lot of hotels around JHN also a Large Ceasars Casino. J-berg is pretty desolate area, so hopefully you can head South after your game drive into the Garden Route or Cape Town. Game drives are fun, but after about 4 days you have "seen it, done it".

When in SA watch out for pricing bait and switch deals. The pricing is setup for #1 SA passport, #2 African passports and highest price #3 US and EU passports.

Hopefully the exchange rate will improve, things are still cheap, but not how they have been.