My golden rule is when I now my travel dates I get the tickets. I am a firm believer in a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. OK, sometimes , rarely, an offer may come along that shaves a few bob off what I have paid but this is many times compensated by price hikes.

With all the current brouhaha about Oil prices and Fare increases do you really feel lucky?

I cannot speak for over the pond but from Europe it should cost $1,000 or so FRA or LGW to WDH on Air Namibia non stop flight. AN have family links with Lufthansa so routeing through FRA from Mid West US should seem right. NO idea on prices.

OR go via Capetown or J'burg direct from US and then WDH is just an hours hop north/west.

Europe to Jburg is quite competitive so bargains are there to be had.

June is nice in Nambia and not quite peak travel times but to recap, I would get the tix now.

I think telephoning Air Nambia reservations pays off with perhaps a 'special offer' on J class for early bookers.

Hello

We paid $2,250 per ticket (including taxes) - from Washington DC to Windhoek. We bought in April for travel in August 2008. And we used a conventional (not sure if I can mentioned by name) website.

We watched flight prices via Kayak for several weeks before purchasing. The prices didn't fluctuate that much. The big cost difference is the number of stops and where you fly in/out of.

In the end, we ended up paying a bit more to fly directly to Jo'Burg from Washington DC and then change to a flight to Windhoek. The one stop flight is 25 hours and would have been 30-35 hours if we made a second stop in Europe. We couldn't afford the one stop leg for the trip home, so we fly through London and spend another 10 hours in transit. It's a long haul. The cost of the ticket for stops both ways in Europe was $1900.

Good luck!

Thanks for posting. And I think you have both confirmed my thoughts. Will buy sooner than later. Fuel prices, surcharges, taxes, etc. will only go up.

mfuwe -- a bird in the hand...yes! I grew up hearing that one a lot so I know that your advice must be good!

ide -- thanks for sharing the air tix price. We can make it to DC and hook-up with SAA to JNB. Our other option is flying via Frankfurt and having a day to roam around (almost like getting an extra mimi-vacation!) before connecting with Air Namibia.

Now...I need to stop waffling between "WOW! This is our most exciting trip yet!" and "Oh my gosh...we are CRAZY!"

In March of 2006 we paid $2450 round-trip Madison to Windhoek, changing planes in Frankfurt for July 2006 travel. This price also included a one-day layover in Frankfurt on the way home. Your price sounds very good if it's out of Madison.

We booked our flights for our trip in June/July only 18 days before our departure. The flight on Air Namibia LGW to WDH was only half full going out, 18 June and about a third full coming back,8 July. If this is repeated on every flight I would question how long they will continue operating on this route!

With regard to cost, the cheapest return fare I could obtain was through ebookers.com at 386 GBP. At the same time with Air Namibia direct they were quoting 606 GBP for the exact same flights.

I would suggest investigating booking your flights as two separate legs. US to London or Frankfurt, then LGW or Frankfurt to WDH.

Good Luck

The £606 quoted on Air Nambia booking site is for Fully flex/refundables. They do have cheaper versions but their website is not up to the job.

As to capacity I just checked my flights for 5th September. There are just 4 seats left. Ouch!

June is not quite peak season and could account for your empty seats.

Also check LTU flights from Munich and, I think, Dusseldorf. It turned out substantially cheaper than Air Namibia for us.

Well...we did it! Bought our tix for June (the long 16 hour flight from midwest to Washington DC to JNB to WDH). YIKES! Guess this means we're off to Namibia!!!! I just couldn't stand waiting anymore and I fear that prices will not go down (if they do go down substantially, we can cancel and rebook for a fee).

We booked through Richard at TravelSpark (on-line) and he found us a good price and was extremely prompt at returning e-mails (within 5 minutes most often). I would recommend him 110%.

Thanks to all who posted and now I will have a million other questions for all of the Namibia experts.