World Cup - Travel Deals

You might think it’s too late to get to South Africa and see any of the World Cup games before the end of the tournament, since it’s already started. But the 2010 World Cup isn’t even a week old yet, and there are three weeks to go. Yes, this is a last minute trip of the first order, but how often do you get to experience a once-in-a-lifetime sporting event?

The World Cup only comes around every four years, but there will never be another like this one – the first on the African continent is making history, and it’s hard not to get caught up in the emotion of the games. No matter what team you support, the energy on the ground is contagious.

Now, just because it’s not technically too late to see some of the games doesn’t mean you can delay booking your trip any longer. We can help make your trip planning really easy, though, so your biggest concerns will be figuring out which outfits you have that coordinate best with the vuvuzela.

Just in time for the World Cup starting in South Africa – the first time the tournament has been held on the continent of Africa – JetBlue has announced a partnership with South African Airways. With this new partnership, which is effective as of tomorrow (May 12, 2010), travelers planning a trip from the United States and southern Africa will be able to book a trip on JetBlue and South African Airways with one transaction.

JetBlue’s base of operations is New York’s JFK Airport, and that’s the airport where all flights connecting to southern Africa will pass through, but if there’s an airport near you that has JetBlue service you’ll still be able to get from there to southern Africa on one ticket because of the new partnership. And of course for anyone who’s checking a bag, this means your bag will be checked all the way through to your southern Afican destination.

If you haven’t yet booked your trip to South Africa for the World Cup – and you’re still considering going to the tournament – a JetBlue/South African Airways flight is definitely worth considering. And incidentally, even if you’re not traveling to the World Cup, if you’re flying on JetBlue during the tournament you’ll be able to watch games on the airline’s free live TV channels.

To book the tickets, you’ll need to buy through South African Airways (either on their website, their reservations phone number, or by contacting a travel agent), but hopefully at some point JetBlue customers will be able to book directly with JetBlue as well.

>> See more JetBlue flight deals
>> See more about World Cup travel deals

Not long ago, we published a series of articles here packed with information about getting you to the World Cup in South Africa this year for as little money as possible. But most of that information was aimed at people who might be traveling from the North America to South Africa – and as we all know, soccer football is really more popular in other parts of the world.

So this week, we published a similar series of articles aimed at travelers from across the pond, as they say – and we put them on our UK-based site. We didn’t want you to miss them, though, if you’re not in the US and you’ll be going to South Africa for the World Cup this summer, so here are the links you’ll need to get to all the posts about getting to South Africa from Europe:

• World Cup Travel Deals from Europe
• How to Find Cheap World Cup Airfare to South Africa from Europe
• What UK Airports to Use for South Africa Flights
• What Airlines Fly from London to South Africa
• Should You Buy World Cup Travel Packages?

>> And, just in case you missed them, here’s the link to all the World Cup travel deals articles we published on this site a couple weeks ago.

So, you’re planning a trip to the World Cup in South Africa? You lucky, lucky person… I won’t pretend I’m not completely envious (especially since two of my coworkers are among the people going to the tournament), but I’ll also be really excited for you and the astoundingly cool experiences you’ll no doubt have there.

Not only that, I’ll help you save money on your travels to South Africa for the tournament. How’s that for service?

We’ve published a series of articles on this site that will help you make your World Cup trip a success, and to help you make sure it fits your budget, too. Consider this article your “table of contents” to all of those articles.

>> Need some last minute planning help? Here’s the place to go for last minute World Cup travel and ticket packages.

>> And if you’re looking for news and analysis of the tournament itself, then look no further than this World Cup blog. There’s a blog for every country who’s playing!

You don’t have to be a hard-core soccer fan (or football fan, depending on where you’re from) to be interested in attending a World Cup. It’s the most-watched sports event in the world, and in addition to being a great way to see a country at its celebratory best it’s also an ideal situation if you like mingling with people from all over the world in one place.

The upcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa is also an excellent excuse to visit a country with lots to do and see even if you’re not a sports nut.

But as is the case with any trips you’re planning, there’s some travel planning you’re going to want to do – and it’s even more important in this case when the country is going to be hosting (by some estimates) more than a million extra people during the tournament. So here are a few quick South Africa travel tips for the World Cup, and some links to find more handy travel information.

Budget travelers are always looking for ways to save money when they venture out into the world – and smart budget travelers know that sometimes booking a vacation package is the best way to do just that. Anytime there’s a big event – in this case, I’m talking about the World Cup – the travel industry comes out in force to provide more vacation package options than you can shake a stick at, and many of them look really tempting. But are they really the great deal the ads say they are?

Vacation packages make travel shopping easy, it’s true – you get everything booked for your trip in one fell swoop. Vacation prep, done and dusted. But they’re counting on you thinking like that instead of stepping back for a moment to compare package prices with what it would cost to book each piece of the deal individually. Unfortunately, as boring as this might sound, it’s exactly what you need to do to make sure you’re actually going to save money by booking the package.

In the end, if the convenience factor means more to you than the budget factor, then a package might still be the way to go regardless of the savings (or lack thereof) – but this is definitely something to be aware of when you’re shopping around.

>> The next World Cup events are: Women’s World Cup in 2011, Men’s World Cup in 2014

There are travel enthusiasts, and there are sports fans. Both can be evangelical about their passion, so you can probably imagine what happens when you combine the two. All it takes is a major sporting event to bring out the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) of these crowds – but the good news is that you don’t have to be both. A huge soccer fan or a travel junkie can appreciate the idea of going to South Africa for the World Cup in 2010, and the trip might make each group appreciate the other group as well!

One stumbling block on the road to South Africa, however, is that airfare to any of the World Cup cities isn’t cheap – and the prices are only going up between now and the tournament. Along with these other suggestions for how to find cheap airfare to South Africa for the World Cup, I wanted to talk about the idea of flying into alternate airports in a bit more detail – since there are nine host cities, there are more options to cover.

Often times when you’re flying into a major city, it’s a good idea to look at airports other than the main airport for that city in case one of the smaller area airports has cheaper flights. This isn’t always the case, but it’s almost always worth looking.

In South Africa, there are nine cities where World Cup games will be held, but not all of them present mutliple-airport options. In this article I’ll talk about the airports in some of the World Cup cities – which will be handy whether you’re looking for alternate airports to fly into or if you’re flying between cities in South Africa to attend games in multiple cities.