I’m looking at booking a flight from the US to Johannesburg on United. Most connections are in Frankfurt or Munich. Switching to either Lufthansa or SA Air. My concern is traveling with guns and the connection!! I see Lufthansa charges $460 per gun!! Not sure if this is the case when it’s a connecting flight or what?? Any advice here???
I’m trying to use United because I have a large credit with them already and do most of my travels with them or Star Alliance. Any advice or tips would be a great help!!
Thank you!!
The money is not the real concern...you've got much bigger worries than using some Star miles and paying $460 for your guns. If this process seems anywhere from easy to moderately difficult to you, you are SERIOUSLY underestimating how screwed up things are going to get with what seems like a doable process.
As
@sierraone mentioned, you need a travel expert with guns.
Lori at Travel Express or Steve at Travel With Guns are your best hopes.
What they know and you do not are the answers to these questions:
-Are there any arms embargoes intra EU route?
-Do you need special permits?
-Are you allowed to get the guns and switch carriers?
-Do you have to hire a gun agent to secure the guns and bring them between carriers?
-Do you have to book with certain carriers on ONE ticket to allow the guns allowed at all?
-Are guns used for safaris allowed on these soils?
-Are you required to put the ammo with the guns or separate?
-What kind of locks are required, some must be TSA "breakable", some are forbidden and must be unbreakable. Some you must have a key, some they must have the key too.
-Are 4457 permits enough to serve as licenses and are yours new enough to be considered valid by foreign powers?
-SAPS clearance?
-Are your guns legal intra-route?
-Are safaris allowed to be facilitated or transported by your carriers en route?
As a guy with a half-million miles on certain carriers, my advice to you is to throw away all your credits and buy tickets outright. I've never had the miles on One World or Star ever create a LEGAL solution where you can get from point A to Africa. In fact, the only miles that ever helped me at all were AMEX miles I used to upgrade emirates tickets that were already booked and permitted properly.
5 Africa trips so far via RSA to Zim...one guns lost debacle, one ammo didn't make it until the last second near debacle. Total time spent planning flight logistics...easily hundreds of hours.
Pessimistically, realistically yours,
Rookhawk