Flights to Africa With Amazing Business Class Award Pricing

by Gary Leff

Royal Air Maroc is launching Miami – Casablanca service in April of next year. The flight will be operated 3 times a week with a Boeing 787. I believe this will be Miami’s only non-stop flight to Africa.

Here’s why you care. Business class awards are really easy to get, and really cheap, using miles you probably already have. And their business class seats are fully flat.

Royal Air Maroc currently flies to New York JFK, Washington Dulles, and Montreal using Boeing 787s.

The only way to search Royal Air Maroc award availability online is to sign up for the airline’s frequent flyer account and then search on their website. You don’t need miles in your account. But the website is really clunky. I don’t usually bother because,

  • Award space is usually available for two passengers
  • So I just call assuming it’s available

Etihad allows one-way redemptions and charges just 44,000 points each way in business class for any flight that’s over 2000 miles. So the price is the same for all four of Royal Air Maroc’s transatlantic offerings.

You can include a connection beyond Casablanca without spending additional miles, since this is already the most miles Etihad Guest charges. And by the way Etihad infant award tickets (lap child) on Royal Air Maroc cost 10% of the miles of the adult itinerary.

Iberia lets you redeem Avios for travel on Royal Air Maroc. If your Iberia account has had activity in it and has been open 90 days you can transfer British Airways Avios to Iberia. Or you can transfer directly into Iberia from American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Here’s the redemption table:

Because this is Iberia the Royal Air Maroc mentions Royal Jordanian. Don’t worry, the Royal Jordanian chart mentions S7 Airlines..

New York, Washington Dulles, and Montreal flights are 100,000 miles roundtrip for business class. This new Miami flight is over 8000 miles roundtrip so would run 150,000 miles.


Copyright: zhukovsky / 123RF Stock Photo

Whether redeeming Iberia Avios or Etihad Guest points you’ll pay fuel surcharges, which are currently running $115 each way for transatlantic business class awards.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Hi Gary;

    Great news! I’ll be going to Morocco via Nice, booked LAX-MAD-NCE using Iberia Avios, and then did Eithad miles on Air Marco NCE-FEZ. I was surprised at how easy it was to book it, the new Etihad Guest partner desk seemed really knowledgeable (I read some horror stories about the older desks).

    By the way, I didn’t book Air Maroc using IB Avios because the miles are not refundable on IB partner awards (just the taxes). Might want to warn folks when you mention booking it with Avios.

  2. Just to be clear, does this mean you can use 44,000 Etihad miles to go from US – Casablanca – Nairobi as one ticket, all in business? Has anyone booked this and knows what taxes and fees would be like for such a ticket?

    It looks like that is a route that Royal Air Maroc flies but I can’t find any results for it in Google Flights.

  3. Royal Air Maroc is very know by their horrible service on the air and in the ground so I would warn falls to use their miles somewhere else where they can get more valuable experience.

  4. Awards on RAM may be cheap but you will absolutely get what you pay for with RAM and Casablanca, or more likely you’ll get even less. If you took 20 of United’s most disinterested and hostile cabin and ground staff and put them unto jobs at RAM they would be fired within weeks for being too helpful to customers, true story.

  5. Gary, what is the business case for RAM to open Casablanca to Miami? I live in Miami, but am unaware of a large Moroccan community here and I feel like there are better Mediterranean/ME based connecting hubs to fly to like LIS MAD DOH IST. Not complaining as RAM give me another option to go to Africa, but just very curious.

  6. @Nicholas – Another option with amazing business class award pricing is Turkish – one-way 49,000 from North America to Nairobi. Just booked ORD-IST-NBO by transferring Citi Thank you points to TK S&M program.

Comments are closed.