So I decided that I wanted to do the Rafiki Mini-missionary service. Now I needed to see if I could afford it. Humm… Let’s see if I can use my United MileagePlus miles. Having done of few frequent flyer (read: free) trips before, I thought I would give it a shot. For the last ten years or so, I’ve done research on how to get frequent flyer miles to travel free. When you’re a poor Christian school teacher, you have to be innovative. In 2013, I used points to fly to Budapest and return from Moscow. Yes, I had to pay a couple of bucks for the Venice to Moscow leg, but it wasn’t much.  Perhaps the best deal I’ve done was in 2011. I got British Airways credit card. Then, using the 100,000 miles given, I traveled to South America utilizing BA’s unlimited stopover rule. That trip was Los Angeles to Santiago (stop and stay for a week), Santiago to Easter Island (stop for a week), Easter Island to Lima (stay for three weeks), and Lima back to Los Angeles. Total airfare: $0.

Anyway, back to this trip. For Africa 2015, I looked-up each leg of the trip using United’s reward search engine. Each leg seemed to work except Cape Town to DC. Ok, what to do? I know, I’ll use United’s one free international stop-over and go to the World’s Fair in Milan for a couple of days. What do you know, it all worked. Booked the ticket. Total fare: $0. Thanks United!