Nobody would accuse SAA of having a sense of humour, certainly not
intentionally. However their web-site is like a Monty Python sketch of
the Optimistic Travel Agent.

I wanted to see if my air miles would enable our daughter to visit us
from Paris. I didn't expect that they would as I avoid travelling with
SAA unless there is absolutely no other alternative as they are so
incredibly resourceful at finding new ways of screwing things up.
Still, I had a few minutes, so I gave it a try.

At first it was promising, they did have a screen where you could ask
to fly from and to various destinations. Unlike the paying menus where
you have a choice of whether your dates are fixed or variable - so you
can let their search engine see if there is a cheaper route a day or
two before or after, here they had only one button - 'fixed dates'.
Clearly SAA management want to make it as difficult as possible for
you to use your air miles, so they force you to select the trip a day
at a time until there is a free slot - that should prevent most casual
users from finding a way to spend air miles! So much I was expecting.
The South African bureaucratic mentality that believed that a name
change could alter the nature and appeal of the Secret Police (they
changed the name every few months, it seemed) clearly was alive and
well when SAA decided to name their user torture department 'Customer
Services', was having its fiendish way with the 'Loyalty' programme -
are there genuinely any loyal SAA customers who have alternative
choices???

I was also expecting them to wipe the form clean each time to force me
to re-enter all the details - to minimise the chance of me having the
persistence to find a likely date.

What I wasn't expecting was their delightfully optimistic next step.
They removed my choice of cities 'Paris' - 'Cape Town', return, and
replaced it with 'Durban' - 'Bloemfontein' return. You can see their
idea. After an hour or so of frustration they were hoping that their
customers would think; 'Sod it, OK, wanted to fly from Paris to Cape
Town, but, why not pay to fly to Durban so I can get a trip to
Bloemfontein on air miles instead - that should be just as handy as a
trip from Paris to Cape Town - and we'd have even more time to enjoy
SAA's brilliant in-flight GI tract challenge and know more of their
flight cancellation and baggage disappearance schemes - who could
possibly turn down such an invitation!'.

Either that, or they were hoping that most people wouldn't notice the
change and would use up their air miles on the Durban to Bloem route,
then turn up at the airport with their booking number, hoping to fly
to Paris or from Rome, or similar, only for the Customer Service
people to be able to tell them, with delight; 'your ticket only goes
from Durban to Bloem, for just R60,000 upgrade you can get the routing
you like....'

SAA would make a brilliant study for why state ownership is a bad idea
(SA has, of course, plenty of these living fossils as case studies -
Eskom, Telkom, Parliament, Spoornet and so forth). How on earth is it
possible for there to be any South African commies?

I seem to remember there was a sketch along this sort of line once -
'Why sir, Monte Carlo flights are all booked - why not try this
special to Slough?'.