A holiday fit for a president

Regardless of whether you’re the most frequent of flyers or regular of returnees to a hotel, you love having your loyalty acknowledged … and there’s no better recognition of brand-devotion than an upgrade.

Most people are thrilled to be offered a seat at no extra cost to themselves in front of the curtain on the Airbus or being bumped from skedonk to Beemer by a car rental firm. Someone, somewhere (we believe) deems it proper to stroke our plebeian egos. Some people get upgraded more often than others.

A mate of mine regularly posts pictures of the pre-flight bubbly Emirates serves its business class travellers. He books economy but because he shuttles between Dubai and Kabul so often (and has been doing so for so long) that I don’t think Emirates dares not upgrade him. He’s probably got more route miles under his butt than the aircraft has under its wings. Still, he’s never blasé about an upgrade, so all credit to him.

Quite apart from the fact that we travel journalists have trips chucked at us like monkeys get pelted with peanuts at a zoo*, I’ve enjoyed some rather spectacular freebies in my time. Years ago, I was ping-ponging between Cape Town and Johannesburg on British Airways at least three times a month. After 18 months, I had sufficient frequent-flier points to redeem for a business class return flight to London.

The aircraft on the return leg was almost empty and I was seated with a good view of the first-class galley. I asked the rather swish and pink-faced flight attendant what red wine he was serving the mucky-mucks. Chateauneuf-duPape, he responded, and poured me a glass. He must have appreciated the look of rapture on my face and kept the refills coming. Eventually he just opened the bottles and left them in front of me.

Overindulgence in one of the world’s best wines was, however, utterly eclipsed some years later thanks to a chance invite to a National Sea Rescue Institute charity dinner in Cape Town. The event was hosted by Ernest and Gaye Corbett, owners of Tintswalo Atlantic, the Chapman’s Peak Drive lodge that was almost razed by veldfires in 2015. I was seated between them and we got on … well, like a house on fire!

Swimming pool bushbuck. Picture: Jim Freeman

“You must visit our safari lodge in Mpumalanga,” he said. I landed at Hoedspruit, collected a dinky little Chevvy Spark and headed to the 23 000ha Manyeleti private game reserve (proclaimed in 1963 as a reserve for “nonWhites”) which borders on the Kruger National Park immediately below the Orpen gate. Its other neighbours are Sabi Sands and Timbavati. Fences between the reserves have been dropped to allow animals to roam freely but visitors do not have reciprocal traversing rights.

I was greeted at Tintswalo by a harried lodge manager. My heart sank. A flustered boss at a five-star facility means something really bad is happening. A group of American guests had arrived earlier in the day, she said, and a couple (though not in the conjugal sense) who’d booked shared accommodation subsequently insisted on suites to themselves. This meant all the suites – and it was a suites-only lodge – were occupied.

Would I mind terribly, she asked, if they put me up in the R48K/night presidential suite for my two-night visit? The suite was the size of a house, with two enormous ensuite bedrooms separated by a lounge/dining room in which you could park a bus. It sported a private boma with plunge pool that later doubled as a waterhole/ pond for a bushbuck ewe, numerous smaller mammals and lots of birds.

Moreover, it came with an exclusive-use chef, butler and housekeeper. Included in the price, the manager added, was a fully stocked bar and temperature-controlled selection of fine wines. What was a poor boy to do? I gave the staff the night off and cracked a chilled bottle of Grey Goose vodka …

*Don’t believe it for a minute!

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.