If so, how bad was clearing Customs? I've stood in line until I thought I had grown roots. The last few times (before Covid) I did the Meet and Greet service. Is it still bad?
I flew through JNB on December 13 on my way to Namibia and back through JNB on January 2. Never cleared customs into SA but can offer an observation that the airport was mostly deserted. Much quieter than other times I've been through. So I apologize for not being completely in answer to your question but at least this time our luggage was not ransacked while transiting through the baggage area. Namibia and Botswana were easy-peasy (other than the requisite negative Covid test) so I'd hope that SA might be better than in the past.
Are you calling Passport Control, customs? I've been held up there for a bit of time as well. Haven't had anyone ask me about what was in my bags for many years. My last trip was last August / September.
I was through there back in September, which may be further back than your interest. My party used a meet and greet service which I think is some of the best money you can spend. Passport control was no big deal, and the meet and greet help in getting our firearms at the police station made that smooth and relatively fast.
I hate dealing with the SA Customs process (passport control). So I'll spend the extra bucks to bypass the nonsense. It is the worst part of entering SA.
I was unaware that there is a service to bypass Passport Control.
I have used meet and greet to speed up clearing firearms and it is well worth the price.
You don't bypass the entry process. The meet and greet simply walks you to the line typically used for diplomats and flight crews. It's a 3 minute ordeal vs a 45 minutes or longer cueue.
Which meet and greet do you use?
I have used the Afton Safari Lodge service five or six times without any problems -
https://www.aftonsafarilodge.com/services/ I notice they have gone up quite a bit on their VIP service - now $120.00 USD.
Seems I always have a layover at JNB before connecting flights so I generally stay at the City Lodge. Pretty simple process except one must go back through security to the connecting flight and that typically sucks.