Star Alliance - Can't seem to book Air NZ flights on a RTW fare

Hello all, first post here, so be nice please! ;)

Am trying to book a RTW far using the star alliance website.

The rough route will be MEL-LAX-NYC-LHR-BKK-MEL. All Econ.

The trip will start late June and finish late July.

For the MEL-LAX leg when booking through the Star Alliance website, all I am offered is United. To be honest, I desperately trying to avoid United for the Australia US leg given the bad reviews. Ideally I'd like to use Air NZ for that leg, so I can also use their premium economy for that leg.

I even cheekily experimented, starting my journey in Auckland rather than Melbourne. All that is offered is a flight from Auckland to LAX, via Sydney or Melbourne! Something smells fishy.

Any ideas how to get Air NZ to come up on the itinerary? Or should I just go via a travel agent to book?

Many thanks.

Welcome to FT!
I'd suggest a travel agent. RTWs are complex creatures.

Hi - I've booked Star Alliance RTW several times with Air NZ - and they are brilliant! The Star Alliance RTW website is not, however, and often seems to miss the obvious Air NZ options -- as you've identified. The simple answer is to call Air NZ. I've found that they can do it efficiently over the phone, and don't keep you waiting very long compared t others. (And yes - avoid United!)

I'd agree. Give Air NZ a call and book it through them over the phone. They're great, I've booked all sorts of stuff through there call centre and they're very, very easy and friendly.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I indeed left it to a trave agent, who was more than able to bring up the right flights!

Might be you can try to book MEL - AKL and then AKL - LAX

And don't forget you should receive the 15% discount that is running until today....

You can write it as MEL-AKL-LAX on the *A website. Once the software sees that you don't have a stopover based on travel dates it will automatically correct this for fare and stopover count.

However, on the first attempt it may refuse to give you a connection within 24 hours. Annoying. What I did on my latest itin is that I actually forgot a segment and went back and added it.