Air New Zealand Air Points - Nelson to Coolangatta

As most of you are better than travel agents . . .

Can anyone recommend an Air NZ route from Nelson to Coolangatta? Which parts to fly and which to drive et c?

NSN-AKL-BNE. There's a train that departs BNE airport for the Gold Coast regularly - takes about 70 minutes, from memory. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

For starters I would fly across the ditch rather than try to drive - may get a bit wet!

Cheapest would be Air NZ to Auckland, Hamilton or Christchurch and then Freedom Air to Gold Coast. Obviously no miles on Freedom Air. Looking at the schedules Auckland is out. Hamilton or Chch both options - Chch should be easier with the regular Nelson-Chch flights.

On Air NZ only, the best you can do is to Brisbane and then drive. The early Nelson-Auckland flight arrives a couple of hours before Auckland-Brisbane. But the return doesnt work well. Otherwise via Chch with a few/several hours stopover each way. Hey it gives you plenty of time to go into Chch city.

Hope this helps.

Just to add to Kiwi Flyer's summary, the daily NZ8376 service NSN-AKL will connect with NZ135 to BNE every day except Sundays, when it leaves a little later.

The train from BNE airport to the Gold Coast I mentioned is here: http://www.airtrain.com.au/

Thanks to both of you for the info!

A tiny aside airnzboy - does that AKL-BNE sector carry much by way of award availability on a regular basis? We want 2 award C tickets plus will pay the fare for an infant, and it'll be sometime in Sep / Oct but we'll be booking by the end of June.

Just any old kind of stab in the dark about our chances would be great . . .

Dave

kiwibigdave,

AKL-BNE has a large number of reward seats allocated - however, there is huge demand for them - I would guess Brisbane would be one of the most popular destinations to redeem airpoints to.

However, it's a 747, you're booking well ahead, but remember school holidays are on between 17 September and 4 October, so try and avoid those dates. In addition, on Fridays and Saturdays during these months there's a second daily service operated by the A320, so planning for travel on Friday and Saturday doubles your chances of getting a seat!

Hope these hints come in handy http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif



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All my posts are my own personal opinions and experiences and in no way represent the opinon of my employer.

I'll second airnzboy's train advice. It leaves from right outside the terminal and is clean, air conditioned and saves all the fuss of renting a car (especially if you need a capsule for the wee one) and more over it is hard to get lost.