Air New Zealand Air Points - bne to jfk - best route ?

I have been researching the best route to get to JFK and to earn the best mileage points. AirNZ BNE to LAX, then UA? LAX to JFK. Or Cathay BNE to JFK via Hong Kong. Wanting to fly business class for fully-flat seats. Last time I got caught out (before discovering flyertalk) and bought a ticket BNE to JFK (thru AirNZ) who booked me straight through on AirNZ BNE TO LAX AND UA from LAX to JFK. If I go through AirNZ I will stopover in LAX. How do I get the best price for business class from LAX to JFK and earn miles, or will I earn better miles with Cathay on BNE TO JFK route.

2 considerations:
- all business class beds are different (and some are much better than others). Nobody can agree which is better, there are some who think one type is better while others think it is worse. So you have to judge for yourself. Also the best beds are not the best seats (they are not as comfy for sitting up as other airlines seats which are not as good lying down). I would rank them as NZ > QF > CX > UA, fwiw.

- all FF points have a different value (a mile is not a mile), so it is the burn as well as earn rate that you care about. In general AA > UA > CX > QF > NZ but it all depends on your earn/burn pattern and how much you value status. So it is a complex optimization (really not worth doing for just one trip!). You can research this on FT using the search function, hundreds of threads over the years.

You have some other routing choices
BNE-NRT-JFK on JL (or even AA or several others)
BNE-ICN-JFK

As for cost, any circle or rtw product will be much cheaper than a point-to-point fare. It might even be cheaper to fly NZ BNE-AKL-LHR and then LHR-JFK if you do point to point (depends on the date of travel and promotions in effect -- these often cut J fare by 50% now). Lots of research needed to find the best fare these days.

Thanks Number_6, for very comprehensive and helpful answers.:)

JAL (who are now oneworld) have a D fare BNENYCBNE for AUD7038 + taxes, bringing it to ~ AUD7800, which is roughly half what NZ would want for that city pair. Or they have an F fare for AUD14583 + tax.

Routing BNE x/NRT JFK x/NRT BNE the distance is 11,167mi about 1.16x the distance of the shortest great circle route.

Another alternative is a round the world ticket [Top one is Business, Bottom is First]

... with oneworld (4 continents)
DONE4 AUD10,499+tax
AONE4 AUD14,799+tax

with Star... (max permitted mileage of 29k at this fare level)
CRWSTAR1 AUD9,989 + tax
FRWSTAR1 AUD14,069 + tax

Hope this helps.

Hi ntddevsys,
A lot of good information and extremely helpful, thanks.
GB

Hi... 2 questions. Firstly, are you talking about points as such for max earn/burn , or points so as to get the most status or tier points out of the trip? Then, secondly, are you chasing Star Alliance, oneworld points/status, or either?

Cheers

Just two other points
1) I think your travel agent may be able to help you with some LH fares to FRA via the United States with a 'stopover' in NYC for less than any of the other options.
2) If you take any option on oneworld have your flights booked as AA codeshares and do the AA Platinum Challenge [see AA forum for more information).

Just two other points
1) I think your travel agent may be able to help you with some LH fares to FRA via the United States with a 'stopover' in NYC for less than any of the other options.
2) If you take any option on oneworld have your flights booked as AA codeshares and do the AA Platinum Challenge [see AA forum for more information).

To ntddevsys, thanks for the great extra tips, I shall discuss with TA.;)

For Starbear, I suppose points max earn. I am quite new to FT and have just learned about Star Alliance and OneWorld thanks to the wealth of knowledge shared by FT members.
GB :-: