Air New Zealand Air Points - What's the best move?

I live in Los Angeles and saw a great opportunity to visit New Zealand, so I bought highly-discounted tickets LAX-AKL-ZQN, SYD-AKL-LAX. As a US resident unlikely to use Air New Zealand regularly (unfortunately), I would normally try to accrue these miles on United, but apparently this ticket allows for mileage accrual on Airpoints only, no partners at all.

I calculate the total miles at 14,990 - I'll probably take one internal NZ flight also which would get me over 15K.

Should I join Airpoints and hope to use the miles for an upgrade on United and/or another Star Alliance partner? Is there anything you can buy with these miles? Or is there a better plan that I am missing?

Thanks!

airpoints earning is (loosely) revenue based not mileage based

your itinerary would earn 90 airpoints dollars for LAX-AKL-ZQN and 110 airpoints dollars for SYD-AKL-LAX

200 airpoints dollars is not enough to upgrade any *A (non-NZ) flight - the minimum is 460 (for full fare economy to business on one flight under 1200odd miles)

Thanks, Kiwi Flyer. Yes, I just realized how this works - the North America website doesn't have this info. Is there anything one can do with 200 airpoints dollars if you don't live in New Zealand or Australia? Is it worth spending the $50 to join? I should mention my wife is flying with me, and will be in the same situation. It looks like we could gift these dollars to each other to combine them, but even then we haven't made it very far...

... any suggestions?

No joining fee if not living in Australia or NZ. Gifting isn't possible unless you have status.

If you are staying in NZ a while you could spend the 90 airpoints dollars earned on the way over on a cheap fare on Air NZ (must be NZ$90 or less).

Otherwise you really need to add more (eg through other *A flying) to get enough for an award flight on UA or US (or CO soon).

I'd say that you have two options here:

1. Upgrade to a booking class that allows earning on UA.

2. Join NZ Airpoints for free, each get 200 AP$ which could be used on a return domestic flight within New Zealand or a one-way flight between New Zealand and Australia. Your points do not expire for three years, so you have a bit of time up your sleeve to use them in the future.

Thanks everyone for your help. It looks like maybe we don't accrue any Airpoints at all (they don't make it very easy for you to figure this out), but we can accrue Status points. Alas, I'd love to get status on *A but it's highly unlikely I will fly an additional 10K miles on United or any other *A carrier this year, it looks like we won't get much out of it (and not worth upgrading to a higher fare just to earn points/miles). If for some reason it looks possible, we'll revisit the question.

To the helpful Kiwis, thanks very much for your help and I cannot wait to visit your country. Everything I've read so far looks wonderful.

On the cheapest fares (booking classes LGSKP) you earn airpoints dollars and status points for longhaul flights, but only status points for domestic and shorthaul.