As a side bar to
Jeff's last comment, I'd like to add this for anyone who does book and wants to come over to OZ when you are done with NZ.
As I posted a couple days ago to assist another FT'er
here your best option by FAR is to use miles to get an Star award ticket from either Tahiti or from NZ to Australia.
The Star Alliance award using Air New Zealand is a real humdinger.
How about this - from Tahiti to anywhere in Australia that Air NZ flies takes only 20,000 United miles in coach on 40K in BIZ. (Look THAT distance up on a map - especially PPT-AKL-PER!)
Even smarter .... Auckland to Australia is only 30K in business class RT. That covers at least SYD, MEL, BNE PER and I *think* Air NZ even fly Cairns - and the Great Barrier reef.
That award allows an open jaw - so for 30,000 in biz class you can flt into SYD or MEL and fly back to AKL from PERTH ... which is 1000s miles way. You simply need buy a one way cheapie on Qantas or Virgin Blue to connect up the dots. For instance in today's newspaper VirginBlue is offering SYD-PER for $A159 inc all taxes (or about $US100) and that it is a USA transcon type distance.
Unlike most other countries in Australia both airlines sell all tickets as one-ways, at half the RT price, so they lends themselves perfectly for this.
If you do not have the 30,000 United miles there are plenty of folks on this board that do, and you may wish to speak to them. (coff.
)
But Auckland - Perth - Auckland for 30K in the CLASSY Air NZ Biz cabin is the best deal on earth. And 40K from Tahiti to Auckland to Perth for 40k is even better. (Just cancel out the PPT-AKL-PPT legs on this cheap ticket!) A HUGE amount of flying and distance.
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Glen ~
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[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 06-08-2003).]