I'd love to regale you all with tales of my return flight experience on Qantas but that just won't be possible. JetStar (owned by Qantas) canceled several flights yesterday morning because of "crew availability". One of those flights was our connection from Christchurch to Auckland. We (and many others) missed our connection with QF25 to LAX. Since the ticket wasn't booked all the way through (impossible at the time but possible now) Qantas would not do anything to put us on another flight. JetStar would only put us on their later flight and not do anything to get us to Auckland in time for QF25. They were distinctly unhelpful to everyone affected. American was obviously not at fault and could only offer us the next available award seats which would have stuck us in New Zealand for an additional week or more.

Fortunately we'd purchased insurance for this trip (first time) and they've booked us on an Air New Zealand flight tonight. Another family that got stuck as well had to shell out $9,000 to get home (they didn't have insurance). I'm just glad that the money for the replacement tickets is not going to Qantas but their competitor. I'm sure my wife and daughter are going to love the fully flat, all-aisle seats on Air New Zealand.

My love affair with Qantas continues (not)!