As always, I appreciate the wealth of experience all of you bring to these boards! Many here have helped me in the past score some great reward flights, and I'm hoping for some more help.

The next big trip I'd like to take my wife on is to spend a 2-3 weeks in New Zealand. I live on the East Coast of the US, and can access PHL, JFK, EWR, YYZ, IAD, etc relatively easily as a starting point. My obvious ending point is AKL.

Any advice on the best routes that give the best chance of getting business or first class reward tickets between those two points? I have learned booking 330 days (or so) out, as the reward seats first come available, is a must, so I am starting the research process and will look to book in a month or so for flights the following year (Jan/Feb of 2013).

Looking on ANA for sample flights (checking Dec 2012), it seems flying from SFO or LAX to AKL direct is almost impossible to get reward tickets for. However, NRT to AKL seems to come up as available quite often, and I know from past experience getting from the east coast US to NRT is reasonably possible as well (used YYZ-NRT before).

So, anyone with experience ... have you found a YYZ-NRT-AKL the easiest to get reward flights for? Any other routes I should be considering? Has anyone here scored a SFO or LAX to AKL business or first class reward ticket before?

Thank you very much in advance for your time!