12,000 miles is one return trip - say NZL - Asia pretty much like HKG, or Singapore or Tokyo Narita. She goes HKG only or to YVR, she has family there too that I think might be 18,000. On avg she flies once a year 12000-18000. The occasional year she might fly twice so 2x air mileage or she may not fly so it evens out.

Yeah of course over here, one trip to Asia is about $1500US at a guess equiv. If you spent maybe $70-150USD less you may not get points. $70USD for one leg without points or $150 for both legs (return) without points. So we sort of went with the $150 more so she got points. Well, actually, we paid $1500US and got points both ways due to a semi urgent event, a few days after the ticket dropped $75USD, which is you get points for only one way (ie., 6.000 of the 12,000 miles) but too late, not sure what option she would have taken if provided.

Over here, we don't really have LCC that suits her. There is Air Asia or Jetstar but .. she doesn't like it b/c you need to swap aircrafts in SE Asia. Jetstar makes you sleep overnight in Singapore and fly out next morning. Air Asia may need a few hours and you might need to take luggage out and recheck in for the other flight (and go thru security/passports again). Plus the comfort isn't as good on LCC. But true, if AirNZ who do direct flights for say half price - which very occasionally happens, hands down.

Yeah award is 50-60k miles. So .. 4x trips needed. At the moment she doesn't have a airline CC. Just a CC that has a 1% cashback thingy. I guess the bonus is travel insurance.