Hi, you have picked peak time as others have noted. You might look at extending the stay and see if after the 7th flight prices drop. We forgot to book a flight last year going back and forth between AKL and Sydney and the flight we normally pay no more than $180 NZ for was $799 minimum, no bag no meal!

Try looking at going via Sydney or Brisbane with China Airlines (flt 52 and 51 go AKL to SYD and there is one that does Brisbane as well then I believe they go onto Taipei). or China Southern have just started a new route to Sydney as well.

I don't know what they do out of Heathrow but they do some great flights out of Taipei a few days a week that go from Sydney or Brisbane into AKL and I have taken the planes and they are new and nice and full service. When we were having our troubles in January I could get their business class seat for the price of economy on Jetstar!!! (That was the $799). They don't always come up on flight searches on the internet though so check with a TA. Their own websiste for China Airline is a bit dire to try and use.

Sydney airport has a new hotel at the airport which is almost on the concourse so you could do a very easy sleepover. Rydges. . Husband stayed there a few motnsh ago and said basic but very comfortable beds. If you then had to do a 3.5 hour across the ditch flight to Wellington if might work out a lot cheaper than trying to get to NZ. Which doesn't have huge capacity and not a lot of sales around Xmas time. BTW, book whatever you need in advance for NZ as well as lots of people will be holidaying locally and you will get slim pickings if you wait.

Register with Air Newzealand for when they have sales. Also their Grabaseat.com advice. Maybe nothing will come up, but you never know.

Took the skycouch up from AKL to LAX last week. You will be better off in PE. The seats aren't exactly next to each other in PE and they don't recline, the seat slips forward and the foot rest is a dodgy looking bean bag, would have been too low for me. I have short legs and no support in the knees.

Skycouch was good for us as we took 9 seats for the 5 of us (3 kids) my husband had his own 3 seats which he made into a bed. He didn't want to be separated from the family. Aaaaah. Skycouch seats have a foot rest of sorts and the recline is good as well as the TV and the charging of items and the big pillows but there is no way at 6ft 4 you would be able to share with another adult so you would have to buy all 4 seats and even then I think it would add up to same price as business. I would go business in one sector and economy in the other (day flight) if I had to choose what to do. That way one was sit up and the other lay down. Probably would do the shortest sector sit up? You would enjoy the space in sky couch with your wife if only to have the extra seat between you and she could sleep with her legs up on you. But I don't think you would be really happy with it as a choice for yourself.

Anway try China Southern or China Airlines and see what they can offer in business class. Just check the type of plane and business class seat configuration.