Hi everyone,

I only started churning recently, but would appreciate any advice or suggestions for my goal of traveling to Australia and New Zealand with my girlfriend in April 2017. Here is a breakdown of what I've got right now.

Goal: Accumulate points for roundtrip flight + hotel from US to AUS and NZ for April 2017. Estimate to spend around 3-4 weeks there.

Me:
Cards w/ points
CSP: 55k UR
Citi Forward: 20k TY

Other cards:
Discover IT
Chase AARP
BOA Cash Rewards

GF:
Cards w/ points
CSP: 50k UR
Citi Forward 30k TY
Chase Southwest Plus 50k RR
Chase Southwest Premier 50k RR

I've been mostly helping her get Southwest points for domestic travel for interviews. She's 3/5 for Chase and I'm 1/5, so there's plenty more we can do to get points. Our main airport is STL, but we will have the companion pass soon so we can travel to a bigger airport with the best flights to Australia.

Questions:
Which airline(s) should I be looking into and which credit cards should I consider for those airlines?
Which hotel chain/cards should I focus on for AUS and NZ? Mostly looking at travel to Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane right now.
What's the cheapest way to get around within AUS and what's the best way to get to NZ?

I know some of these questions should be in the destination forum, but I thought I'll combine it for now and after more research ask more specific questions in the designated forums.

Thanks!