reviving an old thread as I'd like advice to fly to Auckland from Toronto as well. I know a common route of getting there is via SYD on Air Canada and then Air New Zealand to AKL. Understanding it's wise to book as far out as possible, it looks like Air New Zealand opens up flights after Air Canada. Is the general accepted practice to book one way from YYZ to SYD, pay a change fee to make it round trip once the SYD to YYZ opens up and then pay one last change fee to include the SYD-AKL round trip flights?