I'm looking at heading to Australia and New Zealand from Atlanta, initially via the '3 country explorer pass' from Air Tahiti. But I looked around a bit and found some decent flights on Air New Zealand instead, around the dates I want. Just wondering if anyone has some general recommendation on whether they would prefer to fly Air New Zealand or Air Tahiti? I don't know much about either airline, but kinda get the feeling Air Tahiti is a bit more 'budget'...crappier seats? etc.

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The Air Tahiti deal is about $100 more, and really I guess I'd be flying trans-pacific on American as that's the code share partner. I don't know what the planes would actually be. Also it includes a free stopover in Tahiti, which I've never been to and would be cool to spend a couple nights on the way back, if nothing else to split up the long flight. The flight to tahiti would be on Air Tahiti

The Air New Zealand deal routes through SFO and doesn't include a stop anywhere in the pacific like hawaii or tahiti. I'm kindof a wuss about long flights so I'm tempted by the chance to break it up and stop on Tahiti with the other deal. I'd be flying SFO-SYD on a United Boeing 787-9, and AKL-SFO on Air New Zealand 777-200.