Originally Posted by
Colossus
With respect to Qatar, we will struggle to have the points to do a single ticket Avios booking, as the Doha-Auckland leg in business alone effectively exhausts our balance.
Not necessarily. I'm surprised no one here has mentioned the multi-carrier Avios (mileage) chart. The sweet spot here is that the multiplier for business class is only double, not triple, provided you include a minimum of two oneworld carriers (excluding BA metal) on your booking. Obviously New Zealand would fall into the 10,001 - 14,000 mileage bracket.
So you could, if Avios availability on all sectors for the number of seats required exists or opens up later, fly Qatar Q-Suites LHR-DOH-AKL, adding a Qantas sector from AKL-SYD for a later date in the future. You could choose to utilise the last sector or not. Total mileage for this routeing would be 13,657 (GCMAP), which is just under the maximum permitted mileage for this bracket. Cost would be 180,000 Avios per adult, infant under 2 would be 18,000 Avios. Might be worthwhile to invest in the 78,000 additional Avios points you need on top of your current balance.