Originally Posted by
davidbergman
I need to book a trip in Aug 2023 outbound NYC-AKL and return PER-NYC. Client is paying for economy and I can pay to upgrade (REALLY don't want to do that trip in coach!). I'm PM with 400K miles, but all Delta options are JFK-LAX-SYD-AKL (SYD-AKL is on LATAM) and PER-SYD-LAX-JFK (PER-SYD says operated by Virgin Australia, which I didn't think was possible anymore). Either way, Air New Zealand has a nonstop JFK-AKL and then PER-AKL-JFK that's around the same price as Delta (~$2400). That's much more appealing, especially with their interesting "skycouch" option, which seems totally worth the extra ~$2000 for nearly 40 hours in the air. It would be worth it to me to take the longer Delta option if I could pay with miles (I can still bill the coach price to the client), but it says "no results" when I search the trip with miles. If I use dollars, Delta upgrade for that price is to premium select, which I don't think it as comfortable as the 3 seats you get on the ANZ couch product.
I fly Delta almost exclusively and have never flown ANZ. I hate to give up earning Delta miles / MQMs for this long trip. Any suggestions on maximizing my earning options? I have Delta Amex Plat and a business Amex Plat. It looks like I can enter a Virgin Flying Blue number when booking with ANZ. I just signed up for a Virgin account. I suppose I could earn those points for the flight (how many?) and then use those for maybe one Delta r/t in the future? Of course I don't earn MQMs for that, but it's something. Of course I'll use one of the Amex cards (not sure which would be better). Anything else I'm not thinking of to maximize my benefits from this trip? Any other thoughts on this trip?
Thanks so much!
Please check the details of the NZ skycouch option carefully. My impression is that this is oriented toward two people traveling together in coach (who get a bed that takes the space of three coach seats) or someone traveling with one or two children. If tickets cost $2400, I don't think NZ will be willing to give you two additional seats for only $2000 additional, especially since flights to Australia and New Zealand seem to be packed now.
Since DL's divorce from VA, DL has a new partner in Australia, although I don't know details or whether the new partner also serves NZ. They seem to focus on major east coast cities, but there might be flights between Perth and Sydney that would work for you.
I would try to avoid a D-I or I-D connection at SYD since changing terminals there is generally a time-consuming pain, although the specific terminals that are involved could matter
Be aware that many foreign carriers have hard expiration dates for miles, so that putting miles into a FF program where you won't be able to use them for an award soon (for example, in about the next three years in the case of SQ) means that you're wasting the credit.
You might want to investigate connections through third countries, such as South Korea using KE flights through ICN. For these routings, you would need to pay close attention to COVID-19 vaccination/testing rules as well as whether you could enter the country if you get stuck overnight through IROPs. IIRC there are some routings using DL/KE flights connecting to SQ at SIN, which currently looks like an easy and convenient routing.