Originally Posted by
schalliol
My search was not super successful, so hopefully I just didn't miss something easy to find. I'm looking at taking a family (5 people) trip from the USA (IND or drive to ORD) to New Zealand in Late Dec/Early Jan, which of course is almost a year away. ...
needing 5 will make this more challenging. Generally start first looking from a gateway city, such as ORD but check others also. Handle the IND portion once you find the international portion.
You are eligible for XN (elite economy award space), that will help but that is only on UA. NZ is tight on award space in general.
Each carrier will open space on their sites that is not available to other programs.
Check frequently, once a week. Space can appear any time or never.
Going for you is there presently seems o be excess capacity to Australia / NZ
Dec / Jan can be the toughest time due to the summer in southern hemisphere and the year holidays worldwide. The far way from that you can get is better.