Originally Posted by
djtn
thx for your reply. As I didn't want to spend weeks for planning the routing of a vacation, my wife & I decided to go for a trip to Orlando & New Orleans with Suisse & Discover in business class. Our starting point is Hamburg, and I was extremely surprised to find a routing starting at my home base, 360K spent. We'll do the NZL travel at al later point in time 2025 and will go for LH ID tickets then at a reasonable price point.
You may think about the cash option vs miles. Those miles have a value. Looking for R fares for a return from NZ at around $1100 each way is a great deal and 8-10 months out provides success in my experience. From there, apply the 30 PP to get on the waitlist. From the last 10x doing this, it has worked for me 8x (US to EU). Note that for US to AU, a B economy fare is also about $1100 during peak times; this will help in improving your waitlist position using PP. Everyone has a different pain point for miles vs cash.