Originally Posted by roundtheworld
Now it gets tricky on the award side so something for weero how difficult is it to get C or F awards to AUS on UA or NZ..
Which opens up another possibility as I want a few awards to NZ shall I collect on NZ and go for gold (I can't get gold elite due to lack of flying sufficiently NZ, but does htis give me better chances to grab a NZ C ward ??
Yes there is special award inventory in business class for NZ elites. Not only that, but you can use airpoints dollars to buy any seat (on NZ metal only) that is available for sale at the same price but using airpoints dollars instead (except taxes must be paid in cash/credit card) - albeit the latter is an extremely expensive way to get award for SFO/LAX to NZ/Oz. Additionally NZ allows award in economy and upgrade this using airpoints dollars or upgrade vouchers (2 complimentary with Gold status, use one per flight segment).