Booking an award ticket to the South Pacific

For the second time during this trip it’s time to put the round the world ticket on the shelf.
One of the things I really wanted to do during this trip was to visit at least one South Pacific island. I played around a bit with the *A round the world mileage calculator, but I could not manage to get a decent routing unless giving up other things I really didn’t want to give up.
There was of course the option to upgrade to a FRWSTAR3 (39K miles), but that would have cost significantly more and I already had 22 segments (out of 24). So obviously a bad option and a real waste of money.

But one day I got the idea to check how much an award ticket in the region would cost, I had quite a few points in my Eurobonus account to spend, and it turned out a *A award ticket in the Pacific region would only cost 40,000 points, in business class! A very good deal!
The Pacific region includes the entire South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia.
I had initially planned to go from Auckland to one of the islands, certainly the most logical routing, but when I read through the rules a second time I noticed Australia was also part of the *A Pacific region, and I could just not resist the temptation.
The rule thus meant it would cost the same amount of points to go from Australia to the South Pacific as from New Zealand to the South Pacific, but going from Australia would give me the chance to cross the Tasman another two times with the very nice Air New Zealand. Another six hours with nice food and drinks, for the same amount of points!

I spent a lot of time with the ANA award planner, we know on the SAS board for sure that the award inventory is exactly the same for SAS as for ANA, so if a seat would be available on the ANA webpage I should be able to book it.
Flying directly Sydney-Auckland ended up being tricky, very few award seats were available, but of course I am always open for creative routings, and that’s the direction I took.
Several sleepless nights later I had the perfect itinerary, with all flights in business class where possible.
A little nervous I called the Eurobonus member service to make the booking, the reservation agent thought the itinerary sounded crazy and said it would probably not be possible to book it.
I told her the itinerary followed the rules in every single aspect, and she finally agreed to check with a supervisor. 15 minutes later she called me back, absolutely amazed, and told me I had really found the loophole in Eurobonus. She was obviously very impressed!
The booking was made, and the paper ticket arrived in the mail a few days later.

So next I’m off to the wonderful South Pacific, but with a rather unusual routing to get there, well you’ll see!!

Problems getting to the airport

I had planned to take the airport train from Sydney central station to the airport. It’s very cheap and the train takes only 12 minutes. On top of that I stayed very close to the railway station anyway, so a very convenient option!
I bought a ticket at the ticket counter on the ground floor and made my way to the platform with all my luggage.
There were quite a few people there, so I went to one of the monitors to see when the next train would arrive. On the monitor it said, “next train due in 27 minutes”. 27 minutes!!! The train is supposed to leave at least every 10 minutes.
I did have some marginal at the airport, but waiting 27 minutes would be cutting it close, and I didn’t even know if the train would actually arrive at that time, maybe there could be further delays.
As I was checking the monitor I noticed I was standing next to a girl (well a young woman, to be more correct). She looked like she was going to freak out any moment.
I thought she might be a local, so I asked her if the screen was actually correct as I was concerned about making my flight.
She told me she also had a flight to catch, but a domestic flight, which would leave in just an hour, so she definitely did not have time to wait 27 minutes.
Being just as stressed and nervous as me we decided to share a cab, so we rushed back through the ticket gates to the main street to try to hail a taxi, and finally one stopped.
We just told the driver to go as fast as he possibly could to the airport and he told us he would do his best but it would all depend on the traffic.

Once inside the taxi we decided to introduce ourselves, I had absolutely no idea with whom I was sharing a taxi, with whom I was rushing to the airport. It was actually quite hilarious!
She turned out to be Australian, living in Brisbane and working as an English teacher for foreigners coming to Australia to learn English, mostly Asians and Brazilians, but also some Europeans actually.
She has also lived in three or four different countries (among those China) and she shared the same interest for travels and languages as me.
We had a really fun chat on the way to the airport before she had to rush to her plane (I think she made it).
It was actually quite enjoyable, just another fun story from this trip!!

Check-in

The taxi driver dropped me off at the International terminal after having passed the domestic terminal first. I had a good amount of time now before departure, but waiting for that train would have cut it way too close.
Very few people in the premium check-in line and I was checked in almost immediately.
While checking in I noticed the agent had forgotten to attach a priority tag to my baggage tag, I think it’s the fourth time this happens during this trip, so I pointed this out to her (especially since the priority tag seems to work in this region).
Very irritated she replied “I have not finished doing my job” and seconds later she attached the priority tag as a separate tag. Oops, sorry!! I didn’t know they had them as proper baggage tags in Sydney.
I obviously apologised to her, but it was quickly forgotten.

All passengers have to complete a departure card before leaving Australia, but it was quick to do and fortunately there was no line at all at passport control.
I made my way to the Air NZ lounge which was a bit tricky to find. The signs were confusing and I ended up in the basement before finding out the lounge was actually located on the first floor. At least I used the right stairs. Oh well...

Air New Zealand lounge, Sydney

Friendly staff at the reception who warmly welcomed me to the lounge.
The Air NZ lounge in Sydney is really nice, one of the nicest I have ever visited. ^
It’s very bright, modern and spacious, has a great view of the apron, free internet, and there is plenty to eat and drink.
The self-service buffet was most impressive, there was really plenty plenty to eat and drink. Nice cold cuts to eat and lots of beer, wine and spirits to drink. A very nice place to kill some time!
The lounge was fairly crowded this afternoon with passengers waiting for the evening departures to New Zealand, but I found an empty seat by the window and enjoyed a great view of the apron and the two main runways.
An Austrian Airlines B777 was parked next to the lounge, quite a strange sight in Sydney, a long long way from Austria.

Pics
Inside the nice Air NZ lounge in Sydney
The self-service buffet area, plenty plenty to eat and drink
Great view from the lounge, a TG B747 taxiing for take-off
An Austrian Airlines B777, in Australia! Quite a strange sight!

Sydney-Wellington, flight NZ 744 operated by Air New Zealand
Departure: 17:15
Arrival: 23:25
Aircraft: Airbus A320
Class: Business Class
Seat: 01F

They were supposed to make boarding announcements in the lounge, but 30 mins before departure no announcements had still been made and the monitors showed my flight was boarding, so I left.

At the gate the boarding had already started, and I was quickly seated in my seat 01F on the plane.
My jacket was taken and I was offered a pre-departure drink (bubbles of course) and newspapers, business class ended up being completely full.
We pushed back on time but had to make the long long taxi all the way to the end of runway 34R before taking off.

This was my first experience with an Air NZ Airbus A320.
Business class has two rows with a 2-2 configuration, in contrast to economy which has a 3-3 configuration, so quite a bit more legroom.
They have no proper inflight entertainment system onboard the A320s except for a movie on the main screen, but in business class they offer personal DVD-players and there is an impressive selection of 20 movies available.
Very nice! A personal player and 20 movies well make up for the lack of AVOD onboard, you can’t watch more than one movie at a time anyway and with a personal DVD-player you can also fast-forward and rewind as much as you want.
I watched Agatha Christie’s Poirot on this flight, the one “after the funeral”. Well I never manage to figure out who the murderer is anyway...

After take-off they offered more drinks and veggie crisps followed by today’s menu:

I had the Thai beef salad as main course, very good, even though it was obviously cold.
I had plenty of wine to drink as well, and both the food and the wine were very good onboard the flight, as was the service, very nice and attentive flight attendants!!
Ice cream was served as dessert as usual onboard Air NZ but it’s normally very tasty anyway so I really don’t mind.
I think the food may have tasted even better onboard this flight when I knew it was actually completely free!

Pics
A glass of red wine, and Agatha Christie’s Poirot on my personal DVD-player
Appetizer
Main course
Dessert and cheese

Arrival in Wellington, not completely problem-free...

Landing roughly on time in a rainy Wellington, and as a business class passenger I was one of the first passengers off the plane and the first to reach immigration.
I was actually a bit nervous about entering New Zealand a second time. Considering how many questions I was asked on my first entry in Auckland with a fairly normal round the world ticket, then how many questions are they not going to ask me this time trying to enter New Zealand a second time in just a week with an ever crazier routing?
I was very surprised how smooth the passport control was, she asked me two or three questions, checked my return ticket, and then let me pass. Piece of cake!

They were doing some construction work in the baggage hall so only one luggage carousel was in use, they also had a customs officer there with a dog who searched all passengers for food (the dog did).
The priority tag worked once again very well with my bags among the first on the belt.

But when I handed over my customs declaration form just before customs I was stopped. They called for a customs officer who told me they wanted to ask me some questions, so I followed him to what I guess was red line at customs (I didn’t read the signs).
He asked me if I had anything to declare and I said I had nothing, he then asked me to write it down on a customs form: “I have nothing to declare” and my signature.
Next he asked me to open my suitcases and he unpacked every single thing I had inside and went through all of it while asking me questions about what I did, the trip, my itinerary, why I was travelling in business class and so on.
I obviously had nothing to declare, nothing at all he could comment on really.
The guy was very friendly though, very talkative, and I did my best to tell him about this whole frequent flyer thing and how I just wanted to make good use of my points.
He seemed to understand that surprisingly well, and he even told me he had a good amount of points himself after having lived abroad for several years. Nice!

I spent a good 20 mins at customs before I was finally allowed to leave, but honestly I’m just happy I encountered such a friendly officer who made the experience bearable, it could have been a lot worse.
Before leaving he told me he would make a note in the computer system that I had been checked and that there was nothing to comment about.
As I had to enter New Zealand yet another time on this trip I told him I very much appreciated it as it would perhaps avoid me having to go through all of it again.

At that point I was feeling very tired, it was well after midnight and spending time at customs with all those questions had made me even more tired (you really don't want to give the wrong answers when sitting there).
I was very happy to get inside a cab and head for central Wellington and a good night's sleep.