The Planning

I'd accumulated a huge bunch of Miles & More mileage the past year from all the *A flying I'd done, and so I'd made the decision to expend some of those mileage on a trip to PVG. A 90 000 miles business class award it was; a nice, rewarding way to treat myself after all the hard work earning those miles.

M&M uses an inflexible zones system in determining award redemption levels, and makes no exceptions for going via a third zone unlike some other programs like AAdvantage. MEL is in "Australia/New Zealand/Oceania" whilst PVG is zoned "Central Asia/Far East." Going via a third zone like "South East Asia" would require extra mileage, and this eliminated the more direct options like SQ and TG as those itineraries would've required stops in SIN and BKK respectively. I then had a choice between UA/OZ via SYD and ICN, or NZ via AKL. After all the rave reviews about NZ's long haul Business Premier product, I had no hesitation in purchasing seats on NZ's business class MEL-AKL-PVG-AKL-MEL.

To understate it, travelling on an award ticket always brings out that nice, fuzzy feeling of traveling for 'free.' This was especially heightened when the taxes on my ticket only came up to approximately A$80, ie only legit airport taxes! ^

Next: The Qantas First Lounge Melbourne