Discount fares vs. FF points
 

True, we could do that, but that would make the holiday that much more expensive. It looks like we may be able to travel on Qantas for a similar fare, and get points, as well as more baggage allowance (2 bags of up to 50 lbs each) opposed to just one bag of 50 lbs on Air NZ. The only catch is there's a 7 hour layover at LAX on the way back.
Vineeta

Since I don't know exactly what dates you're travelling, the results I got may not be 100% applicable for you, but it still shows that points earning fares do not have to be that much more expensive.

I used the following dates: IAD-AKL October 22, AKL-SYD November 5, SYD-IAD November 16.

IAD-AKL-SYD-IAD on Qantas ($1700):
IAD-AKL-SYD booked in Qantas N fare class, no miles for AA or BA FF accounts for LAX-AKL-SYD operated by QF, IAD-LAX on AA should earn 100% AA miles.
SYD-IAD Qantas O fare class, 50% miles on AA & 25% on BA for SYD-LAX on QF, LAX-IAD should earn 100% miles on AA.

IAD-AKL-SYD-IAD on NZ ($1800):
All flights booked in NZ L fare class. No miles on UA for the LAX-AKL-SYD NZ operated flights, but should UA earn miles for the IAD-LAX and SYD-SFO-IAD flights operated by UA.

IAD-AKL-SYD-IAD on NZ ($2000):
IAD-AKL-SYD in NZ W fare class, 100% miles on UA MP for IAD-LAX on UA and LAX-AKL-SYD on NZ)
SYD-IAD booked in NZ L fare class, but should earn 100% miles for UA members since the flights are operated by UA SYD-SFO-IAD.

So it looks like you could earn 100% miles on all flights by paying a little extra when flying NZ, and even if booking in NZ L class for all flights you can still earn miles on most flights. The Qantas flights, on the other hand, earn no miles or partial miles.

Just looked at the companion fares to LAX and yes use the fares over a week as there is abig difference between some days but can be done as base fare of $1500 pp ew ex CHC.
Silly me thought what can I get from the provinces - well add another $457.50 pp ew and you can fly from the provinces (SI only). Appears to be a major fault when cost of getting to CHC is 1/3 the cost of CHC to LAX - may need looking at.

Good work. From her post in another thread:

"We're hoping to fly out from IAD to AKL on or around Nov. 3, and spend one-day, one-night in Sydney on our way back, returning around Nov. 28."

Hi Vineeta,

I see other followers of this forum have offered good advice on how you could earn UA or US miles on your trip - this is a very helpful bunch!

That's not such a bad idea. While you may not have any need to use the Airpoints for more Air NZ flights in the next few years, you may be able to earn enough to redeem on a UA, US or CO flight instead. If you want to join Airpoints, send me an email and I can give you a promo code to waive the regular NZD $50 per person joining fee.

Whatever you decide to do, best wishes for your upcoming wedding and have a sensational honeymoon down under! And we'd love to see you travel with Air New Zealand.

Hi there,

Thanks for the feedback. This is a known problem where partially refunded bookings do not subsequently appear (as they should) in myairnz. My IT colleagues are putting this under the microscope with a view to getting this fixed. We don't have any timeframes yet, but it's definitely on our radar.

Cheers

Hi Thai-Kiwi,

Thanks - we'll also look to add BKK as a destination you can book on airnz.co.nz. We'll look at all routing options - via HKG will be most likely.

Cheers

Hi Paul,

Is there any reason why you couldn't open up the booking engine to allow you to enter any airport code and have the system find the best route to get there on NZ and partner airlines?

Hi, the reason only the Air NZ operated flights (on Sundays and Tuesdays) are sold on airnz.co.nz is because we are not yet able to issue an electronic ticket with Air Vanuatu (NF) operated sectors. Every itinerary we sell on airnz.co.nz is ticketed and emailed instantly, so online we are unable to offer sectors on other airlines (codeshare or not) if interline ET capability is yet to be put in place.

Air NZ in fact has interline ET capability with the large majority of airlines of interest to our customers. For example if you search AKL NOU online, you'll see Air NZ operated flights available 2 days of the week and Air Calin operated flights another two days of the week.

Hi zkcow,

Many destinations involving codeshare flights are available for booking on airnz.co.nz, including cities in North America, Europe and South Africa. As you have probably gleaned from my earlier replies in this thread, there are some exceptions so there is not quite 100% coverage of all codeshare flights on our website.

FYI in addition to featuring codeshare partners online, we also sell tickets to some other destinations with interline partners, i.e. when all flight numbers have the operating airline code.

Cheers

Thank you SO much! This information was very helpful. So, we've just booked on Qantas, on O class, which should give us 50% on AA for the AKL-SYD-LAX segments, and 100% on AA for the LAX-IAD segments. And, it was relatively inexpensive as well--a total of $1440 per person through Vayama, after the $31 July discount from Vayama for both tickets together.

We had to play around with dates a bit to get the best fare. We're departing IAD Oct. 28, returning from AKL on Nov. 20 and from SYD to IAD on Nov. 21. Had we chosen to depart on Oct. 27 would've increased the air fare a lot. Moving both these itineraries forward by a week for all flights also raises the fares a lot.

You guys are the greatest. Vineeta

Hi Paul, you see the problem is in order to book a Star partner flight using Airpoints, you will have to do this through contact centre and the $100 manual booking fee cannot be avoided. Don't you think NZ should not charge this fee as it cannot be booked online. Or do you have plans to make this available online. I know a few other Star airlines have this available online for their members.

Thanks, Paul. We considered whether to join Airpoints, and ultimately decided it would be best for us to stick to our existing FFPs on domestic airlines, but it was very sweet of you to offer the promo code waiver. My husband has already been to NZ twice and raves about it, so I turned down a honeymoon in Hawaii in favor of New Zealand, and am really looking forward to it. We're sorry we couldn't fly Air New Zealand this time, but hey, if I fall in love with NZ, maybe another time?
Many thanks again,
Vineeta

Thanks for noticing that from my earlier post. We had to play with the dates to get the best fares, as we discovered. Thanks again,
Vineeta

Hi wijomas,

You can book to over 100 destinations on airnz.co.nz. The kinds of contraints that mean we're not in a position to open this up to every airport in the world are the bilateral agreements in place with other airlines (which give us pricing for selling other airline sectors) and whether or not there are data links in place between our reservations system and the other airlines'.

Our aim is to make as many destinations as we can available online where there is sufficient customer demand.