Mwenenzi

And QF does not have F Aust to NZ. EK does (a QF partner)
Phantom QF award availability on AA is now common. Maybe the same on AS

BarryAZ

The miles I needed for the flight -- HNL/SYD/CNS business class was 65K. Looking at flight mile requirements from PHX, given my willingness to fly economy from Phx to HNL that meant the total miles requirement (using HA from Phx to HNL) was 82.5K miles.

Fair point regarding having an alternative miles option (plus flexibility) though since with Alaska miles, the HA option doesn't exist.

As to the flexibility -- I had open ended plans but the only shift I needed from my original 'ideal' dates were a one day earlier flight from Phx to HNL and a one day earlier flight to Australia.

As you suggested though, I have found it quite difficult to find flight options using other carriers even using Qantas from HNL.

I actually first thought I'd need to pay for the HNL/SYD leg and settle with economy plus on HA and was super pleased to pick off the 65K miles business class instead.

It also helped that my target dates were not November-January -- much tougher to get flights then.

BarryAZ

For my wife and I the vacation I've arranged is one of those we had 'on the board' of bucket list travel. The one concession we made was the flights to HNL and back to Phoenix being coach.

So the outbound was PHX/HNL (coach HA miles at 17.5K per)-- a couple of days on Oahu (using a timeshare), then HNL/SYD/CNS. The HA flight to SYD gets in at 7:30 so we're staying overnight at the Ridges which is onsite for the international terminal. The QA flight the next day to CNS leaves at noon so we can be rested. We've always wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef while it is still there. Then we fly to Melbourne and stay there for a week (QA business - 20K miles each with either AA or Alaska). From there we fly to AKL (25K AA miles -- Alaska's arrangement with Qantas doesn't support that leg). We then will do two weeks in NZ. From there we route back to the big island (that flight will be business but out of pocket). We have a timeshare there. Then we fly home.

One element here is breaking up the air travel.

Several years ago we spent two weeks in NZ -- flew to LA then used Fiji airlines to Auckland changing planes in Fiji. For the return we flew from Christchurch via Fiji to LA. Longish flights and not super comfortable in what passed for 'business class' back then.

Three years ago we did three weeks in Australia using Alaska miles on Cathay Pacific. That burned up a bunch of miles (160K round trip first class) and spoiled us big time regarding 'top end' flying.

Bretmd

You can add Qantas flights between Australia and New Zealand to an itinerary that begins or ends in the USA; this is because Australia is an acceptable connecting point from the US to New Zealand, but standalone awards are not available.

After multiple calls where I was shot down, I was able to add a SYD-CHC leg onto my SFO-SYD flight with a nice stopover in Sydney. The first two agents said it wasn't possible... the third agent decided to "give it a try" and it worked like a charm. There was an additional tax of around $75, however, for spending more than 24 hours in Australia.

Bretmd

A few months ago, several of these Qantas F awards were searching as available in July/August, which I believe is the low season for travel there? I managed to ticket two - the first one was SYD-DFW-SEA during the first week of August; then I switched it to SYD-LAX-SEA the last week of July. A few days ago, a search turned up F availability from SYD-LAX-JFK in late August, so its worth continuing to check again. It's still difficult to find, but now that AA has devalued their rates between the US and Australia, it does seem a little better than before.

BarryAZ

Interesting -- I didn't realize that. That didn't play for my planning since getting flights from LAX to Australia in other than coach tends to be quite problematic. Once I realized that, I made a plan to take advantage of constraints -- the 2 days in HNL plus routing back to our timeshare for the final week. The three QA legs are Syd/CNS, CNS/MEL, and MEL/AKL.

The first of these was included as part of the 65K miles from HNL with a comfortable layover (arrival at 7:30PM and noon flight the next day). The second leg was originally going to be Alaska miles. Then I realized by doing a multi-stop (ie CNS to MEL + MEL to AKL a week later) for 45K x 2 miles on my wife's AA account I could pick off the 9K miles credit (10% for use with her AA credit card).

I used my account for that HNL/SYD/CNS set -- 65K x 2 -- picking up a 10K credit there. Those credits in and of themselves more than pay off the annual card fee for us.

clarrkkent

You are correct in your first assumption.

And yes, I was not referencing a nonstop option, but rather a connection through SYD and MEL. There were in fact F seats for 70K on both segments available on limited dates in Sept and Oct. I don't gamble though, so no lottery ticket bought.