dochealth

Planning a big trip to NZ in November. First instinct is to book with Trailfinders. But just did a search on Ba.com and came up with business fare of €7.5 k for 2 passengers. Now what really caught my interest was earning silver exec club status on the one trip. Only ever had one year of bronze before now!
So question: is this a mad idea? Could I earn status flying with Qatar or Cathay and have better in-flight experience? Or should I forget about it and let Trailfinders do the heavy lifting for me?
Thoughts gratefully considered.
DH

atcer28

British Airways don’t fly to New Zealand so it will be a codeshare flight. If you are willing to start in another country you can usually get New Zealand for around £2200 with Qatar from Stockholm or Oslo. Qatar’s big sale is due to start mid January. You would get similar tier points with Qatar but you would need the qualifying BA flights to get status as well.

a380fan

Personally I would suggest that Qatar or Cathay would be a better experience. Don't forget Qantas as well, they codeshare with Emirates and, unless anything has changed, you earn tier points when flying a QF codeshare with emirates ( MUST be with the QF code however ). The Qantas A380's are also being refurbished, I haven't flown the new business on them but have flown it on their A330's and it's pretty nice. The old Qantas A380 business isn't the best, but isn't bad. Emirates has the benefit of being Emirates, the onboard bar is always fun

corporate-wage-slave

Trailfinders is a better than average online travel agency (OTA) but it's an OTA ultimately. There is a role for them, but really it should be the other way around: start with an airline (whether BA, Qatar, Cathay, Malaysia) and work over to Trailfinders if it isn't doing what you want. When things go wrong, as they easily do on a trip of this sort, the airlines (plus insurance) is the better place to be.

Getting hefty status on one big trip to NZ isn't terribly difficult, I guess it is where I started. If specifically BA status is of interest then bear in mind the need for 4 BA or IB flights, the BA flights can be codeshares. That's for Silver or Gold, it's 2 eligible flights for Bronze. Once you have done that then you are liberty to use Qatar, Sri Lankan, S7, MH, Qantas (etc) to pile on the Tier Points. While it is an active pastime of the regulars here to seek out "better" airlines, I suspect that if this is a one-off that money talks louder, and the reality is that there isn't a bad airline in the oneworld Alliance.

If you're not used to long flights, try and avoid Pacific routes if you can, they are much more wearing than going via SIN, HKG or KUL. Doha is better than TransPac, but worse than HKG (probably the best solution if you can stay the night there).

Flexible preferences

You can't book online with Trailfinders - and they are very proud of this - you have to phone to book (to take advantage of their 'expert' consultants).

Lussac

We go to AKL most years but the last 5 trips have been Emirates from LHR then three times with CX from CDG and this last trip we are on now is with SQ from ARN for a change as we have done the HK stopover each time we travelled CX and this time will have 5 days in Singapore on the way back. This last trip is the cheapest we have ever paid and it worked out a little over £2k each (out early Nov and return early April) although we did fork out extra for the LHR-ARN-LHR legs in BA CE so probably didn't make any saving over going again from CDG.

Mountlodge

I'd go Qatar. Have a look over on the Qatar Forum but I'm pretty sure the DOH-AKL leg is Qsuites. Actually if you do go from ARN then the evening flight to DOH is also Qsuites. If there are two of you and you do elect this route make sure you get a rear facing middle seat as the two seats can be coverted in to a double bed (Not that I'm suggesting anything!!)

ML

arkellvspressdram

I did MAN-AKL a couple years back on QR, it's excellent, the dine on demand is great on the looong AKL legs (17.5 hours AKL-DOH think it's the third longest commercial flight currently?). Showers in DOH also help on the long journey. Going again in 2020 and they now have Qsuites on the AKL legs, GBP2200-2400 from ARN depending on dates.

Be warned that transit security in DOH will requisition the gigantic tub of Kiwi marmite any sensible traveller will want to bring back with them, I still haven't gotten over that.

Swanhunter

Flying BA via SIN to SYD and then QF onwards would not be rational given the number of better business class options out there. Once/when Club Suite appears on the route it would come back into contention. I flew CI (China Airlines) last year and the seat, timings and experience were really good for £2500 from LGW.

DFB_london

AKL is the 777-200LR and all these have Q Suites, which is a phenomenal product - Though the 777 is a noisy rather dehydrating plane otherwise best avoided..

HSR1234

When we did this trip (in 2018, before Q Suites) flying J was still enough of a novelty that 17 hours was not long enough!

PrimaVista

I’m in NZ now, having routed OSL-LHR-SIN-SYD-AKL. £2300 and GUF-ed the long hauls, 11, 15 16 & 12 to FIRST. 830TPs, 65,624 Avios, plus 24,210 from the recent bonus offer.

I’ll take that over a Q Suite any day.

Mwenenzi

Taking more flight number/convoluted routes will earn more TP's. For example changing aircraft/flight number LHR-SIN & SIN-SYD will earn more TP's than the direct LHR-(SIN)-SYD on the same flight number

Always a balance between route/flight time, cost & ff earning. For some the large cost saving of ex EU is worth the hassle & cost of a separate positioning flight. But has a risk.

If AKL is not the real final NZ destination other options are available. CX fly into CHC seasonably, as well as AKL, and QF fly to many NZ airports from several Au airports
Several threads on BA/OW to New Zealand, including

• CW to NewZealand in Jan/Feb - best starting point?
  
• NZ on OW
  
• Business Class Flights UK to Auckland

dochealth

Thanks everyone for excellent feedback.
Thinking off opting for DUB to DOH to AKL with QR and vv.
When would optimal time be to book for November trip (balancing personal cash flow with good fares)?
DH

lizban

Poor One world form I know but I’m in NZ now and flew virgin/air Nz

it was very good - family of 4 for less than £10k in J.

lastminute.com came up trumps