Help Getting to New Zealand
 

Hi,

New member here. Thanks to reading some of your suggestions on this forum, had a chance to travel to Buenos Aires this past year, so thank you.

My next adventure is New Zealand, which I'm able to go sometime in March through May 2013.

Was looking for advice on flying to New Zealand from Chicago, using miles. My goal is to book 2 round-trip business tickets (also traveling with a kid who isn't born yet, but will be this July).

Both my wife and I have credit scores around 750.

Spending is around $3,000 a month. Will have a few bigger expenses coming up with our first child this summer.

Cards I currently own are:

Chase Sapphire (my name)
Chase Freedom(my name)
Chase Freedom (wife)
British Airways Visa (wife)
American Express Starwoods (wife)

My mileage situation is as follows:

• American = 20,270
• Continental Airlines (OnePass) = 25,300
• British Airways = 2,513
• Starwood = 9,850
• Chase Ultimate Rewards = 53,000

Any help is greatly appreciated, as I'm not sure where to start.

I think your first step is to evaluate which carriers will get you there and how many miles it will take.

Air New Zealand is part of the Star Alliance. A round trip business class ticket booked with United miles would cost 135,000 miles each, or 110,000 US Airways miles.

I believe Quantas tickets are easiest to book with Alaska miles, because Alaska lets you book them when Quantas releases them 12 months out, and American won't let you book Quantas seats until 330 days out. However, Alaska miles are harder to accumulate. A round trip business class ticket would cost 110,000 Alaska miles or 125,000 American miles.

If 2013, GS USA to 2x110K by 10/12 to get *A on ANZ.:D

Dave...You'll have to explain to me what that means.

Thanks Birdseye for the tips on booking with Quantos. Now only if BA will come out with another 100,000 point bonus.:D

GS USA = Grand Slam US Airways
An annual ritual USAir puts on during Autumn.

Welcome to FT! I suggest you check out the "sticky" thread on credit card offers, in this MilesBuzz forum. That will acquaint you with all sorts of sign-up and initial spending bonuses, which would be great helps in you and your wife accumulating enough miles and/or points to get you to NZ.

Having said that, are you sure you want to go all the way to New Zealand with a baby? It's an absolutely wonderful country, but still...

You could hope and pray that Aeroplan will run another random, un-announced, 3 week long promo to get business class tickets for the mileage cost of economy like they did a few weeks ago! Business seats to New Zealand were only 80,000 miles! There was a 30% AMEX transfer bonus running too, so you could have gone for 62,000 Amex points each.

For the Alaskan theory - it would take a year of churning that card on 40,000 mile offers (not current, sorry) to get enough.

That was a wonderful promotion (I have a trip report to Sydney and Auckland in business class thanks to that promotion that I'm in the progress of writing up here [in the trip reports forum] and my blog). My only regret is not having even more MR points to transfer over before it ended :(

Grand Slam 2012 (if it happens, per tradition) would be a good bet (coupled with buying some extra miles if need-be from US). There's also a 40k US credit card offer out there (that I think is still valid).

If Amex adds Alaska or US as a transfer partner, the various large MR signup bonuses would probably be worth pursuing (although they've been targeted as of late and the "bump the bonus" nonsense has been clamped down on). Aeroplan is also an option (as an existing MR transfer partner), but I guess my immediate concern might be that they'd toss on fuel surcharges onto Air New Zealand before you can get the points to do a booking with them.

I was going to say the same thing... its a nice country and all, but its not as easy or cheap as I thought it would be before I got here.

I also hope BA comes out with that 100K offer since I missed it last time.

Just booked 2 separate round trips for 4 different pax to Aus/NZ.

Trip #1 was Dec - Jan for my son and his dad.
Impossible to get ANYTHING out on One World carriers. Had to book one-way on United miles routing SFO through YVR with a 9 hour layover (in economy for both of them - ouch !)
They are returning on Qantas with United miles.

Trip #2 Feb - March for us
No premium cabin awards to be found. Had to take ANZ economy (eeeek) from LAX (United miles). Returning on Qantas biz with AA miles.

So... It doesn't hurt to have miles in both *A and OW

We (wife, myself and 14 y.o.) are going to Australia/New Zealand the end of March. Similarly, we had to split it up using *A and OW. We generally suck it up and go in coach (helps that none of us is very tall!) in order to do more trips. But we did look for J tickets for this and it was slim pickings for more than 1 seat, even with some general flexibility in our dates.

OP: Gary Leff does an excellent job of addressing this very issue in this blog post, I think this will give you some food for thought.
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...-to-book-them/

You have some diversity in miles to start with so that's good. The more creative and flexible you can be in dates and routes, the better. If you're absolutely set on flying in J or not at all, you're in for more of a challenge though it's not impossible. Consider if you'd do one way in Y and one in J if need be.

Aye, but did you take the ferry over to Colonia from BA? BTW, you planning for 2 or 3 to New Zealand? A cruise may be a bit easier with Flyertalker, Jr..

I went to NZ last summer (from Houston, TX). For only 65000 r/t CO miles I went to Hong Kong and made a stop over in NZ on the way back. Continental did not charge anything extra for NZ.

Also, I believe you only need 65000 ANA points for US/NZ r/t.

It is QANTAS.

BA would cost a whole lot of Avios and a whole lot of CASH on the fuel surcharge.

Are you aware of the massive devaluation of BA program effective Nov 16? Now it is a distance-based and segment-based program.

NZ is a very long way - some 15 hours flight from LAX.

Also, being in NZ and Australia several times (once every 2 years in the past decade until we decided to skip it in 2011 due to the very expensive exchange ratio of NZ Dollar against US Dollar), it is not an easy nor a reasonably priced country to travel, especially with a baby - for to truly enjoy a trip to NZ, one must rent a car and get out of AKL which is nothing but just another city - the beauty of NZ lies with its beautiful countryside. Rental car in NZ is EXPENSIVE and insurance is almost a necessity, among other things.

OP is talking about business class.

It is a brutal long flight to fly in coach.

Are you sure? QF is a OneWorld member. I suppose you mean NZ for the father and son's return leg?

I have aspirations to get to Australia / New Zealand in the next couple years as well. After reading all the horror stories of award availability for this trip, I decided to pick Ultimate Rewards point accumulation - so if there is no award availability I can always buy with points!

If you get the Sapphire (w/ 50K bonus) Freedom (has been as high as 30K) and Ink Bold (50K bonus) that is 130K points - before you factor in any spending. That would be good for about $1500 in airfare alone! Plus those three cards offer good complimentary bonus categories.

You would need a ton of points to buy your Business / First class tickets to NZ.

If you are willing to fly coach, there is NO SHORTAGE of award seats. But it is a brutal long flight to be in coach.

The shortage and scarcity are in the Premium Cabins only and understandably so as those seats would run you $8000 to $10000 a ticket. Good luck with earning that kind of points via sign up bonus alone so you can "buy" your ticket with points.

On the other hand, a 110 to 140K real Airline Miles depends on airlines, could get you a business class r/t that, again, would sell for a retail price of $8000 to $10000.

Just wanted to say thanks so far the suggestions. Still want to do a little more research but I'm aware of a lot more opportunities then previously.

this is true, got to book a quick trip home (AKL-NYC-AKL) using AA miles on the exact dates I wanted... flying Qantas.

Ah, OK. For some reason from the reading I had done I was under the impression that award travel to NZ was limited regardless.

In any case, I still like the idea of choosing a program like UR that allows you to "hold" the points with the option to pay with points in the event award availability is limited.

We found out the tip of buying a hostel card before we left the states, all in country air, bus, ferry, and alot of other things were 1/2 off. Saved us a ton of cash! Loved NZ, would love to go back. 2nd time landed, had no reservations for a month and just winged it, best trip ever asking the locals what they would do the next day. Left bags at a hotel in Christchurch and went off for 3 or 4 days at a time with less weight. Don't miss Stewart Island to the south also!

JudyJFLA

How did you book that with CO? Can it be done online?
JudyJFLA

Yes. Choose Multi-city and build your stopover at wherever.

CO allows a stopover on a r/t booking and it seems the system does not restrict where the stopover is.

Of course it is much easier to do it in coach as there is no shortage of coach seats. It would be much much harder to do it in business due to shortage of award seats.

Point well-taken about parking the UR points in the program until you decide where to use it.

However the essence is, using the UR point in its cash value is about the lowest value you would achieve as it is a strict one penny per point. Inevitably if the UR pts are transferred to an airline program, the value even using a coach award would be doubled or tripled of that 1 penny per point cash value.

Take your own example of buying ticket with $1500 - that costs 130K UR pts with the 25% discount if booked thru UR site as redemption - but, 130K CO miles can get you 2 coach tickets to achieve the same thing, plus a stopover somewhere to boot. While with your cash value you can only buy 1 coach ticket with a little bit $ left over and most likely no stopover anywhere.

I have never seen any day that Qantas does not have coach award seats between US and NZ/Australia for all the periods I search for business class awards.

ditto for CO awards. ditto for AS awards using DL flights.

Coach awards are ABUNDANT because those who hoard miles to go, would much rather fly business class to have a flat bed or at least a lie flat seat for that 14 to 15 hours flight. A long flight under 10 hours is well within many people's tolerance but as the flight goes longer, each additional hour would add discomfort EXPONENTIALLY. The last few hours on such a long flight is very very hard. We have been in NZ 5 times, basically every 2 years. The first 2 times we flew coach. The last 3 times we flew business. Best business seats on the South Pacific to North America / Europe would be the Star A members - NZ, AC & VS. They are all full flat bed seats.

It's hard to plan a trip for 2013 "hoping" for a BA card bonus or Capital 1 bonus or Aeroplan sale. I find when booking award travel for a family it's important to set a goal and then strategize to meet the goal. Getting distracted can be costly.

OP's best strategy is to go with UA/CO given OP has 53K UR points and 25K CO miles. If OP and wife each applied for the UA Explorer card (50k each), that brings the total to 178K miles. If OP puts their 3K monthly spend on UR, that would bring OP to 214K by January 2013 (a year from now). That's just 56K short of the 270K needed. That's easily met with some judicious spending and planning through the UR mall bonuses, something that is pretty certain to happen.

The problem is that looking for award seat availability on Star Alliance in January 2013 for a March 2013 trip can be problematic. As Gary has pointed out, it's really tough to find award seats from US to Australia/NZ in premium classes. VA has good availability for DL flyers at 150K a piece, but OP doesn't have any Skyteam miles.

Another option is to get an award ticket to Europe and then fly to NZ from there on a paid ticket. ATH-AKL is about $3400 on EK J, and DUB-AKL is about 3400 Euro on EK F, both very nice products on A380. It might be more expensive than OP is willing to spend, and would definitely take longer, but it would be a more certain way to get there in a premium cabin without paying the minimum $10K per passenger ex-USA.

Is that right? So my 240K Skypesos could be a base to build upon... Initially I accumulated this stock pile for an European trip on AF. Now 150K is quite steep but VS has a very good product.

EK F at 3400 euro DUB-AKL?! or you mean DXB-AKL?

EK F is an excellent product and if it is true at that price tag, it is well worth it for an A380 ride.

Where do you find these pricing?

Yes, I just booked CVG-SYD(stop)-AKL(dest)-CVG for 150K Skymiles. Availability is there, better than Star Alliance. YQ is high though, $600. There's a thread at the Delta forum about it. For this specific award I bought miles at 1 cent a piece using the transfer bonus.

EK F: yes, it's a launch special for the DUB route. TA bookings only, i.e. here. SYD is 3665 and AKL is 50 Euro cheaper -- may as well go to AKL since the plane stops in SYD anyway! Agree, DXB-SYD would be a nice ride, including using those showers! A nice once in a lifetime vacation.

delete

My experiences are a little dated but we traveled to NZ in '94, flying NY to Queenstown (about 24 hours) with 3 children, a just under 2, 4 and 6 year old in coach. We found Air NZ very accomodating and the whole country very child and family friendly. We spent three weeks driving North to Auckland staying in a combination of motels and bed and breakfast. At that time we bought a prepaid book of vouchers for the motels - they were a lower end local chain, basic but clean and had a cooking and living room area (being able to spread out and make our own breakfast or eat in for dinner was a real plus.

We paid for tickets (It was a time of very competitive fares) and with a child under 2 only he was 10 % fare and the other 2 were 75%. I have no idea if there is any discount for children for award tickets.

We loved the country and plan to return, by 2013 the Orcs should be cleared out (filming of the Hobbit completed). I would reccomend at least two weeks, more if you can swing it, we really enjoyed South Island.

United is scheduled to fly the 787 to Auckland from Houston, I believe next year.

Kia Ora

Star Alliance availability is poor despite UA flies its own metal there. However if one is willing to pay for J but book Y at the beginning, NZ is very good in opening up seats about 3 months to departure. Our first J award was using UA miles to fly NZ to Australia and NZ when it was only 90K miles in 2007, booked before the price tag went up. :D It has since went up twice! :mad: (But AA's OneWorld award is great because going thru HKG or SIN there are enough availability to work the award route. ;))

With the stopover at SYD, 150K miles are acceptable but the $600 YQ is not. :( AS has better QF availability than AA for whatever reason and no YQ. AS also allows stopover.

Thanks for the info. Too bad we are already committed to a HKG trip 2 weeks from now (AA miles on CX J but hoping to switch to F next week.) Otherwise, an award reposition trip to DUB, then pay for the EK F sure would be a nice indulgence, consider that a coach North America to HKG in CX would run $1200 already (relatives just flew that in November, they paid $1250 from YYZ). For 200% more one can fly EK A380F - it is a very tempting price.

if you use aeroplan you can get a stopover in RAR as well. In fact, it's much easier to find routings via RAR (although you get the 763 vs the 773/2 for the direct lax-akl).

booked one of those for 2 people for 160k points rt during the recent aeroplan sale.

I've booked it over-the-phone. Representative did not charge me the booking fee when I talled him the route is not available online.

I've used United to get to Hong Kong, spend about 7 in Hong Kong and used Air New Zealand to get back to the US with 4 days stop over in Auckland, NZ

The whole trip cost me 65000 Continental miles + fees.

Is Qantas a member of both alliances? How does that work?

Wow, 65,000 miles to fly to China AND New Zealand! That's an amazing redemption value. I just searched on continental.com for Sep/Oct 2012, and sure enough... Multi-City search flying from Omaha to Hong Kong, stop for a week, then fly Hong Kong to Auckland, stop for 2 weeks, then fly Auckland to Omaha. Final price? 65,000 miles and like $72 in taxes.

Now, punch in Omaha to Auckland round trip? 80,000 miles and like $52 in taxes.

Crazy, I love it!



The bummer?
You can't search or book this on united.com
How much longer do we have until continental.com's amazing *Alliance search engine is gone?

Sux you can't book that on United. I also wonder how long until continental.com's amazing *Alliance search engine is gone?

If you want to book that trip though I would book it before you can't.

No just a member of OneWorld. I think the poster had a typo.

can you transfer United miles to Continental to do the 65k thing?

What hostel card did you get?