Caractacus

I'm having back surgery tomorrow but need to travel to NZ in March. My orthopedist says I'll be fine but I should travel in business or first class. The problem is the majors are quoting fares of $8,000+ !

So can anyone recommend a good source for discounted business or first class fares to NZ?

Is it possible to get FF mileage if you use a discounted fare?

stulincoln

I got a notification about this one yesterday, looks like a pretty good deal:

http://www.airtahitinui-usa.com/atns...al.asp?id=1433

and I think you can even stop in Tahiti for some recovery!

Caractacus

Those Air Tahiti fares are great, but they're for economy only. Business class is $9,000+.

Maybe I could book three economy seats so I could lie down, but how would I do this??

number_6

All discounted J/F fares earn full FF credit. They tend to have routing and stay restrictions (generally not a problem). About the lowest J fare to NZ will be USD 6K range. This would be something like the Oneworld Circle Pacific fare (on QF/CX/AA/LA). Another alternative is a RTW fare, which would give more miles of travel (ticket is good for a year) but not lower the cost. Unfortunately there is an acute shortage of J seats trans-pacific except on UA (nobody wants to fly UA J if they have another choice, for some reason), however UA doesn't fly LAX-AKL any more (you could fly LAX-SYD-AKL but that adds about 6 hours to the trip). Another alternative to break up the trip is to fly via HNL, perhaps spending overnight there, making for shorter individual flights (but longer total travel time). Air NZ is probably the most comfortable, in either Y or J, but not the cheapest.

jtkauai

There are consolidators are out there, so do a search. Even one that advertises on this page. And yes, you can often get FF miles, but be sure to check. One carrier that we always see consolidated is Air Canada. But that would be out of Canada or Honolulu. This is where a travel agent/consolidator who really knows their stuff might help. Please report back what you find.

Kiwi Flyer

NZ is, like Australia, expensive in the premium cabins from US.

The main options are award, simple round trip (expensive), circle pacific (also expensive but may be cheaper than simple round trip and you get asia included), routing via asia or south america (some relative bargains but in some cases may need to piece together over separate tickets), round the world (also expensive but you get europe and asia included for not much extra).

Airlines flying to NZ with first - SQ (not much longer switching to all 2-class flights), TG, MH, LA, TN, EK (long way around!). You could also fly first via Australia (business for short trans-tasman leg) on lots more airlines.

NZ business (on 777 and 747 a/c) is as good as some airlines first class.

cestmoi123

I got consolidator quotes (I think from the one that advertises on this page) for about $5k from NYC (Air Tahiti Nui via PPT), before I decided to go the miles route. Other than that, $9k appears to be the going rate.

wallaby

For Business class, Air New Zealand looks like $6800 ex-LAX, $7100 ex-DFW and $7300 ex-JFK. In fact it looks like they have a web special for around $6400 ex-LAX.

Caractacus

Thanks everyone for the ideas. It looks as though there isn't any cheap way to go bus/1st at this time of year right now.

I ended up booking a BA codeshare flight on Qantas for $7,100, mostly due to the dates available. There were cheaper UA codeshares on Air NZ for other dates as mentioned by wallaby. I could have saved another $1,000 by flying Air Pacific via Fiji, but their website said their bus. class seats only reclined 12" - not much help for my back. I could have saved $2,000 by flying bus. class on Malaysian Airlines, get this, from LA to Taiwan, to Malaysia, then to Auckland - maybe I should post that on a mileage run. However, that was 40 hours of travel one way which (a) isn't a great idea for my back and (b) with a "Muslim prayer area" in the bus. class section I figured it would be just my luck to get a call to prayer 8 times on those flights (I'm not trying to be irreligious, I once lived in Turkey so I know how it goes).

I tried two consolidators - one was slightly more expensive than what I could get on aa.com, and the other ("the one that advertises here" - am I not allowed to say A m e x ??? ) would have saved me a couple hundred bucks but took a couple days to get back to me, and I wanted to book before my operation.

Anyway, thanks again for the input.

P.S. Back surgery went well - first day without needing Vicodin ^

Rejuvenated

Long haul premium cabins, regardless of destinations are always expensive ex-USA (in particular ex-LAX & ex-JFK).

bensyd

Often the flights via Asia are cheaper than direct flights for a raft of reasons the primary one being the lack of competition on direct US-AU/NZ flights.

Glad to hear your recovering

number_6

I presume you mean AA codeshare on QF and are flying LAX-AKL non-stop. If it is a BA codeshare, you are flying via LHR and HKG (BA has codeshare on CX HKG-AKL but not on QF Australia-AKL the last time I looked).

Discounted J is a lot harder to get in the past 6 months for all routes, not just to NZ. Lots of fares that were offered last year are no longer offered, business is good for the airlines and they don't need to attract more pax.

hildegardu

Just booked Bus premium on Air NZ for March 07 thru Mexicana Frecuenta program , you can purchase as many miles as you like from them at any time and they partner with Air NZ , it cost me $2,000, received my ticket in 3 days and I am pretty pleased. Hope this helps , hilda

jaginger

Wow, you're saying you bought enough miles for $2000 to book a FF ticket? That's great!

hildegardu

you can call 800 531 7901 ,for openig an account with them they offer 4000 free bonus mls, it takes 100,000mls for the rt lax-akl bus prem tix, I purchased my miles prior to 12-31 -06 @ 16cents/mile , cost has increased I believe to 20centa a mile ,still way less than any other program has to offer .
Mexicana is just soooo easy to deal with .
Let me know if you have additional q's
I received this info from my membership in FIRST CLASS FLYER ($99 yearly fee ) and well worth it .
MEXICANA partners with many other Airlines ,look on their site . I am now purchasing additional miles ( you can buy unrestricted amount of miles at any time ) for my trip to Germany , Mexicana partners with Lufthansa and you well know how pricey they are , but also offer the best First Class Service .

Good Luck ,hope this helps . It almost sounds to be too good to be true and none of my friends wanted to believe me at first, but now they are flying first class long distance .hilda