I would recommend JL's program - JMB.
Their awards on JL metal are the best all-around option between US-Japan, with economy starting at 27k one-way. Given how JL econ is one of the best products around, it's a pretty good deal.
Their miles expire 3 yrs after earning, but perhaps you will have accrued enough for a family trip by then. Consider getting the JAL credit card for US residents as well.

Good morning. I need help determining where to post mileage for upcoming trips on Oneworld.

A bit of context: My partner and I relocated from San Francisco to Auckland, and our draw on United and *A isn't what it used to be. Before moving at the start of the year, we would travel a couple of times a year, once to either South Africa or Kenya for safaris, once to Europe, and typically once to Boston to visit family. I flew on either Swiss or Turkish for the international segments and on United to Boston. We purchase business class tickets for all of our flights and first on United's domestic flights. We don't like having to rely on the whimsy of non-existent upgrades. We made one exception when we moved to Auckland because the one-way business class fare from SFO-AKL was $45,000 USD. I simply couldn't justify the delta when economy seats on Hawaiian were $450 per person.

We have about $300,000 Mileage Plus miles which I'll try to use to get a business class award ticket for last-minute travel should the need ever arise.

For more context, going forward, we plan to do one flight to the US, visiting SF, NYC and Boston, and one trip to Europe, and one trip to either South Africa or Kenya. Travel will be in business class.

These are the upcoming flights on Oneworld airlines:

1) AA Flt 7285, AKL-Sydney, Business, R Class 1,345 miles, codeshare operated by Qantas;
2) AA Flt 7375, Sydney-LAX, Business R Class 7,488, codeshare operated by Qantas;
3) AA Flt 3138, LAX-SFO, First R Class 337 miles;
4) AA Flt 276, SFO-JFK, Business R Class 2,586 miles;
5) AA Flt 4605, LGA-BOS, First R Class, 185 miles;
6) AA Flt 6926, BOS-LHR, Business R Class, 3.265 miles, codeshare operated by British Airways;
7) BA Flt 460, LHR-MAD, Business R Class, 773 miles;
8) IB Flt 717, MAD-LHR, Business I Class, 773 miles;
9) AA Flt 105, LHR-JFK, Business I Class, 3,451 miles; and
10) AA Flt 7264, JFK-AKL, Business I Class, 8,828 miles, codeshare operated by Qantas.

The total distance to be flown calculates 29,031 miles.

My partner has roughly 100,000 miles in his AA Advantage account. Somehow, my account was canceled for nonuse or at least I can no longer log in.

We each have roughly 6,900 Alaska ATMOS miles for our economy seats from SFO-AKL, equal to one mile for every mile flow, back in January 2026.

Would we stand to earn more money on Alaska, AA or Qantas?

For travel to Europe, we could fly QF, CX, QR, QF/BA or maybe JL. To Africa, I suppose it'd be QF, QR or CX. To US, AS, AA, QF.

Any insight would be helpful. Thank you. Jim

Without knowing what month(s) you'd be traveling to which places, it's hard to say anything definitive, but it certainly sounds like you'd be good candidates for Oneworld round-the-world tickets. These are good for a year, can include up to 16 segments, are relatively easy to modify, and could well save you a lot of money.

The Oneworld tickets are priced according to how many continents you touch in the course of the ticket (3 to 6) as well as the class of service. However it's important to note that the base prices vary hugely depending on where the travel begins and ends. For example, at present Japan and Norway offer the cheapest origination points for business class RTWs, with base prices almost half what the ticket would cost in the USA or most other countries.

So you could use some of your miles/points to get to, say, Tokyo or Oslo, fly for the next year (or whatever) using the ticket, end up back in Japan or Norway, and if this travel pattern is recurrent, just start a new one.

By starting in some country other than NZ, you can fly home part way through the ticket as a long stopover then finish back at the origin point before the 12 months is up.

This board is loaded with examples, Q & As, best practices, etc. I'd definitely browse through it.

How much did you pay for your tickets?
That will determine AA earnings as you have AA BA IB flight numbers.

Alaska is only practical for people who book directly with Alaska.

Call AA and see if they'll reinstate your account for a fee

Welcome to NZ
How long will you be in NZ for?
A few months/years or for ever?

As an aside Air NZ (Star Alliance) is incredibly stingy about release premium awards to other ffp's. And 2 pax even less
.
Guessing the HA-AS flight could not credit to AAdvantage. Did you check? Small amounts of ff miles are basically orphaned. Little to nil value.

For travel to South Africa or Kenya the middle east carriers are likely to be best. QF fly SYD to Jo-berg. You probably will end up on QR Qatar.

Do not fly OW just for ff miles/avios/points. Other airlines may have better price - schedules.

Hi Gardyloo,

I thought that a round-the-world ticket required having to travel in one direction around the Earth. My partner decided that with the conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine being unresolved, it was best to return westbound. We had considered such a ticket, as we figured we could travel with Qatar or Cathay Pacific.

Tokyo's a solid 10-hour flight so we feel like this could be a long positioning flight, and the cost of a business class flight between Auckland and Tokyo in business class would likely mitigate the savings on the other end. I understand that it could be recurring, but nothing is certain.

I'll browse through the forum as you suggest.

At this stage, however, with the ticket that we have already purchased, I'm more keen on determining to which frequent flyer program we should deposit miles/points.

We are traveling in September 2026.

Hi Mwenenzi. Thank you for the welcome. We absolutely love it here. We found a great place to settle down, and we enjoy the laid back lifestyle here.

The move is permanent. We only plan to visit family and friends in the US.

I understand that Air New Zealand has a hub here, and Qantas has a small operations here.

1) For travel to Africa, which we do once a year, travel on OW seems to be either through HKG or SYD. With A*, it seems to require three flights on some combination of Thai and Ethiopian, unless traveling to JNB with SQ via SIN.

2) To the US with OW, we could either do Qantas to JFK to elsewhere via Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne, or HA via HNL.
To the US with *A, we could go to LAX, SFO, IAH & JFK.

3) To Europe, it's either via the west coast or JFK or via Asia or Middle East.

Based on this premise and that the cost of the tickets we purchased were a good deal cheaper than travel on *A, we decided to book the trip with OW.

For what it's worth, HA wouldn't credit to AA because the AS-HA merger hadn't gone through by the time we flew in January. And I contacted AA. They will not reinstate the miles. Too much time had passed. I was under the assumption that the miles did not expire. They did.