Oneworld ex Auckland to US
 

Hi All,

Need to get from Wellington/Auckland New Zealand over to Chicago. I am OW Gold, but dont have status with any other alliance.

I assumed American would fly direct here but everything I search on a Oneworld airline involves going through Sydney which adds a 4 hour flight in the wrong direction, and makes the flight to LAX or DFW even longer then if I was going from NZ.

So my question is...is there any Oneworld airline that can get me from NZ direct to the US without going via Australia?

Otherwise my upgrade chances and lounge access are nil :)

No. Unless you really want to take a long detour via Australia or via South America, you will need to choose a non One World carrier. Going via Australia would turn a 12 hour journey into a 20 hour journey.

OK thanks Dave.

Time to get friendly with Star Alliance.

If you want to upgrade with an AA instrument you cannot do as AA does not fly to Australia (but codeshares on QF). Via Asia you may have a small chance of an upgrade, but you have to get to an airport that AA flys from. If you have AA miles look for an award on QF or one of non OW AA partners.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/aboutUs/where...false&from=Nav

Lounge access will be as per your AA (OW) status if applicable

From AKL it is a significant extra time to fly via SYD/MEL/BNE to go oneworld, however another option is Air Fiji via NAN to LAX, connecting to AA.

From WLG it is still longer flying via SYD (QF operates WLG-SYD) than via AKL on Air NZ, but the time difference is not as big as it is ex-AKL.

The only other fairly direct options are Air NZ or Hawaiian for AKL to HNL connecting to AA, or a much longer routing on LAN for AKL to SCL then onward to USA.

QF to via SYD/MEL/BNE or CX via HGK

I forgot to mention there is also AA partner TN LAX-AKL via PPT.

TN on AKL-PPT-LAX should be your best choice, otherwise AKL-SCL-US

While it still won't help you get upgrades or lounge access, AA does codeshare on TN.
AKL-(PPT)-LAX is a direct flight - AA7176

Accruing to AAdvantage, you will get full miles

Look like Shamrock55 will maybe be on QF http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qanta...-a380-lax.html

Well spotted.

Air NZ PE was $500 more expensive then QF via Syd. I weighed up the options and decided the extra flight times in the wrong direction are worth the 50,000 points i'll earn, but I'll probably blow 45,000 of those on an upgrade to J on the way back to Syd.

Plus booking PE means the trans tasman flights are Business and i'll sleep a bit. Allthough the 737 is tiny, I've really enjoyed the trans jetconnect business service before so I went for it.

Don't think I'd sleep in the Air NZ PE Spaceseat on the 777, wheras I like the PE seats on QF 747s and A380s Will be one way on each aircraft.

Also really wanted lounge access at LAX and ORD so going this way give me the all important shower in between legs.