BTA

In November 2011 I took a trip to New Zealand in V Australia Business Class with stops in Australia on both ends of the trip. I booked this for myself and my wife with 150,000 Delta Skymiles (plus taxes and fuel surcharges). V Australia avialiaiblty was quite good, and I was able to add flights on Virgin Australia to New Zealand and on Delta to LAX.

I spent several days diving the Great Barrier Reef, before heading to Auckland, then spent time touring New Zealand by car. I eventually flew out of Christchurch then back to Sydney and home. I used points for hotel stays at the Westin Sydney, Hiltons in Auckland, Taupo, and Queenstown. I used one suite night from my Hyatt visa for a suite at the Park Hyatt Melbourne.

I wrote a trip report with a bunch of photos on my blog in a many installments.

Trip Planning
Delta flights to LAX
LAX layover
V Australia Business Class from LAX to SYD
V Australia Business Class dinner service
Sydney layover and Virgin Australia to Cairns
Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef with Spirit of Freedom (NEW)
Cairns to Sydney and the Westin Sydney
Virgin Australia SYD-MEL-AKL
Hilton Auckland
Hilton Lake Taupo
Wellington and the ferry to the south island
Exploring the south island
Hilton Queenstown
Jetstar ZQN-CHC and touring Christchurch
Air New Zealand CHC-MEL
Some Virgin Australia issues I experienced
Touring Melbourne and the Park Hyatt
Virgin Australia Lounge in Melbourne
V Australia check in and lounge
V Australia Business Class SYD-LAX
Conclusion


Thanks for reading. I wanted to share my experience, whenever I get the urge to get on the road, I often find myself reading trip reports. '

Questions or comments are welcome.

ma91pmh

very nice report, thoroughly enjoyed. as mentioned on one of the posts, would love to see details of your diving in australia

cardigans1

so which parts of your trip were included in the V Australia redemption for 150k Delta points?

`X'

Great reports. Good to see some of the local products. If you posted some more on Spirit of Freedom id love to read it.

As for the 2 different schemes you saw on the 77Ws that belong to VA. You had the old scheme and the interim scheme. They have only just started to go in for full repaint in the last month when they went in for their heavy C check (i think its C).

BTA

Thanks for the kind words.


The MKE-MSP-LAX-SYD-MEL-AKL, CHC-MEL-SYD-LAX-MSP-MKE legs were included in the award. I bought a seperate ticket for the segments to Cairns, and the Jetstar leg was also paid seperately.

I'll plan to put together a summary of the GBR diving and post it.

@X Thanks also for comments on the paint schemes. Good to know.

Carfield

Thanks for a wonderful trip report!
I finally found a very detailed Virgin Australia trip report and the meals are not disappointing... indeed impressive. I flew VA on a short BNE to HKT flight before and this transpacific service definitely has more in offer.

Thanks for the menu details too!

Thanks,
Carfield

snowymt

Thanks for such a detailed report! Esp helpful to me b/c we have an upcoming trip to NZ this summer and I've been wondering about the two Hiltons in Auckland and Lake Taupo. Since we only have 4 days, I was debating doing two days in Auckland and two in Lake Taupo/Rotorua. But seeing pictures of the south island and Queenstown has me wondering if we should just do a day in Auckland and try to fly to the south island for the next couple of days. What were your favorite, "must see" parts about your trip?

BTA

You're welcome. Thanks for reading!

Its difficult to choose, particularly with your short time there. It would be very hard to pass up the south island. It is an incredible place. I'm generally a city person, but so much of the charm of New Zealand is it its natural beauty. I like Auckland, and there is lots to do and see there, but I think you'll do better with a true Kiwi experience spending most of your time outside the city. The Taupo property was great, as was Queenstown. I guess it comes to what you are looking for on your trip. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

Enjoy your trip, I'm sure it will be great whatever you decide to do. Safe travels!

adampenrith

If u are short of time the mountains of the South Island would have to vd the priority.
Queenstown Milford Sound Southern Lakes. Wanaka Hawea Haast.

BTA

Per several suggestions, I added a post covering my time scuba diving on the live-aboard.

Thanks for your comments!

ma91pmh

Thanks for the update, looks great. Sadly for me I get sea-sick too easily to do a live-aboard. I can cope with an hour or so going to a dive site from shore but would not be able to spend several days on a boat.

ayodeji13

Great read overall, maybe could add a little more information on the booking process that would be applicable to Delta non-elites.

BTA

Thanks for your comments.

Here is some information I wrote up a while back about the booking process:
Delta booking process

I booked this as a SkyMiles Platinum, so I had a bit more flexibility, but other than fees for any routing changes, the process should be the same. I suggest you search for space on the Virgin website, then once you have that, provide it to the Delta agent. They may not have any idea about Virgin Australia being a partner, but be persistent. Once the agent was looking in the correct place, the process with quite fast.

Some more good information on booking Virgin Australia tickets with SkyMiles is available here on Flyertalk, and I learned a lot from this thread:
Skymiles for Virgin Australia Business Class

Good luck!

ayodeji13

domo arigato... ill check that thread out