Family Travel Oceanic Award Help
 

Hey everyone, been lurking for a while but need help with some ideas. I am wanting to take my wife and 3 year old on a trip somewhere this January, preferably somewhere warm. Would love to do something in Oceania, like a pit stop in Hawaii for a few days to break up long flights, then jump to somewhere else like Australia, New Zealand, or some other island place that would be great to hang out and explore with the kiddo. He's a pretty easy going kid, but we dont want to just jump on a 14+hour flight if we can help it.

Any initial thoughts?

Thanks!

Welcome to FT!, tgrow13
The community could probaby provide better ideas with some guidance / parameters.
Limited to just UA?
Award or paid travel?
Budget?
Cabin?
Where are you starting?

Star Alliance, I’m 1k on United.
This would be award travel.
Preferably traveling business/first class
Starting from the West coast

sorry, that is all information I should have included!

Doing such a trip with 3 persons in business is going to cost many miles.
For instance, R/T SFO to Tahiti (PPT) in January will be something like 1'050'000 miles for all of you in J, as opposed to 210'000 miles in E.
Unless, of course, you find "saver award".

BTW that is a direct flight with UA and about 8 to 9 hours.

Have you considered island hopping in Hawaii, have you been to many of the Hawaii islands? They are very different and offer a very wide range of experiences. Cheaper to get to and less stress on the body.

It;s a long way to NZ or OZ, extra day plus in travel, extra days to adapt, better when you can spend an extended period of time.

Feel the need to add:
this might not be a good use of miles currently; flights on United in January SFO-PPT in E are currently very cheap!
For three persons r/t it's something like U$1900.

I agree, having raised and traveled with 3 daughters, all they cared about was the beach and snack food. Your 3 year old will never remember the trip so it’s more about your experience. Staying in the US is also a plus if your child were to get sick, my wife was always sensitive to this concern. We made 5 trips to Hawaii when our kids were small, it was all good, there is so much variety on the different islands so you can find almost anything with a little planning. Enjoy.

Flights to PPT have become much more accessible thanks to air tathiti and French bee (budget)

I'm booked on Air Tahiti next year and cant wait just not sure whether to take the plunge and upgrade as its for my honeymoon.

can’t comment on HI (never been), but make sure if you do end up trying NZ or OZ, be aware of the last paragraph. Ignoring flight time, time change will be hard for the kid. We go to India (only because of family), and if you think it’s hard on an adult, it’s way worse for kids. We went last year last, and our 3 and a half year old took a full week to get fully used to the time (our 8 month old was harder...wanted to sleep all day and stay awake all night, which takes a big toll on the parents, too:). We typically will stop on the way back for a bit of a vacation while we’re on that side of the world - we did TPE last year, but Thailand and Singapore in the past). Agreed with the comment that the kid will Likely be happy with the beach and a snack, whether it is HI, Caribbean or halfway around the world.

For logistics, sitting 3-across in Y vs. 2+1 up front may be better. (I think it a waste of miles/$ to put a toddler in F, but that's imo.) From the west coast to HI it's about 6 hours, do that instead of 12 hours to Australia.

tgrow13 Welcome to FT

Getting 3 business class awards USA to Australia, New Zealand, or some other South Pacific island close in is going to be extremely hard.
Do you have enough UA ff miles for awards for 3 people ?
Have you used UA awards before?
USA west coast to Hawaii & Hawaii to Aust/NZ/Oceania would be 2 (return) awards. Or maybe you could get the UA Excursionist Perk to work.
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/maxim...rsionist-perk/. Better to look for oneway awards, Does not need to be the same airports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel...tional_Airport

With UA ff miles you need to look where UA and UA ff partners fly to.
Air NZ is a ff partner of UA, but Air NZ is well known for not releasing award seat. Very occasionally AirNZ release some seats in the weeks before, but January is busy time for flights to Aust/NZ (summer vacation for many people).

Airlines that fly USA/Canada to/from Australia

• Air Canada AC (YVR – SYD BNE MEL) [Star Alliance]
• Air New Zealand NZ (LAX SFO ORD IAH YVR via AKL) [Star Alliance]
• Air Tahiti Nui TN (LAX – via Tahiti & AKL. Last segments on QF codeshares) (AA & DL partner)
• American Airlines AA (LAX - SYD) [OneWorld Alliance] (AS partner until 28 Feb 2020)
• Delta DL (LAX – SYD) (VA partner) [Skyteam Alliance]
• Fiji Airways FJ (LAX SFO HNL – BNE SYD MEL via Fiji) (QF, AA & AS partner) [NAN-ADL ceased 20 July 2019]
• Hawaiian HA (HNL – BNE SYD) (AA & VA partner)
• Jetstar JQ (HNL – BNE SYD MEL)
• Qantas QF (SYD - LAX SFO JFK(via LAX) DFW HNL YVR*, BNE - LAX SFO*, ORD*; MEL- LAX SFO) [OneWorld Alliance] (AS partner) {* seasonal}{*BNE ORD from 20 April, 2020, *BNE SFO from 5 Feb 2020}
• United UA (LAX - MEL, LAX SFO IAH – SYD) (SFO - MEL from 31 Oct 2019)[Star Alliance]. Reduced service IAH-SYD & LAX-SYD March 29 through October 25
• Virgin Australia VA (LAX – BNE SYD MEL) (codeshares with AC*) (DL & AC* partner) [*= some routes in 2017-18 link]
• and others via Asia & Middle East

Airlines that fly USA/Canada to/from New Zealand are (not from all airports to all airports)

• American Airlines AA (LAX - AKL) [Oneworld Alliance] (AS partner). LAX-AKL suspended April through Oct 2018. From October 2020 AA will fly DFW-AKL & LAX-CHC 3 days a week from Oct to March (southern summer).
• Air Canada AC (YVR – AKL)(seasonal from 12 Dec 2019 to end March 2020) [Star Alliance]
• Air New Zealand NZ (LAX SFO ORD IAH YVR - AKL) [Star Alliance]
• Air Tahiti Nui TN (LAX - AKL via Tahiti) (AA & DL partner)
• Fiji Airways FJ (LAX SFO HNL - AKL WLG CHC via Fiji) (QF AA & AS partner)
• Hawaiian HA (HNL - AKL)(AA & VA partner)
• Qantas QF (LAX SFO DFW JFK HNL YVR* via SYD BNE & MEL) [Oneworld Alliance] (AS partner) {* seasonal}
• United UA (SFO - AKL) [Star Alliance]
• Virgin Australia VA (LAX via BNE, MEL & SYD) (DL partner)
• And others via Australia, Asia & Middle East

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IME, I would strongly urge trip to Hawaii... when little_1780 was 3 I felt like 3 across in E+ was every bit as good of an experience as F, as we were each on a side of him (IIRC this is not possible in F/J, unless you get the 4 across in the old J) And on a side note the other consideration would be that if you do go on an intl trip, your little one will need a passport, so don't forget the time ans expense of that (plus its only good for 5 years).

We did an NZ/Australia/HI trip when the kids were 4yo and not quite 1. Time change from the US West Coast to NZ is only 3 hours, just like going to the East Coast. Long time on a plane, not a big time change. And time change isn't hard on kids at all, it's hard on parents :D

Finally, your kid may not remember it, but you'll always remember how much fun your kid had.

I was going to plan a very similar trip on MP miles as well....to PPT from MSP via SFO. March for us.....could not find a saver RT for 4 (or even two). Started looking months ago. Gave up on that and ended up with 4 Saver Y to HI. Nice consolation prize IMO....