Questions and Answers

What is the best option for finding a reward flight from JFK to Auckland?

Premium cabin or economy? One award seat or several?

None of the US-based airlines operate a flight there. Air New Zealand has the only non-stops to North America (to LAX/IAH/YVR) but they are extremely stingy with award space.

For premium cabins if you want a flat bed you can use one of the Star Alliance carriers via Australia or even via Asia.

If you only need one premium seat and are flexible with dates and can book very far in advance you might be able to find a seat on one of the Qantas flights from either DFW or LAX and route via SYD/MEL/BNE.

If you don’t mind angle-flat, you can use AA or Alaska miles from LAX on Fiji Air via Nadi. If you book far in advance you can get 2 business class seats there.

For economy seats you should be able to find space on most carriers routing either via Australia or Asia. Star Alliance will let you route either way but AA will only let you route via Australia.

[QUOTE=”Kevin C., post: 8011″]What is the best option for finding a reward flight from JFK to Auckland?[/QUOTE]

I just went through this a few weeks ago, and I don’t think I’d have been able to get what I did without all the help I got from [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] 🙂

I was looking for three seats in business class, and ended up with a few compromises (but am extremely happy with what I got). From my experience, I booked the award space as soon as it became available, and had to be creative with the routings. I started by looking at PHL and JFK, and eventually ended up with a departure out of IAD.

For whatever reason (probably because this was the very first time I’d ever booked award seats) I couldn’t find any routes which got me all the way to AKL, so I ended up using award miles to go to Sydney (business class), and then used cash to book the flights between Australia and New Zealand.

This worked out pretty well, as it turned out, because we’re now flying into Auckland and flying out of Queenstown, so we’ll get to see quite a bit of the country.

I’m sure that [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] can give much better advice than I can, but I wish I had found Aeroplan’s web site sooner. I found it much easier to build the routes and then book them on United’s site.

As [USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] says, it’s exponentially more difficult if you’re looking for more than one seat and if you want premium cabin space.

([USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] – [B]big[/B] thanks for all your help. Final result is IAD-NRT, then we will have to make our way to the other Tokyo airport and get HND-SYD. All ANA. Return is SYD-BKK-NRT on Thai Airways, and finally NRT-IAD on ANA. Business class all the way except that I’m currently on economy between Japan and Sydney. I never would’ve gotten this done without you!!)

Just read on Mommy Points that starting in July, United will fly to Auckland from San Francisco. [URL=’http://mommypoints.boardingarea.com/2015/10/08/new-way-to-get-to-new-zealand-on-miles/’]See her post here[/URL].