Using Air Miles to get to NZ via Australia

[davenhelen]

Has anyone used AIr Miles to get to New Zealand. We have a large number of Tesco Club points that we are looking to convert to air miles which would give us enough miles to get a return flight to Australia, but unfortunately they do not in include NZ in the possible destinations.

I would be probably looking to do a return trip about a month before we emigrate later this year to take out some luggage early & set up job interviews. What are the luggage limits on flights between Aus & NZ and what sort of price am I looking at for a flight in say October, sorry I'm being lazy just not sure about carriers.

Thanks
Dave

[Manks]

I think the Air Miles system is related to British Airways, therefore (I think) your choice will be restricted to BA or Qantas. I may be wrong.

I've never tried to use the Air Miles system, but if it's anything like redeeming BA Exec Club Miles it is nigh on impossible to get a "reward" seat (as they're called) on the "Kangaroo Route". You can't even get a flight to Singapore typically.

You may be able to work it through LA though. I've used miles to get a BA flight from LA before and I've seen miles availability on the Qantas flight that goes direct from LA to Auckland - if they'll give you that option.

The only other advice I can give you is plan ahead and book in advance. WAY in advance! Reward seats are scarce property.

And don't forget, you'll still have to pay taxes on all your flights.

[davenhelen]

Manks cheers for reply, yes I think it is restricted to BA & Quantas, completely forgot about taxes.

Cheers

[cappuccino]

3 years ago I had also saved up enough BA airmiles to get to Sydney but was told that I had to book 11 and a half months in advance! Same story for upgrade. Dunno if the rules have changed now.

[petri]

In economy class, it's doable. Attached is the availability for London - Sydney, on BA, for this autumn.

Premium economy has quite decent availability for the return flight, also First class has some availability. But for the London - Sydney flight, the premium cabins are practically unavailable.

Looking at March - May 2011, it starts to look a little better in the premium cabins - with the right dates, you can actually do it. Economy is available almost every day. The number of award seats in premium cabins is usually quite small. (Much better availability than I expected)

BA has a pretty useful "Check reward flight availability" tool on their web site, even if you don't collect their miles, it's worth registering to the Executive Club just to use the tool. It's the first item under "Spending BA miles". If you're looking for an upgrade, you just e.g. find the Club World availability and the upgrade option from Premium Economy to Club World will use the same pool of available seats as direct Club World award seat.

[Manks]

No worries! I haven't tried to book the flights you mentioned myself but one of my friends has on a number of occasions, even trying to book as far ahead as you possibly can and he couldn't get anything. But going via LA may work.

[bluesky]

By the way, the great thing about the Air NZ Airpoints scheme is that you earn "airpoints dollars" that you can then use in place of cash to buy any flight. i.e. there's no such thing as "airpoints availability"

[sophiedb]

how do! We're planning to book our flights using BAMiles (different to AirMiles), also collected via Tesco clubcard points.

We have seen in the past that it's difficult to get London-Sydney tickets (we're 2 adults, 1 child), but if you tick a box to use other carriers you can fly via other OneWorld airlines. Flying via Frankfurt via Qantas (including a short London-Frankfurt hop on BA CityFlyer) didn't alter the number of BAMiles needed, though the taxes did go up.

We're also collected a bundle of StarAlliance miles using a BMI credit card, which will take care of the Sydney to Christchurch journey (other than taxes, of course).