The Best Ways to Use Miles and Points to Get to New Zealand

My number one bit of advice to someone planning on making it to New Zealand on miles and points would be to plan as far in advance as possible and to stay as open-minded as you can about taking longer routes through other continents, such as Asia. Yes, that means more flying time but it will also make your booking experience much easier given the difficulty involved with getting to New Zealand on award flights. With that said, here are the best ways to use miles and points to get to New Zealand.

Limited direct flights 

The first thing to be mindful of is that there are only a handful of direct flights to New Zealand from the United States.

These include:

• Houston (IAH) to Auckland (AKL) – Air New Zealand
• Los Angeles (LAX) to Auckland (AKL) – Air New Zealand and American Airlines
• San Francisco (SFO) to Auckland (AKL) – United and Air New Zealand

Unfortunately, award spots on these flights are extremely hard to find. This is why you need to be open to routing through Asia or Australia to get to New Zealand.

Economy vs business class 

If you want to get to New Zealand in economy, it’s not very difficult to find flights. In fact, your experience with finding award tickets will be much more pleasant than looking for business class routes.

However, if you want to get to New Zealand in business class or first class (at the saver level), you’re going to have to really plan ahead (7 months plus) and be open-minded about jumping on longer routes. Instead of flying directly to the home of the Kiwis, more than likely you’ll be routing through Australia or Asia (or both) so that your final route might end up looking like: US -> Asia -> Australia -> New Zealand. That might not sound like fun, but because you’ll be in business class it should be a lot more bearable. 

ANA

• Alliance: Star Alliance
• Ways to earn miles: American Express Membership Rewards, SPG

Miles needed:

• Economy: 75,000
• Business class: 120,000

United Airlines

My preferred method of getting to New Zealand would be to book a roundtrip with ANA miles on United Airlines since they don’t pass on fuel surcharges and your total fees would be minimal. The problem is the abysmal open award space. At the time of this article, April 2017 had one of the best months for availability and for Saver business class seats and you can see how limited it was to Sydney in April/May in the image below.

When I searched for availability from the US to Auckland with United on Aeroplan’s website, I found a lot of United award availability for flights 5+ months out and decent availability for flights only a couple of months out but it wasn’t the kind of availability I liked. The major issue with these flights is that the business class redemptions were mostly mixed-class fares, often with economy being the longest leg. If you search long and hard enough (for flights 6-7+ months out) you might be able to find itineraries with business class for the long-haul legs but it’s probably still going to come down to getting a little bit lucky. 

Thus, while getting to New Zealand via United with ANA miles would be terrific,  I definitely recommend expanding your searches to routings via Australia and Asia that involve other partners. Awards seats in business class may still be a little hard to come by but by getting creative with your routes and combining alliance partners, you should eventually be able to piece something together.

Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand offers the most routes from the United States to New Zealand but the problem is that the award availability is very limited and historically has been. You might get lucky and come across some good availability here and there but for the most part I wouldn’t count on there to be open seats on Air New Zealand.

ANA (plus Asian airline partners)

Using ANA to book ANA plus Asian airline partner airlines to get to New Zealand can be a great option but will obviously require you to connect through Asian airports to get there and back. A lot of the routing through Asia include partners: Singapore Airlines, Asiana, Air China, and Thai Airways. For example, take a look at this sample itinerary from IAH to AKL utilizing ANA and Air China. 

One of the issues for business class redemptions is that the business class fares are often mixed with economy on long segments. For example, most of the routes involving Singapore Airlines options included a long economy leg from Singapore to Sydney or Auckland. The key again is try to book as far in advance as possible, search routing options day-by-day, and experiment with routes through Japan, China, Southeast Asia, etc. If you are relentless with your efforts, you should eventually be able to piece together an all-business class itinerary. 

ANA routing rules regarding connections are a little complex so if you want to try to learn more about them check our this article. If all of that seems a bit over your head, you can just play around with the search function on ANA’s website and try to find connecting flights that work for you based on what they provide.

The total fees at about $465 for a roundtrip is a little high, but you can’t forget that you’re getting an awesome redemption rate of 120,000 for your roundtrip, or if you book with ANA’s own metal, just 105,000!

Stop over and open jaw possibilities

Don’t forget that you’re allowed a stopover and open-jaw with ANA as well. If you’re routing through Asia, it might make sense to book your stopover there in a place like Tokyo or Beijing to help break up your flights. 

Many people who make the trip all the way down to New Zealand like to combine their trip with a trip to Australia or perhaps an exotic destination like French Polynesia.

If you wanted to include a stopover in Sydney you could do the following:

• Outbound: SFO -> AUK
• Inbound: AUK -> SYD [stopover] -> SFO

Or, if you wanted to hit up Australia and still make your trip even more exotic by stoping over in a place like French Polynesia you could go with the following:

• Outbound: SFO -> AUK
• Inbound: SYD [open jaw] -> Tahiti (PPT) [stopover] -> SFO

You’d have to take care of your flight from AUK to SYD and your fees might be a little higher since your flights might not include just United, but for 120,000 miles, getting to New Zealand, Australia, and French Polynesia is superb, even if you have to shell out a little in fees.

Alaskan Airlines

Alaskan Airlines offers great redemption rates to a number of destinations around the globe and New Zealand is one of those places. As usual, the rates differ depending on the partner, so here are a few of the best ways to use Alaskan miles to get to New Zealand.

Qantas

• 85,000 in economy
• 110,000 in business class

The 110,000 is business class roundtrip to New Zealand (via Australia) and sounds exceptional, right? The problem is that almost all of the search results you find for business class redemptions will be mixed-class cabins, with the long legs from the States being in economy or at best premium economy. Unfortunately, much like Air New Zealand, business class award availability with Qantas is one of the hardest to come by. Every once in a while they roll out with more open dates but for the most part if you want to find open business class seats, you’ll have to do a lot of searching and will probably struggle to find suitable options for a roundtrip (though it can be done).

However, if you’re interested in economy you should be able to find plenty of open seats; it’s just that the deal isn’t quite so sweet at 85,000 miles roundtrip.

Fiji Airways

• 80,000 in economy
• 110,000 in business class

Fiji Airways offers more outstanding rates to get to New Zealand but it’s got the same issues as Qantas in terms of very limited business class availability. I searched for months on Alaskan’s website and only found a couple of days with open business class seating but others have had more luck finding business clas availability (via Fiji). Much like Qantas, economy had wide-open dates, however.

Korean Air

• 85,000 in economy
• 125,000 in business class

Booking business and/or first class on Korean Air’s metal with partner miles is extremely difficult because they have been known to limit their inventory to partners, sometimes with only one business class seat. I searched through months on Delta and Alaska’s website and only found a seat here and there for business class and economy wasn’t much better. Therefore, while the redemption rate with Alaskan miles is tempting, this isn’t a very practical option for getting to New Zealand for the time being.

Cathay Pacific

• 80,000 in economy
• 120,000 in business class

You’ll need to search for award availability with British Airways or Japan Airlines since Alaska often doesn’t show Cathay Pacific award availability. A quick search for availability about 7 months out showed many open business class seats (sometimes up to 5 seats open) between Hong Kong and Auckland and so you’d just need to find Cathay Pacific flights from departure points in the US (SFO or LAX).

The product level on Cathay Pacific and redemption rates make it one of the best ways to get New Zealand and definitely one of the best ways to use Alaskan miles. While award availability is not phenomenal it’s still better than many of the other options for getting to New Zealand, so if you have Alaskan miles then consider Cathay Pacific as a primary choice.

Remember, Alaskan Airlines has a very generous stopover policy allowing one stopover on one-ways and two stopovers on roundtrips. A route through Asia to Oceania is a perfect time to take advantage of these!

United Airlines 

• Alliance: Star Alliance
• Ways to earn miles:  Chase Ultimate Rewards, Chase cards, SPG (2:1)

Miles needed:

• Economy: 80,000
• Business class: 140,000

As stated, award availability for (saver) business class to New Zealand on United is not great and you’ll need to book far in advance if you want to even have a chance to snag redemptions with business class seats between the US and Australia/New Zealand. On the other hand, if you’re searching for economy flights, you should be able to find plenty of flights 6+ months out and decent availability for flights under 6 months out.

The same logic applies from the ANA bookings: you want to explore routing options with Star Alliance partners through Asia and Australia to New Zealand. United will not allow you to route through Europe, the Middle East, or Africa, to New Zealand (or Australia), so you’ll be primarily looking at bookings through Asia with Star Alliance partners, such as ANA, Singapore, etc.

Another routing rule for United to be aware of is that when routing from North America to the South Pacific, you can only have 3 connections, which means 4 total segments one-way. So keep that in mind when piecing together your routes through Asia. 

United allows one stopover on roundtrips although there appears to be some changes rolling out. 

Delta Airlines

• Alliance: SkyTeam
• Ways to earn miles: American Express Membership Rewards, American Express Delta cards, SPG

Virgin Australia

• Business class: 160,000

Delta has some pretty horrible redemptions to Australia and New Zealand and the lowest I found when I searched was 300,000 miles roundtrip. However, Delta has access to non-SkyTeam partner Virgin Australia which has the largest inventory of business class awards to Australia even in peak times and no fuel surcharges. You may have to route through cities like Brisbane or Melbourne but you should be able to connect to New Zealand with Virgin Australia or SkyTeam member China Airlines. These routes are as low as 160,000 round trip and the business class product looks pretty great on Virgin Australia.

My issue is that I wasn’t able to find these awards on Delta’s site but it’s good knowing that this option is at least offered on occasion and/or that you have the possibility of tracking down these awards.

Another option for getting there with Delta but via Asia is China Eastern. 

Singapore Airlines

• Alliance: Star Alliance
• Ways to earn miles: American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi Thankyou points, SPG

Singapore Airlines is a bit of a pricey option for getting to New Zealand but it still makes the list since it’s a transfer partner to the major reward programs (and thus easy to accumulate miles for) and it offers one of the best business class and economy products out of any airline.

Singapore airlines with online 15% discount factored in

• Economy: 85,000
• Business class: 170,000

Singapore’s award booking still confuses me, however, when it comes to getting to New Zealand. First, when I input routes from the West Coast to New Zealand, like SFO -> AUK, I get an error message that states:

The Origin and Destination you have selected constitutes a backtrack routing. Backtracking is not permitted except as required by routing restrictions. Backtracking occurs when a journey does not continue in the same direction as that in which it was begun.

I don’t know why their system defaults to that. To work around that error, I searched for award availability in segments, SFO -> SIN and SIN -> AUK.

The rate that pops up for SIN -> AUK (seen above)  is 110,000 in business class, which is the amount stated on the award chart for Zone 9 Australia “excluding New Zealand.” So that doesn’t makes sense to me but I guess that is the requirement for getting to New Zealand.

The biggest issue with Singapore Airlines (besides fuel surcharges sometimes) is that availability can be terrible. For business class, though, it’s not always that bad and I found a decent amount of open seats for the SIN to AUK segment for dates about 6 to 7 months out. The segments from SFO and LAX to SIN (via oneway or connecting Asian flights) can be a little harder to obtain but with enough flexibility and planning, you should be able to find something. And as usual, economy redemptions are much easier to find.

Remember, you’re given one complimentary stopover when you book a Saver roundtrip on Singapore Airlines.

Star Alliance partners

• Economy: 110,000
• Business class: 195,000 

The redemption rates on partner awards are much worse than on Singapore’s own metal. Thus, I personally would avoid trying to book Star Alliance partners with Singapore and try to do such bookings with ANA, United, Aeroplan, etc.

American Airlines 

• Alliance: OneWorld
• Ways to earn miles: SPG, Citi credit cards

Miles needed:

• Economy: 80,000
• Business class: 160,000

Unfortunately, American doesn’t allow you to transit 3rd regions subject to exceptions and North America to South Pacific (Australia and New Zealand) is not given an exception. This means that routing through the Middle East with Qatar and Etihad or through Asia with airlines like Cathay Pacific will cost you additional miles. Therefore, I’m leaving them and others off the list.

American + Qantas

American Airlines runs a direct flight to Auckland from LAX but as you’d probably expect it’s very difficult to find open seats on that flight. However, if you route your flights through Australia and take American Airlines from LAX -> SYD you can find some pretty good business class SAAver availability at times, although you’ll need to searching for about 9 to 10 months out. Check out the SAAver seats below for business class from LAX -> AUK flying American to Sydney and then Qantas to Auckland.

Also, although American Airlines does not allow stopovers, the fees are very reasonable and for the roundtrip business class seats found above, you’d be paying about $73 in total fees!

You could also try to find other Qantas routes that depart from the United States but as already stated when it comes to business class, those can be pretty difficult to find. However, there are routes from LAX, SFO, and DFW you could at least look into.

Final Word 

Getting to New Zealand with miles and points in economy is not very difficult with sufficient planning but getting there in business class requires: 1) ample planning often 7-10 months out; 2) relentless searching; and 3) flexibility with routing connections through different regions of Asia and/or Australia. If you can handle those three things, you should be able to eventually put together routing to New Zealand; otherwise, you might just have to get lucky and come across sporadic award space. 

Cover photo byDarren Puttock via Flickr.