Cheapest way to fly to NZ in December?

Gloomendoom

As I'm sure you realise by now, the secret to cheap flights to Oz and NZ is to book early, don't go at Christmas; and leave the kitchen sink at home.

boots_babe

That made me laugh gloomendoom!

Well I will no doubt be going to NZ several times now that my sister is living there. So I will definitely remember that Feb booking is cheapest for next time round.

blindman

boots_babe wrote: »

That made me laugh gloomendoom!

Well I will no doubt be going to NZ several times now that my sister is living there. So I will definitely remember that Feb booking is cheapest for next time round.

The other secret is to use Credit cards sign up bonuses to accrue FF miles

However this takes

1. Time -12-24 months if not more :cool:
2. Good credit score :cool:
3. Meticulous (financial and logical) planning
4. Wierd routing :eek:

Our trip to NZ in 2011
Took me about 2 years to plan\save: and several CC for myself + Mrs B.


First class LH Frankfurt-Tokyo (3 day stop over) 10th Dec

Business class Air NZ Tokyo-Christchurch-13th Dec

Almost 3 weeks in NZ over Xmas-South and North Island

AKL-SYD 31st Dec 23:50 hrs layover (important that it was less than 24hrs)

Sydney NYE Fireworks :T:T

1st Jan SYD Istanbul- Business class One night stopover
2nd Jan Ist-LHR Busniess class.

For two adults cost about £1000 in taxes and fees + IIRC 120,000 FF miles each

Had I paid for this trip it was in the region of £7000 EACH for the airfare:eek:

PPPPPP

I did this trip to Hawaii years ago

richardw

boots_babe wrote: »

..... any tips to getting cheaper flights, I wondered about weird routes, or specific travel agencies perhaps....

Call trail finders and ask about flight and hotel inclusive tour fares with a stopover at say Singapore or Dubai.

Returning on an unpopular day to travel has already got you cheaper flights, we can do no more apart from advise to do an audit of unnecessary items that you don't need to take with you.

comeandgo

Have you thought about going west flying with the American air lines? Their luggage allowance is a lot more than the airlines you have mentioned. I also suggest try Trail Finders - we flew last year and used them as our flight intinery was so complicated I used them and got a very good deal, though we did book in February.

Gilly_flower

Excellent site blindman, thank you

OP - one other way is to begin the outward flight from Europe (use Avios to get a £30 flight to Rome/Amsterdam etc), then do an open jaw from that city to NZ, then back into London. You then don't get stung for the UK long haul taxes.
It's a faff but you can make big savings - I will be using this method for our trip NEXT year.

wlf

I usually fly back for Christmas/New Year and pay around 1400-1500 but book only a month or two out, so I would have though you could have got something cheaper than what you have found by booking this far out.

Re the luggage allowance, some of the Air NZ flights go through LA or possibly Vancouver and the luggage allowance is 23 x 2 for each person.

There is a slight logistical issue with this though, in that flights directly to/from Dunedin (where she lives) are NOT cheaper on this date.

Highly unlikely you will be flying direct into Dunedin - it will involve a domestic flight from Christchurch. That will also explain the associated extra cost.

Gloomendoom

Yes, we were on the Air NZ LA route. 23kg x 2

boots_babe

blindman wrote: »

The other secret is to use Credit cards sign up bonuses to accrue FF miles

However this takes

1. Time -12-24 months if not more :cool:
2. Good credit score :cool:
3. Meticulous (financial and logical) planning
4. Wierd routing :eek:

Our trip to NZ in 2011
Took me about 2 years to plan\save: and several CC for myself + Mrs B.


First class LH Frankfurt-Tokyo (3 day stop over) 10th Dec

Business class Air NZ Tokyo-Christchurch-13th Dec

Almost 3 weeks in NZ over Xmas-South and North Island

AKL-SYD 31st Dec 23:50 hrs layover (important that it was less than 24hrs)

Sydney NYE Fireworks :T:T

1st Jan SYD Istanbul- Business class One night stopover
2nd Jan Ist-LHR Busniess class.

For two adults cost about £1000 in taxes and fees + IIRC 120,000 FF miles each

Had I paid for this trip it was in the region of £7000 EACH for the airfare:eek:

PPPPPP

I did this trip to Hawaii years ago

Thanks blindman, very interesting post. I was aware you could accrue airmiles via credit cards, but had always somehow assumed you'd never have a chance of building up enough to make it worthwhile. I thought you'd have to spend a fortune, and more importantly that the accrued miles would only be valid for say a year, so you wouldn't get chance to build up.

What you've said above therefore makes this an interesting option to me. At present we do virtually ALL spending on 0% credit cards, as we offset the monies against our mortgage.

If we were able to get anything like the value you've shown above though, then it might actually be better for us to look into accruing miles instead.

We currently spend approx £3k to £4k per month on the credit card, is this going to be anywhere near enough to make it worthwhile?

Thanks again for posting, obviously too late for this trip but might be perfect time for us to start earning miles for the next one!

boots_babe

comeandgo wrote: »

Have you thought about going west flying with the American air lines? Their luggage allowance is a lot more than the airlines you have mentioned. I also suggest try Trail Finders - we flew last year and used them as our flight intinery was so complicated I used them and got a very good deal, though we did book in February.

I did start looking into flying west late yesterday. But for some reason I've struggled to come up with any search results that match.

I've tried 'forcing' the results instead, by doing a multi stop flight via LA or San Francisco (which I believe are some of the places used for this type of route), but then although I end up with the flights, the prices are extortionate. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.