Cheapest way to fly to NZ in December?

boots_babe

Gilly_flower wrote: »

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.

Hi Gilly_flower, I did find an old MSE thread around this, and had spent a while a few days ago trying out various options which saw us starting our main journey from outside UK but within Europe, but they weren't really showing any different prices unfortunately.

boots_babe

wlf wrote: »

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.

That is very true, most of the options I've seen have an itinerary that goes into Sydney and then straight from there to Dunedin.

boots_babe

I think I may have come up with a good option - at last!

I'd already played around with flights from LON instead of MAN but not much of a difference. However if I do London to Sydney, it has several advantages:

- almost half the price - around £850 instead of £1400
- less changes - only 1
- must much shorter - 22 or 23 hours instead of 36, 37 or even more.

For the cost saving AND journey saving, this is currently looking like the best option. We are thinking of spending a few days in Sydney on arrival.

Then book separate flight with Air NZ into Christchurch, to then start our drive around the South Island ending in Dunedin.

Whilst we'd prefer to fly out of Dunedin to go home, it's almost the same price for a return internal flight, as for a single, based on initial search via http://www.webjet.co.nz. So if we book a return from Sydney to Christchurch, then it just means an additional 4 hour drive from Dunedin to Christchurch to set off on the journey home (our total journey time would still be considerably less than via other routes).

All things considered, this seems a no brainer.

I noticed BA also offer option to pay approx £250 each to upgrade to premium economy, or whatever they call it. Never upgraded before as it seems a rip off usually, but wondering if worthwhile here. The value seems pretty good at that price, for that length of journey?

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions.

Doshwaster

boots_babe wrote: »

I noticed BA also offer option to pay approx £250 each to upgrade to premium economy, or whatever they call it. Never upgraded before as it seems a rip off usually, but wondering if worthwhile here. The value seems pretty good at that price, for that length of journey?

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions.

£250 isn't bad for an upgrade to PE to Australia. Since it is 24 hours each way then that works out as £5 extra per hour for a better seat and slightly better service. But only you can decide if it is worth it.

It would be especially good value if you can do the SIN/HKG to SYD legs on Qantas or Cathay Pacific as their Premium Economy services is better than BA's - more of a Business Minus product.

blindman

boots_babe wrote: »

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.

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?

The trick with the method I describe is to sign up to CC (via Quidco ) when they have a really good intro offer.

(Also look at the Amex Charge cards-
Huge fee
but
Huge mileage points that can be converted to loads of airline-
Also refund the fee pro rata so the quicker you qualify and spend the more you get back)


Quaify for the intro-get the points- then close the card.
Some cards give you back their fee pro-rata-so you can actually make money!

Repeat

Problem is that with some CC you have to wait 6-12 months (after you close) before you can open again so this means 12 months wait.

Also applying for too many CC's OR too many from the same providers can lead to rejections

And too many CC applications could impact on your credit score.

If you use CC to offset monies against mortgage you need to wiegh up how much you save on mortgage repayments to how much you save on flight costs.

FF miles are only ever worth spending on Business class or higher as with Economy the taxes are almost the same as a normal ticket.
However you do get a flexible ticket you can cancel without (possibly nominal) charge.

Also you do have to look at Flyertalk to get ideas as to how to get from A to B (usually involves C, D E :cool:) and when to look for reward tickets and which web-sites give you a good start.
Almost Rocket Science

At £3-£4K per month you should easily get some miles for future trips.

Takes a lot of research on FT and Headforpoints but can be worth it for really long haul trips.

Presently I have

Virgin 100,000 Mrs B 98,000 Last year had nearly zero...
American A 138000 Mrs B 750000 Last year had about 60k each
Avios 160000 Mrs B 65000 Tx old BMI miles so about 100K start.

Credit cards
American Airlines MBNA 35000 points spend £5k in 3 months
BA Amex Spend £10,000 in year and get companion ticket (Mrs B at £8000-2 months to go)
Amex PLAT 52000 Mileage Rewards achieved. Spent £2k in 3 months
£450 fee:eek: Refund due will be around ££300 also got £80 + £50 from cashback.
MR can be converted to LOADS of airlines.


So with careful planning and patience that dream flight\holiday can be yours for almost next to nothing :cool:

boots_babe

Wow, lots of info thank you for taking the time to write all that.

I'm definitely going to look into this. Another thing that has become apparent from your post, and which I didn't realise, was that you can get miles from DIFFERENT card providers and pool them together.

I thought you'd get miles with a single provider and have to accrue with them alone.

But taking advantage of multiple intro offers on many cards makes sense. I'd say on average we apply for a new credit card once every 3 to 4 months at present - each time one gets full up. I've been doing this for 4 years now, always expecting that at some point I'll start getting declined but so far that hasn't happened (although our luck is bound to run out at some point).

So I would be doing the same but for different card types. I do think the value of the airmiles would work out more than the mortgage offset, but obviously need to go away and do some calculations.

This feels almost as euphoric find as when i first started matched betting lol! Thanks again, I will definitely look into all that info, and get onto that Flyer Talk forum you mentioned.

blindman

boots_babe wrote: »

Wow, lots of info thank you for taking the time to write all that.

I'm definitely going to look into this. Another thing that has become apparent from your post, and which I didn't realise, was that you can get miles from DIFFERENT card providers and pool them together.

I thought you'd get miles with a single provider and have to accrue with them alone.

But taking advantage of multiple intro offers on many cards makes sense. I'd say on average we apply for a new credit card once every 3 to 4 months at present - each time one gets full up. I've been doing this for 4 years now, always expecting that at some point I'll start getting declined but so far that hasn't happened (although our luck is bound to run out at some point).

So I would be doing the same but for different card types. I do think the value of the airmiles would work out more than the mortgage offset, but obviously need to go away and do some calculations.

This feels almost as euphoric find as when i first started matched betting lol! Thanks again, I will definitely look into all that info, and get onto that Flyer Talk forum you mentioned.

The other thing is to get one CC (or Amex Charge card) in YOUR name only-Qualify for the spend then REFER your partner for another card before you close yours.
Usually both get more points and it means your partner is getting points while you're waiting to qualify again.

Head for points is possibly best to explain the better cards, whilst FT is the place to look at which miles to accrue and how etc.

If you have NZ in mind then Star alliance members can give you loads of varied routings and availability. (I'm no expert :rotfl:)


Not too sure about Avios at the mo-no great fan of BA

American airlines have lower taxes-Obviously fly USA (LAX-NZ)

Virgin have a nice product but taxes are high!

Research

danandjens_worldtravels

Jetstar currently have a sale on (probably excludes the dates you want over christmas) but could be worth a look, you will have to pay a little more for extra baggage but it isn't extortionate.

As you are flying to the South Island from Sydney you also have the option of flying into Queenstown, a shorter drive to Dunedin and possibly on your tour of the south anyway.

You may also find this useful https://www.transfercar.co.nz/browseall
Its to relocate cars and campers, cars are about $1 and campers $5 per day. Some will include fuel but usually when there is huge demand and not a lot of drivers. You may not be able to plan very far ahead with this idea, but if you keep an eye on the website you will see the routes and options available. Like any car/van hire
you have to pay the deposit on credit card incase of accident but I have always gotten it back no problems.

Its worked for me and friends many times, to get between Christchurch and Queenstown, I even had a camper from Auckland to Christchurch last Nov with ferry paid! They do go to Dunedin, not used myself but seen many deals between Dunedin and Queenstown and Christchurch.

If you haven't booked, holidaypirates is a good site and earlier in the year had some great europe/nz routes - maybe for next year.

richardw

Good point about Queenstown, great place to visit aswell.

blindman

blindman wrote: »

Presently I have

Credit cards
Amex PLAT 52000 Mileage Rewards achieved. Spent £2k in 3 months
£450 fee:eek: Refund due will be around ££300 also got £80 + £50 from cashback.
MR can be converted to LOADS of airlines.

:cool:

Update
Closed the Plat card on 23rd May after reaching spend in 2 months.
Fee refund of £412.50 back to the card today. :cool:

Net cost
I got PAID £92.50 to be given 52000 rewards which I can convert to (almost) any airline FF of my choice.
Also
Got 1 year membership card for Cathay Pacific which has let me book BA seats for free:cool: way before the 24hr deadline.(I have no BA status )

Result

I could have referred Mrs B for the Plat or Gold card to get more rewards :DBut at this point we need to reach other CC goals and another target of £2k in 3 months would not be feasible-(don't want to buy-then refund large ticket items at the mo :cool:)

Now will wait minimum of 6 months and apply again to repeat the cycle.