would love some advice

We are contemplating an Australia/New Zealand cruise next winter. It will begin in Sydney and end in Auckland. The one thing that has me a bit concerned is how to get there and back. One thing we know is that we don't want to fly direct..all those hours of flying and connections are just too overwhelming to contemplate!! We were hoping to compromise by breaking the flight for a night or two in each direction. We live in Toronto. We're thinking that a good break on the way over is Honolulu..perhaps for a couple of nights (and think of it as part of the vacation!). Does this make sense? Where could we break it up on the way back from Auckland? I have yet to investigate flying times but this was our initial thought.

I would also love some other suggestions or information to make the whole thing easier - if that is even possible?? I've never flown to that part of the world and the only thing I've ever heard is how awful and exhausting the whole flying experience is!!

Many thanks!

One suggestion is to arrive to Sydney a few days before the cruise begins.

This will give you a few days to get over the jet lag as well as the opportunity to a lot of time touring this beautiful city.

I have seen first hand people arriving the day of the cruise or a day before and for the first few days of the cruise they are clearly jet lagged and to me that takes away from their enjoyment of the cruise.

This areas of the world is beautiful. We love Australia and New Zealand.

Keith

We flew LAX to Auckland --our cruise was the reverse of yours. Surprisingly I slept well with the help of Ambien and arrived feeling great. We used Air New Zealand and found the "regular" class seats very narrow but we had enough legroom in bulkhead seats. Their premium economy seating is fabulous and we had that on the way back.

We had three full days in Auckland prior to the cruise which gave us lots of time to explore. Post cruise we had two days in Auckland at the Park Hyatt by the cruise terminal (no cost with Hyatt card). Lovely walk from there to the Opera House where we saw Madama Butterfly.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=272921

pre and post cruise so that we can see both cities better. Did you fly directly or did you connect anywhere along the way?

 

I would also love some other suggestions or information to make the whole thing easier - if that is even possible?? I've never flown to that part of the world and the only thing I've ever heard is how awful and exhausting the whole flying experience is!!

 

Suggestions:

1. If you can swing it, fly business class on an aircraft with lie-flat seats. Obviously not everyone can afford it, but to me it makes all the difference in actually being able to get some sleep on the long flights.

2. Definitely arrive several days pre-cruise, i.e. 3-4 days early. After a super long flight itinerary, arriving same day or 1 day early will leave your body wrecked from jet lag and you won't enjoy the first few days of the cruise.

3. Your idea of stopping in Hawaii is a good one, just keep in mind that even Toronto to Hawaii is a long travel day. If you can afford the additional time, perhaps a couple of days in LA or San Francisco or San Diego, followed by a couple of days in Hawaii. If you break it up like that you wouldn't need to arrive quite as early in your cruise debarkation city. Just depends on what areas appeal to you most. But one or even two stops would certainly help break it up. On the flip side, the more stops you make, the more you start feeling like a vagabond, constantly moving from place to place, living out of a suitcase, and paying baggage fees over and over and over.

What class of service will you be in - economy, premium economy, business?

And a seemingly unrelated question - are you traveling anywhere overseas this year (before the Australia/NZ cruise?)

The answers might help point you to some interesting options.

I was hoping to do a combination of frequent flyer miles (Star Alliance) but I don't expect that we will have enough miles and economy/premium or at least get the preferred seats..I wish I could do business but unfortunately it won't fit our budget. We don't anticipate travelling elsewhere this year until next January when this cruise takes place.

Using miles is tricky because there is limited award availability to Australia from NA. Really hard across all the alliances.

I'd consider looking at flights to Honolulu, and then a separate ticket to Australia from there. You could do one Hawaiian island on the way there and another one coming back. Kauai makes a perfect stopover for a few days.

One suggestion is to....

...edit the title of the thread subject to something more specific so that people who can help can chime in.

to stop at different islands in Hawaii each way and yes using ff miles can be tricky..but I was hoping to be able to for at least part of the flying. Great suggestion about changing the thread name - is there an edit button somewhere?

Forgive my ignorance regarding these things..

Using miles is tricky because there is limited award availability to Australia from NA. Really hard across all the alliances.

 

I'd consider looking at flights to Honolulu, and then a separate ticket to Australia from there. You could do one Hawaiian island on the way there and another one coming back. Kauai makes a perfect stopover for a few days.

 

 

 

...edit the title of the thread subject to something more specific so that people who can help can chime in.

You can always get a ticket using miles (on United and American anyway)...the issue is finding seats at below the "full price". It costs about 350k miles for a r/t biz class ticket to SYD from the US.

Camellia,

We just returned from a month in New Zealand (with five days in Sydney beforehand). We started planning this trip almost a year in advance. While we have many frequent flyers miles with United despite constantly checking I never saw any business class availability in our general time frame (and as it was a land trip we even had a fair amount of flexibility as to when we went). At the same time I was keeping an eye on business class fares as well. Finally last June I saw a great deal on business class fares on Fiji Airways ( less than half of that in United. Air NZ and Quantas) from LAX to NAdi to Sydney and returning AKL to NAdi to LAX. I had some concerns as their A330's, while very new, did not have true lay flat seats. Nonetheless we booked it. I can tell you now that they seats went almost flat (lower leg section is at a slightly downward angle) and otherwise very comfortable. We slept well without sleep aids ( which IMHO should not be used on an airplane) in both directions and as a bonus did not suffer any jet lag in either direction. The service was fine and the schedule was good. You might want to check fares on ITAmatrix.

The problem with stopovers is that they tend to put the whole trip into a different fare category compared to itineraries without stopovers, with the result that the bottom line is considerably higher.

Hawaii seems logical but there's a problem there, too. Australia/NZ cruise season is of course during the southern summer, when demand for travel from those countries is at its highest. Hawaii is a very popular destination for Aussies and Kiwis in December - February, just like it is for people in the US and Canada, so airfares between Hawaii and Australia/NZ are at their highest. It may surprise people that, for example, business class tickets between Sydney and Honolulu cost more in January than between Vancouver and Sydney.

Starting in eastern Canada, I'd frankly look at the possibility of traveling via Europe and the Middle East rather than the Pacific. It's farther and will take longer, but demand for travel to Europe in January from, say, Toronto or New York, is MUCH lower than later in the year, and sometimes you can get really good deals to Australia/NZ from London or somewhere on the continent.

You could use your miles much more easily if you wanted to go across the Atlantic at that time of year - far lower demand for award seats. Use miles to get to Europe, then pay for seats to Oz/NZ. So instead of Hawaii, what about Rome? Or Paris or Istanbul? It might take a day longer in each direction, but maybe worth considering.

Camellia,

We just returned from a month in New Zealand (with five days in Sydney beforehand). We started planning this trip almost a year in advance. While we have many frequent flyers miles with United despite constantly checking I never saw any business class availability in our general time frame (and as it was a land trip we even had a fair amount of flexibility as to when we went). At the same time I was keeping an eye on business class fares as well. Finally last June I saw a great deal on business class fares on Fiji Airways ( less than half of that in United. Air NZ and Quantas) from LAX to NAdi to Sydney and returning AKL to NAdi to LAX. I had some concerns as their A330's, while very new, did not have true lay flat seats. Nonetheless we booked it. I can tell you now that they seats went almost flat (lower leg section is at a slightly downward angle) and otherwise very comfortable. We slept well without sleep aids ( which IMHO should not be used on an airplane) in both directions and as a bonus did not suffer any jet lag in either direction. The service was fine and the schedule was good. You might want to check fares on ITAmatrix.

Are you talking about not finding saver awards or standard business awards on United? Big difference. There are always standard awards avail as long as you are willing to part with the 175k miles each way. I just looked at awards to SYD and I always look at standard award level (If I for some miracle find a saver award it is a bonus) and found flights everyday I looked, no issues.

Sorry should have been more specific -- I was talking about Saver. Don't think the STD business class awards are worth the miles. In the past two years I have Ben fortunate enough to use my mikes for business class trips to Europe for cruises.

As some one who flew Global First SFO-SYD on United last August and September on Saver Awards, they are there..it just takes some reserch and patience, with some advance planning,,and a little flexibility.

But a moot point. United stops Global First service to Australia in a couple of weeks. Will omly have Business and Coach.

The OP is in Canada, and I'd imagine their "Star Alliance" points are actually with Air Canada's Aeroplan, which requires 160K miles for a round trip in business class, 135K in premium economy.

If they had enough miles for one business class seat (and getting one seat is infinitely easier than 2 or more) then they could purchase the second seat and probably end up about the same out of pocket as two coach seats.

Putting UA and rewards aside.... we did this trip this past Oct/Nov. We started in Las Vegas and took UA to San Francisco because I needed a few more PQDs to make my elite status for one more year. Spent 4 hours in SFO and board Air New Zealand flight to Auckland and then changed there for Melbourne. We spent a week between Melbourne, Cairns and Sydney. Post cruise we again few Air New Zealand back to LAX and on Las Vegas. Why Air New Zealand? On their 777-300s Premium Economy is almost like biz class. You get your own pod, 30 degree reclining seat, a ton of leg room and hip room, same food as biz class. We both slept a solid 8 hours on the T-Pac segments and arrived pretty fresh despite all of those hours of traveling. It cost us something around $3300 per person RT, far less than biz class but more than coach. It was well worth it. Oh, we also earn UA miles from LAS to SFO to AKL to MEL and then from AKL back to LAX. LAX to LAS they had us on a Delta flight so no miles for that hop. Oh, with in Australia we used Virgin Australia, great prices, good service and smiles. Air New Zealand's service was just incredible. I have flown over a million miles now and I have never seen great service like we had on all 3 legs with ANZ...Look in to it, they do partner with UA so maybe you can buy coach and upgrade with miles? Just make sure your flights are on 777-300s....

Slightly off topic, but a sad blog article on SkyPeso availability to Australia. Used to be that SkyPesos were the best way to get to/from Australia, either through Virgin Australia or Korean. Now, it looks almost impossible to get a low level award in business.

Read Gary Leff's posting HERE.

FWIW, friends who have United miles did a similar trip last year and they (as I recall) flew IAD>LAX>SIN>SYD cruised to New Zealand then paid to fly Emirates First back to SYD then SYD>NRT>SFO>IAD. The Emirates fare was something like $600 for the three or four hour flight but as they said, whenever are we going to be able to take a shower at 30,000 feet otherwise?:D. With the exception of the Emirates leg, the rest was in Biz or First. They had to do the roundabout flying to get it at saver level and given the recent changes to programs it might not be doable anymore but they had a great trip and worked in some overnights (using hotel points) in SIN and NRT.

The other idea that you might want to consider (I suspect FlyerTalker or Gardyloo can advise if it would be worthwhile) is to look at a round the world award...while you might not have enough points, it might be worth purchasing them when one of the airlines has a "sale". Seems like I read a while back on FlyerTalk that someone had spend about half of what it cost to purchase a biz class ticket to Oz and bought a RTW award.

I can see that we have a lot to think about but it's great to know that there are other possibilities that we haven't even considered!!

Best,

Camelia

The other idea that you might want to consider (I suspect FlyerTalker or Gardyloo can advise if it would be worthwhile) is to look at a round the world award...while you might not have enough points, it might be worth purchasing them when one of the airlines has a "sale". Seems like I read a while back on FlyerTalk that someone had spend about half of what it cost to purchase a biz class ticket to Oz and bought a RTW award.

I asked upthread if the OP was planning any additional travel this year or next. If they were, then paid RTW tickets might be a solution; they could use an RTW ticket to cover the Australia/NZ trip as well as lots of other travel - in Europe, N. America, wherever, since the tickets are good for a year and offer up to 16 flights.

However in business class the "cheapest" places to buy RTW tickets are overseas, such as Egypt or South Africa. They can be terrific value in those cases, but the "positioning" expense - flights to and from the RTW "origination" countries - can reduce the value, especially if one's travel plans for the year are limited.

I don't know if Aeroplan (if that's who the OP's miles are with) offers a round the world award; United does but requires a helluva lot of miles for business class, and availability is no better than for straight redemptions. Most airlines have gone to one-way awards, so to go around the world you simply book the individual segments and add up the miles.

We are no where near the level of expertise that many posters here have, but we did managed to book saver flat business seats for our flights pre/post our NZ/OZ cruise.

By searching at 335 - 330 days out and being flexible in our plans on either end, we used AA miles for AA domestic from CLE to LAX via Charlotte and Qantas from LAX to AKL via Brisbane for 62.5k miles each.

Using our United miles I had to buy miles to attain the 80k. DH had enough but we we only able to find saver flights from SYD to YYZ on Air Canada and had to purchase YYZ to CLE flights. So maybe we spent @$1000?

In addition to flat bed seats and better service, a great plus was being able to use the loyalty lounges in LAX, BNE and YYZ, especially since we had 2 legs delayed and a 4 hour Toronto layover!

Both Air New Zeeland and Air Canada fly non-stop from Vancouver.

In the case of Air New Zeeland it is to Auckland. In the case of Air Canada it is daily to Sydney and soon they will fly several days a week to Brisbane.

If you can get Premium Economy on either of those that is the best option. It is available on all three routes listed above. Getting Air Canada award seats on either Air Canada or New Zealand is extremely hard. Air Canada regularly sells out their Business Class cabin on this flight with full paying passengers so for frequent flyers it is a very hard route to get a last minute upgrade on.

The Air Canada flight to Sydney actually starts in Toronto. It is same plane service with the Toronto to Vancouver operating as a domestic route before converting into an international flight.

I have done United in Economy between Sidney and SFO as well as LAX. I would pick Air Canada any day. United has some Economy+ product that is nothing like premium economy on Air Canada or New Zealand. I would avoid United at all cost, especially if they are still operating the 747 on the route.

You should be able to go to either Air Canada or Air New Zealand and book the other airlines on the same ticket.

The problem with stopovers is that they tend to put the whole trip into a different fare category compared to itineraries without stopovers, with the result that the bottom line is considerably higher.

 

Hawaii seems logical but there's a problem there, too. Australia/NZ cruise season is of course during the southern summer, when demand for travel from those countries is at its highest. Hawaii is a very popular destination for Aussies and Kiwis in December - February, just like it is for people in the US and Canada, so airfares between Hawaii and Australia/NZ are at their highest. It may surprise people that, for example, business class tickets between Sydney and Honolulu cost more in January than between Vancouver and Sydney.

 

Starting in eastern Canada, I'd frankly look at the possibility of traveling via Europe and the Middle East rather than the Pacific. It's farther and will take longer, but demand for travel to Europe in January from, say, Toronto or New York, is MUCH lower than later in the year, and sometimes you can get really good deals to Australia/NZ from London or somewhere on the continent.

 

You could use your miles much more easily if you wanted to go across the Atlantic at that time of year - far lower demand for award seats. Use miles to get to Europe, then pay for seats to Oz/NZ. So instead of Hawaii, what about Rome? Or Paris or Istanbul? It might take a day longer in each direction, but maybe worth considering.

Going east instead of west may have its advantages, but the trip would be brutal.

We had a cruise last March out of Singapore, ended in Dubai. We flew Delta and Air France from Jacksonville, FLA to CDG and had a 36 hour stay in Paris in route to Singapore. We had two long flights, Atlanta to CDG, then after a good lights rest in Paris, another long flight to Singapore (9+ hours). We paid about $100 each extra for the overnight in Paris.

Going all the way to Australia would involve another very long flight.

I do agree that flying over the Pacific to Australia is brutal. We did Jacksonville to Atlanta, to LAX, to Sydney and finally to Perth all in one trip. Never again. would we do that.

Still, on our recent trip to Japan, we found our direct flight Atlanta to Narita was better than having a change of flight in Seattle.