Best option to redeem pts to Auckland?

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gaz1

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Hi,

I'm trying to find out the best option to get return flights for both of my parents from Perth to Auckland in February or March next year (they are quite flexible with exact dates).

Are have about 27,000 altitude points at the original 1:1 value & about 80,000 altitude points at the new value (i.e. 40,000 ff points).

They don't have membership of any of the frequent flyer programs, so are quite flexible on who they travel with.

The 25% bonus points offer with Virgin Blue sounds good (and they don't charge membership), but it appears that they don't support the original 1:1 valuation of their original points, so this may not be any good.

I don't think they have enough for 2 return flights, but I am trying to workout the best / cheapest option. For example, perhaps they look at buying cheap fares to Melb (on Tiger, for example) & then use the points for tickets from Melb - Auckland. Mind you PER-AKL on QFF is 25,000 each way (28,000 with taxes) whereas MEL-AKL is 18,000 points (20,000 with taxes) so there's not much difference anyway.

There seems to be some specials to Auckland in Feb / March, so I'm not sure how this affects the velocity rewards, airpoints, etc.

To make things more complex, I guess the most cost effective option could end up being to use different airlines for each sector too!! (of course they would want to be together on all flights!).

Anyway, I would appreciate any suggestions on the best way to help them get best value from their hard earned points.

Thanks,

Gary.
 
The best way to get reward flights from Perth to anywhere in New Zealand is via the Singapore Airlines Krisflyer program (which I think is still free to join). I think you can transfer your points into krisflyer points. It takes only 25000 Krisflyer points to get a return economy ticket from Perth to any New Zealand city flying on their Star Alliance partner Air New Zealand. This is even better than Qantas because Air New Zealand fly direct Perth/Auckland. From memory it is only 45000 points for a return Business class flight.

My husband and I have used our Krisflyer points twice to go to New Zealand from Perth. In fact we just went in July with our son on points (75000) total. I rang Krisflyer and they do the booking.
 
I'm starting to feel that the Qantas decision to exit from the Altitude program is going to give SIA & ANZ a free ride. Thanks fo rthe ideas limlib
 
The best way to get reward flights from Perth to anywhere in New Zealand is via the Singapore Airlines Krisflyer program (which I think is still free to join). I think you can transfer your points into krisflyer points. It takes only 25000 Krisflyer points to get a return economy ticket from Perth to any New Zealand city flying on their Star Alliance partner Air New Zealand. This is even better than Qantas because Air New Zealand fly direct Perth/Auckland......

Thanks limlib - that is fantastic advice!

Here is a comparison of my findings so far based on Perth-Auckland return per person:

Qantas: 50,000 points + $315 taxes (via MEL/SYD)
Virgin: 55,800 points + $262 taxes (via MEL/SYD)
Singapore: 25,000 points + $242 taxes (direct using AirNZ)

Main downside to Singapore Krisflyer is that they don't recognise the 1:1 transfer for Altitude points earned a while back. Mind you, it still works out to much less points. Note that transfers to Virgin have 25% bonus at the moment, so you actually only need 44,640 points.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

It appears that AirNZ & Malaysia will honour the 1:1 conversion for early points. Malaysian don't seem to have a partner Perth-Auckland - is this correct? Not sure how many AirNZ points you would need - they have a special on at the moment, but it seems hard to work out the points needed & if there are taxes.

Thanks,

Gary.
 
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