Hi Everyone
A big thanks to the community for the lead on this SC earner!
Following a dozen MEL-PER trips over 8 months (mixture of BFOD outbound and flexible inbound), I made it to QF PS 'and a bit' by October 09.
By December, it became apparent I was going to fall short of attaining first-time SG by about 60 SC's.
So, what better way to tip myself over the SC threshold prior to the review date by taking annual leave and touring the North Island of NZ!
Booked Red E-Deals return MEL/SYD and the LAN Premium Business fare in between (Depart 18th Jan/Return 28th Jan).
A few comments below on the experience (hope it's not too verbose, but trying to remember some of the details and how-to's whilst it's still fresh):
Outbound:
Checked in at SYD international LAN counter, all smooth with a complimentary pass to the QF J Lounge (still PS at this stage).
Boarding on time (departure the usual 20-30 minutes it takes to get airborne).
The J cabin is
spacious! You could have swung more than a couple of cats in the spare room between my legs and the seat in front. The seat was comfortable and all controls worked - annoying 'inside' arm-rest fell down when leaned on.
AVOD system great - lots of variety and all working without any annoying hum in the system.
Cabin crew were fair to middling - not overly friendly, although this I considered may have been cultural/language related as I'd expect different individual FA's would have different levels of confidence in communicating fluidly in their non-native tongue.
Meal was a light lunch (salmon & salad roll) and a dessert - all edible.
Flight arrived on time (although the seat belt sign was on for the latter third, due to it being a little bumpy).
Inbound:
Return flight was delayed by 2 hours, due to the crew not having sufficient rest break between flights (as discussed elsewhere in this and other LAN threads).
We'd stayed at the Ventura Inn & Suites the night before - close to the airport and with a courtesy bus. It's new and clean, with a great pub (The Toby Jug) within walking distance for dinner.
(
Some side advice - had a hire car for the trip to NZ, and dropped it off the afternoon prior to departure. Considered a taxi from the airport back to the hotel, but this is a flat rate of $NZ30 for a ride of < 10 mins. The fare is not metered, but is set at this rate due to the hotel being in 'the airport environment'. It seemed fairly extortive for what I thought was a $NZ12 -15 trip, so thought I'd press my luck and place a call for the hotel courtesy shuttle bus - they are happy to do this if picking up or dropping off other passengers (fair enough), but will not make a trip especially and it is subject to room (also fair), so there is some risk with this plan. Additionally, you can't grab a taxi from the drop off point - only from the taxi rank (we tried unsuccessfully - they are too concerned about being reported)- VERY different to the MEL experience, where it's fair game for all!)
Anyway, back to the delayed departure... I did receive a call the day before departure from an 'unknown number' on the mobile. Being too quick to think that this was some overseas call centre trying to sell something, I was pretty dismissive and said 'No Thanks' and then hung up - in retrospect, this 'could' have been LAN advising of the delay - although the call was at 11am the day prior to departure - too soon to know the flight would be delayed?? Not sure about this.
Departed the hotel on the 3.40am shuttle bus (oblivious to the fact of a delayed flight) and arrived at 3.50am - the LAN counter (about the middle of the check in counters) was open and we checked in without a problem.
Due to the delay, I went to the Qantas ticketing counter (almost directly opposite) to try and change the SYD-MEL flight. Despite advertising that it opened at 4am, the grille remained closed until 4.15am, with the customer service people preparing for the day - only a short wait, I know, but nonetheless frustrating when it's the middle of the night EDST. I ended up calling the QFF Service Centre (using the NZ number on the back of the card).
Having checked in, we then went to the far left of the terminal and entered the Qantas business/first area where passports were checked and a customs pre-clearance was given.
Up the elevators and through customs, where we entered the express lane due to the customs pre-clearance.
From there, through to the QF J lounge - the corridor to the lounges is past the shopping area (dog leg to the right), but easily found by following the signs!
The AKL lounge was 'okay' - range of cereals/toast and hotcakes/flapjacks with syrup available - only about 4 computers in the 'business' centre - which was overrun with a number of 7-year old CEO's (or clean-shaven midgets).
The flight boarded prior to the re-advertised time.
Surprisingly, the crew on the return flight were much friendlier than the earlier crew (perhaps because they'd had their rest break

) and introduced themselves by name.
AVOD & seating as above.
Breakfast served - croissant & roll with jam, spanish omellete (olay!) and coffee that puts treacle to shame.
Following the service, the crew encouraged everyone to pull their blinds and then dimmed the lights, which was great given that we'd been up since the wee hours.
As per earlier posts, the outbound flight credited to my FF account immediately - the inbound has not appeared as yet, but will wait for a couple of weeks.
All-in-all a great experience - all the better as I had combined this with a holiday rather than for pure status run purposes, a good SC earner, reasonable service from LAN and it tipped me over to gold.
Hopefully I've added to the knowledge base for this run and other can take advantage of some of the information above.
Cheers!