In November my partner and I will be taking our first proper holiday in a couple of years or more, leaving Scotland's rainy early winter behind for three weeks in New Zealand. I'm from NZ and know most of the places we're visiting well; she's been down south in Otago once before but the rest of the country will be all new.
Thanks to @madrooster posting details of this cheap QF fare ex-CAI, we'll be doing Cairo to NZ in business class — which will be the first experience of long-haul J for both of us.
It also means we'll have an adventure transiting CAI and spending a day looking at the pyramids. One of us is looking forward to this, and the other is a bit more apprehensive.
DrJomar's basic goals for this holiday are relaxation and to stay in Kaikoura for as long as it takes to see some whales. Mine are visiting friends and places that I haven't been able to on my last few NZ trips, and showing off some more of NZ's good bits.
We'll start with a couple of days in Wellington, then fly up to Auckland to pick up a rental car and work our way back down the country to Queenstown. We'll be staying at a mixture of self-catering airbnbs and quirky glamping lodges, some hotels, and staying with friends and family.
On the way back, we have a day to have a look at Sydney, and then just overnight transits in Singapore and Cairo.
For positioning to Cairo, we're travelling just after the DST change and BA's LHR-CAI flight arrives at 0230 rather than the 2300 of a week ago. So I've been dithering for months whether to fly BA or a better-timed EgyptAir flight or something else. In September I considered trying for Air NZ's QF status match to make flying MS more attractive, but wasn't feeling cheeky enough (for AirNZ FF purposes my address is in NZ, but I don't really live there
). In the end we've stuck with BA as it's two separate tickets at the complicated end of the trip rather than three, it's not MS, it's cheaper when you add in the sectors up to Scotland, and we benefit from my OWS status.
Between Scotland and Cairo it's all BA A321 Y. Sadly after the northern summer not only did the timings change, but they've also taken the 787 off the Cairo route. So my first flight on a 787 will have to be some other time.
The nice part of the flying is three sectors of EK 777 J, one EK A380 J, one QF A380 J, and two trans-Tasman QF 737 J.
And WLG-AKL is on JQ, mostly to ensure that I tick over to WP by the end of the trip.
Thanks to @madrooster posting details of this cheap QF fare ex-CAI, we'll be doing Cairo to NZ in business class — which will be the first experience of long-haul J for both of us.
It also means we'll have an adventure transiting CAI and spending a day looking at the pyramids. One of us is looking forward to this, and the other is a bit more apprehensive.
DrJomar's basic goals for this holiday are relaxation and to stay in Kaikoura for as long as it takes to see some whales. Mine are visiting friends and places that I haven't been able to on my last few NZ trips, and showing off some more of NZ's good bits.
We'll start with a couple of days in Wellington, then fly up to Auckland to pick up a rental car and work our way back down the country to Queenstown. We'll be staying at a mixture of self-catering airbnbs and quirky glamping lodges, some hotels, and staying with friends and family.
On the way back, we have a day to have a look at Sydney, and then just overnight transits in Singapore and Cairo.
For positioning to Cairo, we're travelling just after the DST change and BA's LHR-CAI flight arrives at 0230 rather than the 2300 of a week ago. So I've been dithering for months whether to fly BA or a better-timed EgyptAir flight or something else. In September I considered trying for Air NZ's QF status match to make flying MS more attractive, but wasn't feeling cheeky enough (for AirNZ FF purposes my address is in NZ, but I don't really live there
). In the end we've stuck with BA as it's two separate tickets at the complicated end of the trip rather than three, it's not MS, it's cheaper when you add in the sectors up to Scotland, and we benefit from my OWS status.Between Scotland and Cairo it's all BA A321 Y. Sadly after the northern summer not only did the timings change, but they've also taken the 787 off the Cairo route. So my first flight on a 787 will have to be some other time.
The nice part of the flying is three sectors of EK 777 J, one EK A380 J, one QF A380 J, and two trans-Tasman QF 737 J.
And WLG-AKL is on JQ, mostly to ensure that I tick over to WP by the end of the trip.
.
(I guess we should have booked an ex-MEL A380 to have had any chance), gives us another J product to experience, and is upgradable.
