Well, I went for it : ) Writing up this post yesterday helped me think it through, and the plan all made sense – so I bought and confirmed my Air New Zealand itinerary for early next year. I’ll be heading to Webstock – my favourite web conference, ever – in Wellington, via Auckland.

The routing looks like this -

1. SYD-AKL – Air New Zealand Boeing 763 – this is Air NZ’s Trans-Tasman business offering, with recliner seats and premium meal service
2. AKL-WLG – This will probably be on a single class 737
3. A few nights in the InterContinental Wellington
4. WLG-AKL – again, single class 737
5. AKL-SYD – From what I understand this should be a on a 777 which are equipped with Air NZ’s Business Premier, their Long Haul international business class. Should be fun to try.

A reminder about how this came about – US Airways 100% Dividend Miles promotion meant their award chart for South Pacific bookings suddenly became very cheap, at 30,000 miles for a round-trip in Business, or 25,000 for Economy (so a no brainer spending the extra for Business). The total cost was ~ $570 US, or around $545 AU. An absolute bargain given full fare would be in excess of $1200.

Getting it sorted via US Airways in the US was pretty simple.

1. Researched award availability via Award Nexus
2. Call their 1-800-428-4322 customer service line – I ended up using Skype as for some reason Rebtel didn’t work
3. Use options 5 (International reservations) and then 3 (Dividend Miles)
4. Gave the agent the flight details, and she confirmed the 30k miles price. I then went on hold for ~20 mins while she was on hold with the rate desk for taxes and fees – ended up agreeing to give up and she noted them on the booking for me to call back about later, after giving me the booking reference.
5. Called back to get charges – decided they were reasonable
6. Decided to book – Bought the necessary points, which credited instantly and then called again, gave booking reference
7. The whole thing was paid for and ticketed in under 5 minutes. Sweet! Booking reference with Air NZ was confirmed, and seats allocated.

I also found their website easy to use and navigate, so it was all pretty straightforward. Thanks US Airways – great promotion. A full report will, of course, appear when the time comes. Hopefully I’ll get to experience something like this…

credit: Fly for Fun

credit: nakedsky

credit: nakedsky

Down the track, the all reviews from this trip will show up in this list -

Update
A comment over on The Point’s Guy blog alerted me to the direct phone number for the International Fare Desk (+1-800-622-1015) – probably best to use this for bookings in future.