When we started planning our world travels, we knew we wanted to go as far away from New York as possible and set our sights on Australia and New Zealand.
Even from Los Angeles though, Australia is very far at 14+ hours from the US. While we were excited to go to Australia, that long of a flight in economy just did not seem enjoyable. Thankfully we had saved up nearly 2 million points for our world trip and were able to use travel points and miles in order to make the trip a little bit more comfortable to Australia.
The number one thing to understand when booking a business or first class flight with points is that flexibility is key/ To get the best value from your travel credit card points and miles, that is especially true with Australia and New Zealand. Even if you have set dates on when you want to fly, if you can plan things out as early as possible, it will give you the maximum flexibility to find award seats.
THE BASICS – What Airlines Fly to Australia
In normal times, Qantas (Australia’s top airline) as well American, Delta and United fly non stop from the mainland US to Australia. Qantas also flies to Honolulu, Hawaii (as well as lesser known Jetstar) from Sydney and Hawaiian Airlines also flies that same route, having just restarted it on December 15, 2021. This blog will focus on the mainland US flights though and believe it or not, some airline programs charge less points from the mainland US than Hawaiian Airlines or Qantas does for flying to Australia from Hawaii.
Qantas naturally has the most flights, flying to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas in the United States. The majority of their flights return to Sydney or Australia, but they have one flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane in normal, non-covid times and we will talk more about that a little bit later. American, Delta and United focus their service into Sydney mostly, but United had flights to Melbourne as well and will even resume flights from Houston to Australia next year with its new partner Virgin Australia.
Now for the fun part. Booking directly with your miles with any of the above airlines will not give you the best value to Australia. American and United offer decent value, but we are going to go into a few airline mileage programs that offer some incredibly low mileage rates for award tickets when the cash rates are going for thousands of dollars, especially to sit in a premium cabin to Australia from the US. The same can be said for booking flights to Auckland, New Zealand, so now just which programs are we talking about?
WHAT are the best Mileage Programs for Booking Flights to Australia or New Zealand
There are four main options for mileage programs to book award seats in a premium cabin to Australia and New Zealand. We are also going to list out ways you can transfer points into these mileage programs in order to have enough points and miles to make the booking.
Alaska Air Mileage Plan
First up is the only American based program on this list, the Alaska Air Mileage Plan. They recently joined the oneworld alliance with American Airlines, but offers much better point and mile award rates to Australia than American Airlines does. While Alaska has 5 partners that fly from the US to Australia (all but Qantas with a stopover), in non-covid times, Qantas and Cathay Pacific will be your best at just 55,000 or 60,000 points respectively for a one way business class ticket to Australia and relatively low taxes and fees (under $100 per person). That’s a pretty sweet deal for a flight that will normally cost you around $4,000. You could also look into Fiji Airways at 55,000 points, however, their flights from the US do not offer a fully flat business class seat from the US.
A quick note, when I mention any point total in this post, I am talking about saver or lower point total award availability or the equivalent in each system. A lot of programs will offer tiered awards with a “saver” award ticket at a much lower rate compared to a “standard” or “every day” award, sometimes by half or more. For example, with United a “saver” award could be 80,000 points per way to Australia, but a “standard” award would be 200,000.
Back to Alaska though, just for comparison, booking an award with American Airlines would cost 80,000 points for a one way business class through either Alaska or American’s own program. You would wind up saving 40,000+ points per person on a round trip award by using one of Alaska’s other partners. You can even save more points by booking into premium economy for just 47,500 if you do not need a lie flat seat, but want some extra comfort. That said, if you can find availability with Qantas, business class is only 7,500 points more each way.
ANA (All Nippon Airways) Mileage Club
Next up is All Nippon Airways, a member of Star Alliance and one of Japan’s two major carriers. You can either choose to fly on ANA with a stopover in Tokyo on the way to Australia or fly on its alliance partner United non stop. ANA has flights to Sydney and Perth, whereas United flies to Melbourne as well. ANA will be the cheaper option on their own platform of course, costing as little as 52,500 points for a one way business class during off season, or up to 60,000 during peak season. Booking with United will always cost 60,000 points through ANA, but would be 80,000 points if you can even find any availability with United, as they tend to be stingy with awards on their direct flights.
ANA had a recent update as well where you can now book one way flights with the program, whereas before it was only round trips which is great for people with flexibility. Taxes and fees are also usually low on ANA as well, at just over $100 per way.
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles is another option for the oneworld alliance members like American Airlines, Qantas and naturally Cathay Pacific itself (to the extent things return to normal post covid). Cathay Pacific has a distance based award chart, with the points needed changing depending upon how far you fly. From Los Angeles or San Francisco, you will need 70,000 points for a one way business award or 120,000 points for a round trip, making the round trip flight as good a value as booking Cathay via Alaska and better value for American Airlines (Qantas is still better through Alaska). Cathay will also have more availability for its own flights on its own mileage plan than its partners, so it is a great backup option for only a little bit more points.
That said, if you were originating in New York, you would need 85,000 points for the one way award or 145,000 for a round trip. First Class award tickets will also be more expensive than booking on Alaska, with a ticket from the west coast needing 105,000 points each way compared to 80,000 for first class via Alaska, so stick with Alaska’s Mileage Plan in those instances.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Finally, we have Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. It used to be the best way to fly Delta to Australia in business class, but unfortunately had a very large devaluation for that redemption. It still has great value for flying to New Zealand if you can find availability at just 62,500 points to fly to Auckland from the mainland US. Your best bet will be New Zealand’s winter (June-August). The other thing to know for Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is you need to call in to book the awards and need to use other partners (Air New Zealand is part of Star Alliance, so you can search on United for example) to find award availability.
Virgin Atlantic also partners with ANA, but you cannot book all the way through to Australia with them through Virgin. I only bring them up because they are a very cheap way, even cheaper than ANA itself sometimes to get to Japan. We will talk more about that in another post, but if you have time to combine Japan with a trip to Australia or New Zealand, it could be worth looking into.
HOW TO EARN QUICKLY to Book a Trip to Australia or New Zealand
Alaska unfortunately does not partner with any of the major transferable point programs, only Marriott, so it makes accruing Alaska points a little more difficult. The good news is Alaska has their own credit card that can help you earn 40,000 bonus points for spending $2,000 in the first 3 months. Additionally, they frequently sell points in their program with a bonus of 40-60% every few months. You can make use of these last two options to quickly earn the points needed for a business or even first class award ticket with Alaska.
With ANA though you can transfer any American Express Membership points you may have to ANA and sometimes they even have a bonus, making this an even greater deal. All those points you earn with your cards like the American Express Platinum or American Express Gold can quickly add up to a nearly free business class award ticket to Australia.
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles partners with American Express, Capital One, Citi Thank You Rewards and Marriott, so you have a few different options for transferring points, especially now with Capital One offering 1:1 point transfers. We are really enjoying our new premium Capital One Venture X and after hitting the sign up bonus, you would earn enough points for a round trip business class from the west coast with Cathay’s Asia Miles program. That said, points could take up to a few days to transfer to Asia Miles, so just make sure there are a few extra seats available on the day you want to book before transferring to Asia Miles.
Finally, Virgin Atlantic partners with American Express, Chase, Citi and Marriott, so you also have a few different options for transferring points, with the Chase Sapphire Reserve still being one of our favorite travel cards especially when partnered with the Chase Freedom cards you would be well on your way to earning your flights to New Zealand and elsewhere. The key partner here though is American Express, as Amex tends to offer a bonus for transferring to Virgin Atlantic a few times per year to really maximize your points.
Hopefully you found this guide helpful in looking for award seats to Australia and New Zealand. If you want to learn more on how to exactly find business class or first class availability and the steps we took to actually book our seats, you can head over to to our Patreon and Steve will give you an over the shoulder view on the steps he took to fly us to Australia in business class from the US. If you have any questions on the basics though, please let us know below!
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