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Hi All,
BA Gold member with 400K miles + upgrade and 2-4-1 vouchers.
Relatively new to actually using Avios/reward points.
My wife and I would like to visit New Zealand in February next year. From what I understand BA can’t be used for this (to leverage 2-4-1 or upgrade vouchers, since BA do not fly to New Zealand themselves). Currently I’m thinking to use the vouchers for a family holiday to Orlando instead.
For New Zealand the recommended approach I see in various forums is to try to get Qatar QSuites bookings 360/355 days ahead.
For the last few evenings I have been tryign to get visibility of any Business Award seats from London to Auckland checking at 11am, midnight and a bit past midnight and haven’t seen any. I even checked Birmingham to New Zealand. I’m using the Qatar website to search and can easily find Economy seats. I have my BA Avios account linked.
Am I doing something wrong or are Qatar not releasing any seats in Business class at the moment for Jan/February right now?
Also are there any other recommendations on how to secure good value business seats to New Zealand using BA/Cathay etc?
Many Thanks!
Are you seeing “flexi” business class seats at all? QR often only releases these at peak time, and they charge double avios for them.
You could look at using the BA vouchers to get as far as SYD (if you’re very lucky), or SIN/HKG/KUL etc and get separate flights to NZ.
When you say “family holiday” to Orlando, do you mean taking children? From your post it sounds as though only you and your wife will be travelling to NZ (just before I post a load of stuff about getting to Orlando in school holidays!).
First choice would be the Qatar option if you can get it as it’s a simple ticket/routing on a decent airline at a good price.
Second option would be Finnair to Hong Kong then Cathay to NZ. Prjce wou,d also be very good bug to get mosf out of this you would want to have the time and desire to use stopover breaks in Finnair Zone 1 abd HKG facilitated by multiple tickets. Book via Finnair.
Option 3 is similar to option 2 except swap HKG and Cathay with TYO and JAL.
You could mix and match options 1,2,3 as one ways as preferred.
Heading East from UK to NZ I would not even consider using BA, it will be relativeky poor value overall even with a voucher. You will get better value from your voucher going to USA.
You can use 2-4-1 on Iberia from Madrid to Tokyo which is excellent value and then as BJ says above.
Heading East from UK to NZ I would not even consider using BA, it will be relativeky poor value overall even with a voucher. You will get better value from your voucher going to USA.
Yes, difficult to understand why one would choose BA to fly to Australia as it’s so expensive in Avios, timings with two overnights are worse than so many alternatives and the idea of c. 22h30 in BA CW or even F is quite grim. The same journey with QR will not only be cheaper but leave you arriving fully refreshed to enjoy Australia.
Only once have I ever flown BA to Australia and that was when they flew to Perth and had a superior product (then) compared to other airlines. I would not fly with them again.
We visit NZ frequently as have family there. OH and I usually travel alone. He always wants to fly OW and uses Qatar as he wants to get there asap and likes the product. I refuse to go to Doha and then spend another 16 hours on a plane, even though a lot of the time is lying down/resting. I much prefer to stop en route somewhere else such as Tokyo or Hong Kong for a night or two and continue my journey when using OW and Avios. When paying cash for business flights, I shop around and find there are often better non OW deals. My last 3 trips have all been with SQ.
If you’ve got the time and wanted to go west from UK, you could go OW via DFW and Sydney with BA/AA and QF, but obviously wouldn’t be able to use 241.
You can use 2-4-1 on Iberia from Madrid to Tokyo which is excellent value and then as BJ says above.
Good point, I had forgotten IB were flying to Tokyo. How much does that work out at for two with voucher? I was pondering whether I could get enough value out of the vpucher to make it worth applying for BAPP again, this migbt be it so thanks from me too.
Thanks @NL, I’ll check it out later but that would beat AY provided cash element is lower. IB with voucher would certainly win cash and value of avios considered but need to offset against £300 fee (current SUB helps there). @LD27 certainly provides another option but at greater cost than heading East if using BA to USA. All depends both where OP is based and whether they have the time and desire to get creative creative with the itinerary snd see more places.
Checked Jan 2026 and it’s 119,000 avios and £191 per person. So with voucher 119k and £382 for two is good value. This was off peak.
Thanks @HSV, it’s excellent and I’m sold on it. I’ll apply for BAPP on Monday. I imagine it’s difficult to get the seats though as IB release a few days before BA but I may get lucky as I’m very flexible with time. If it fails, I’ll have all of IB South America network to fall back on with the voucher.
@BJ, I had a quick look out of interest and there was outbound availability at T-360 on the IB website. In these instances you can call BA and they can make your 241 booking on the phone even though the seats haven’t been released on ba.com at that point.
Equal top tip of the day @NL, I din’t know that, many thanks!
Btw, though of you yesterday passing through Falkland given your interest in Mary Queen of Scots etc. Hope you got your trains in Spain sorted.
It’s been discussed a bit in the various 241 threads as one of those things you may need to talk an agent into doing if they haven’t done it before! But definitely possible.
😬 booked IB domestic for £27 in the end, but definitely intend to try the trains on future trips.
Falkland Palace is lovely, and a must for MQoS fans. I’ve still quite a few places on my bucket list, including Craigmillar, Lochleven and Inchmahome 🏰.
Responding the amazing feedback above.
Are you seeing “flexi” business class seats at all? QR often only releases these at peak time, and they charge double avios for them.
No
You could look at using the BA vouchers to get as far as SYD (if you’re very lucky), or SIN/HKG/KUL etc and get separate flights to NZ.
Yes, I have seen BA flights briefly be available at Midnight – though it will be a race to secure them.
When you say “family holiday” to Orlando, do you mean taking children? From your post it sounds as though only you and your wife will be travelling to NZ (just before I post a load of stuff about getting to Orlando in school holidays!).
Orlando in Sept 2026 will be with 2 grown up kids and we can fortunately avoid school holidays 🙂
Yes, it’s just myself and my wife goign to NZ.First choice would be the Qatar option if you can get it as it’s a simple ticket/routing on a decent airline at a good price.
Agreed and QSuites seem excellent!
Second option would be Finnair to Hong Kong then Cathay to NZ. Prjce wou,d also be very good bug to get mosf out of this you would want to have the time and desire to use stopover breaks in Finnair Zone 1 abd HKG facilitated by multiple tickets. Book via Finnair.
Option 3 is similar to option 2 except swap HKG and Cathay with TYO and JAL.Interesting, I hadn’t come across this as an option before!
Heading East from UK to NZ I would not even consider using BA, it will be relativeky poor value overall even with a voucher. You will get better value from your voucher going to USA.
That’s what I was thinking and we for sure are going to Orlando next year and Business seats to MCO seem plentiful.
You can use 2-4-1 on Iberia from Madrid to Tokyo which is excellent value and then as BJ says above.
Another interesting suggestion!
Yes, difficult to understand why one would choose BA to fly to Australia as it’s so expensive in Avios, timings with two overnights are worse than so many alternatives and the idea of c. 22h30 in BA CW or even F is quite grim. The same journey with QR will not only be cheaper but leave you arriving fully refreshed to enjoy Australia.
The only reason would be to leverage the 2-4-1 and upgrade vouchers I think.
My OH and I flew MAN to AKL via DOH on 28 Dec 2024 last year in Qatar business. I set the alarms every morning from New Year’s Day, and Avios availability popped-up on 3 Jan 2024. It was flexi only so cost 360,000 for both. Should/could have been 180,000 for normal but never saw that available. The booking email was timed 10.46 UK time (just checked) but I think I would have booked about 3am, which is midnight in Qatar.
17 hours in a Q-suite was worth every penny and point!
Good luck.
We’ll be heading to AKL next year. I’ve already been pondering how to get there , so delighted to read the various options posted .
I’ve looked at the LON-AKL Qatar route ad infinitum over the years. Availability from DOH to AKL is definitely less than to other Australian destinations. I did have two 180k seats to AKL for early December, but cancelled them when I found four ‘flexi’ seats to Melbourne (as four of us are travelling.
My suggestion would be to consider MEL/SYD/BNE for the redemption, perhaps have a few nights in a new city, and then get a cheap flight across the Tasman.
As others have said, the reward seats in J do not necessarily pop up when the economy ones do – I have found a 4-5 day lag is typical.
Good luck!
For anyone still up, there are 2 J seats to Sydney on QR on the 30/1 at 90k
OP reporting back after lots of fun booking flights to NZ.
I successfully managed to book Q Suites seats from LHR – DOH – AKL and back again for the two of us.
Cost was 86K Avios (LHR-DOH) + 140K (DOH-AKL) and then then the same in reverse so a total of 452K Avios + approx £1.8K in taxes.
If I take a value of 92p per mile, then the cost is equivalent to a total of £5,950 (or £2,975 per person round-trip).For sure if I could book a return flight without ticketed stop in Doha it would be cheaper, but availability would be a challenge/impossible.
I had to grab each leg of the flight at midnight 362 days ahead (I had some flexibility so the fact it took a few attempts to be fast enough was fine). Rarely did the business seats remain visible after 5-10 mins past midnight.
With BA I understand you could ring the executive club and have the separate reward flights combined.
Does anyone know if that’s possible with Qatar?Since it’s cheap £19 per person to cancel each leg of the flight, I could look out for alternative deals between now and next February (on Qatar or elsewhere), but at least we have something booked now.
BA don’t combine inbound/outbound bookings made separately, they just refund the 50% avios if you’re using a 241. This obviously doesn’t apply with QR so you’re probably going to just have 2 bookings. This can actually work in your favour if you decide to just change or cancel one leg.
Was it necessary to transfer all avios from BA Avios to Qatar Avios before booking?
Was it necessary to transfer all avios from BA Avios to Qatar Avios before booking?
No, linking the accounts was enough.
During the Qatar payment process a BA website prompt comes up to approve the transfer of the required Avios.OP reporting back after lots of fun booking flights to NZ.
For sure if I could book a return flight without ticketed stop in Doha it would be cheaper, but availability would be a challenge/impossible.
With BA I understand you could ring the executive club and have the separate reward flights combined.
Does anyone know if that’s possible with Qatar?Morning, I’m trying something similar and wonder if you managed to get Qatar to link your separate bookings into one to allow through check-in? Thanks.
Morning, I’m trying something similar and wonder if you managed to get Qatar to link your separate bookings into one to allow through check-in? Thanks.
Sorry haven’t requested yet. But will report him when I have.
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