American Express is a DansDeals.com advertiser.
-Earn 5 points per dollar on the AMEX Platinum Card or 3 points per dollar on airfare with the AMEX Premier Rewards Gold Card or the AMEX Business Gold Rewards Card.
–Bookable on Priceline. Tickets purchased from Priceline today are refundable until 11:29pm EST tomorrow. Please see this post for directions on how to cancel these tickets.
Lower fares may also be available via Momondo, though I can’t personally vouch for the 3rd party booking sites that they may send you to.
-Los Angeles to Auckland nonstop is available for $644 on American or $701 on Air New Zealand on select dates in May, June, August, September, October, and November.
Sample date: May 15-25
-Los Angeles to Melbourne nonstop is available for $671-$676 on Qantas or $729 on United/Virgin Australia on select dates in May, June, August, September, October, and November.
Sample dates: May 2-9, May 8-18, May 15-25
-Los Angeles to Sydney nonstop is available for $685 on Qantas or $738 on Delta/United/Virgin Australia on select dates in May, June, August, September, October, and November.
Sample dates: May 8-18, May 15-25
-San Francisco to Sydney nonstop is available for $668 on Qantas or $724 on United on select dates in May, June, August, September, October, and November.
Sample dates: May 8-18, May 15-25
-NYC to Sydney is available for $963 on Qantas on select dates in May, June, August, September, October, and November. Or you can always book a separate ticket from NYC to Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Sample date: May 8-18
Park Hyatt Sydney and Sydney Opera House. Picture taken from Sydney Harbour Bridge:
Kangaroo at Angelsea Golf Club on the Great Ocean Road, outside Melbourne:
Great Ocean Road, outside Melbourne:
New Zealand is still on my bucket list, but back in 2010 Mimi and I flew around the world on AA’s defunct round-the-world award and for Australia we stopped off in Melbourne, Sydney, Tasmania, and the Whitsunday Islands. Truly an awesome country!
-3-5 days in Sydney would give you enough time to experience the phenomenal Park Hyatt, climb the Harbour bridge, check out the Opera House, pet some Koalas and Kangaroos, and have a day in the Blue Mountains.
-4-6 days in Melbourne would allow for a road trip of the sublime Great Ocean Road and the breathtaking Grampians before going to to Malborune for Shabbos at the excellent Park Hyatt which is around the corner from a great Chabad House. A flight from Sydney to Melbourne is 4.5K BA Avios with no fuel surcharges.
-2-4 days in Hamilton Island or Cairns would give you time to snorkel or dive the Great Barrier Reef. If you’re based in Hamilton Island you’ll also be able to checked out famous Whitehaven Beach and the Whitsunday Islands. A flight from Sydney to Hamilton Island is 7.5K BA Avios with no fuel surcharges. Sydney to Cairns is 10K Avios.
-We spent 4 nights covering the entire beautiful island of Tasmania without realizing just how much driving that would entail. Doing over a week would have been ideal. A flight from Sydney to Hobart is 4.5K BA Avios with no fuel surcharges.
-We didn’t make it to more remote places like Uluru, Kangaroo Island, Perth, or the Australian Outback, but perhaps on a future trip?
Then again 10K BA Avios can also get you from Sydney to New Zealand. That’s been on my bucket list for a very long time…
These fares are not on sale with miles, but you can pay for the ticket with “hybrid points” if you have AMEX or Chase points and a Business Platinum or Sapphire Reserve card.
Using AMEX points:
If you have The Enhanced Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN you can get a 50% rebate on the airline of your choice.
The 50% rebate will go back into your account the day after redeeming points.
You can login to your account and redeem AMEX points for travel here.
AMEX has insider fares for this flight. A $701.86 flight will be 61,886 points and you would get a 50% rebate making the effective cost just 30,943 points. That includes all taxes and you still earn miles for flying!
Using Chase points:
If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve® card you can redeem points for 1.5 cents each towards travel.
A $701.86 flight will be 46,790 points. That includes all taxes and you still earn miles for flying!
You can login to your account and redeem Chase points for travel here.
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11 Comments On "Fly From The US To Australia Or New Zealand From $644 (Or 31K Hybrid Points) Round-Trip!"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
I am looking for 22nd Oct for 10-days NYC to MEL and can’t find close to this price. please can someone confirm or give samls how to find.
Hi Dan,
From your experience which airline better to choose for Amex Platinum couch flight. Most of my flights so far was in Europe.
@Sol:
Try Google Flights, though Priceline is cheaper than Google Flights for these fares so it’s tough.
Also try booking a separate ticket from NYC-LAX and LAX-MEL.
@Shimon:
As long as you don’t use the $200 credit you should be able to switch the airline.
Just bought roundtrip tickets for $750 and spend 21 days in Australia. Thanks to you!!!! My ticket is SFO –> BNE and MEL –>SFO!
Love your knowledge and tips on traveling. I am an Executive Platinum with American Airlines for 8 years and giving up on the idea of sticking with them after they changed their Frequent flyer program last year. For someone like I am who fly a lot, I am very grateful for your tips and knowledge on travels. They are all very practical, succinct and useful. So thank you!!!!
That’s a long trip in Y…
Is there business class?
@Dan:
Can you really keep on switching the airline every time you need to book a flight, and get the 50% points rebate each time? As long as you never use the credit? I gotta think there’d be a limit if you’ve used the 50% rebate already, even if you didn’t use the $200 credit- why would they treat those 2 differently. But if that’s really true it would make the rebate far more usable- it would be permanently usable on every coach flight operated by a US airline.
@Vivian:
Awesome and thank you!
@CtownBin:
Try it out for yourself and let us know how it goes 🙂
@dan……..”New Zealand is still on my bucket list”….. please share. what else is on your bucket list?
@Anonymous:
There’s a thread for that 🙂
http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=10537.0
@dan Delta has a double miles to austrailia bonus for them and for virgin australia valid to/from brisbane and sydney