A good buddy of mine just got back from New Zealand where he
went on his honeymoon and he regaled me with stories of a pristine landscape of epic scenery and endlessly fun
outsdoory things to do. He was so bullish on the place, in fact, that I bumped New Zealand up my list of place I
absolutely have to go up a notch. NZ is now right above Iceland and just below Australia on my list.
So I
did some peeking around thinking this is something I could do in the coming year and I was very pleased to discover a
few great deals to Kiwiland on Air New Zealand. Seems the
airline is celebrating its 40 year anniversary of service to North America, and they are offering all sorts
of deals to get people to fly there. If you book through the Air New Zealand Web site and do so before May 25,
2006, you can save up to 15 percent on the regular published roundtrip fare. It’s summer there now and I’m told that is
the best time to visit places like Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Seems most of the flights are out of the
West Coast, as Air New Zealand flys to Auckland non-stop from San Francisco 6 times a week from November 28th and from
Los Angeles twice a day, every day. Seems flights out of NYC are considerably more expensive…about $1300. But you
could fly JetBlue to Oakland or LA, and then on to Auckland.
Here is a sample of some of those fares:
San Francisco to Auckland/$910
Honolulu to Christchurch/$810
Los Angeles to Wellington/$960