Here's my question:

We are flying to Auckland and have tons of United miles. We want to upgrade using our United miles. United does not operate any flights to Auckland but their Star Alliance partner, Air New Zealand, does. The question is, can we use United miles to upgrade on an Air New Zealand flight?

I hope the answer is yes!

You can't use United miles to UPGRADE a paid ANZ flight, but you can use your United miles to book FF seats in biz class on ANZ if the seats are available.

You could fly United to Sydney and connect to an Air NZ (or other carrier) flight to Auckland. You'd be able to use your United miles to upgrade on the United longhaul flights (and the domestic U.S. flights on United that you would take to/fro LAX or SFO). The SYD-AKL-SYD flights would be in coach.

Thank you for the replies. We don't have enough miles for a free business class ticket. But we can fly to Sydney first - great idea!!

You understand that you would have to pay an M or H or higher fare to be eligible for the upgrade and upgrades are subject to availability. If upgrade seats aren't available you will be waitlisted, but the upgrade might not clear.

I would book the ticket with United. You can buy one ticket for the whole trip. If you try to upgrade online and it gives you trouble you should call (the software might try to upgrade the entire trip but find that it can't do SYD-AKL and then fail to upgrade LAX/SFO-SYD.

To check availability online. First go to united.com and login.

Click on "My Profile" to get to your profile options. Click on "My Travel Preferences" and under "Availability Format" select "an expert". You only have to do this once for your account. Might as well set your other preferences (if not set) while you are there.

Now, at the top of the page, click on Mileage Plus and Redeem Miles.

Put LAX and SYD into the From an To boxes, select your dates of travel, and toggle on "Standard Award".

Mouse over the "Flight Info" link for the LAX-SYD nonstop(s) and you should see a list of availability codes. You are interested in "NC" availability (upgrade from economy to biz). NC0 means none available. NC1 means one available. NC9 means 9 or more available. If you are two then NC2 or higher means that both of your upgrades would clear as soon as you apply for the upgrades. Otherwise one or both of you will be waitlisted for the upgrade.

You can also see the SFO-SYD availability, if that would be your routing. For the domestic legs, you would look for NF availability for upgrades to first class (if you are flying from IAD/ORD/DEN to LAX/ORD there might be NC availability on some flights that have three classes of service).

Going via SYD will be a longer trip and likely require a higher fare than just taking Air NZ and it will cost the miles IF the upgrade clears. If you want to get an idea of the risk of a waitlisted upgrade not clearing then I suggest going to flyertalk.com and asking or searching for the info.

In the above,
IAD/ORD/DEN to LAX/ORD
should say
IAD/ORD/DEN to LAX/SFO

Thank you so much for the detailed help. It turns out that it is cheaper to go Premium Economy on Air NZ than to go economy to Sydney and then flying to Auckland. I think that is what we will do. If you have any thoughts, please let me know! Also, are there any boats/cruises that go from the US to NZ? That might be preferable with a 13-month-old!

Just curious, when you priced the ticket via Sydney did you do it as one ticket xxx-LAX-SYD-AKL-SYD-LAX-xxx or as two tickets, one from home to SYD and the other for SYD-AKL-SYD?

Taking the Air NZ nonstop is the way to go.

There might be cruises but I don't have any info about them. You could try the fodors cruise forum for starters. I suppose a cruise would take a long time (with stops at French Polynesia, or Tonga, or Hawaii, or something) and cost a lot.

Glad you mentioned an NZ cruise, though. I went around the north island last November.

I saw a cruise ship in the Auckland port. The next day, when I took the ferry to the north shore, I saw the ship leaving Auckland.

A couple of days later, I saw signs in the shops in Napier welcoming the passengers of that same cruise ship. They had been there that morning.

I took the ferry from Wellington to Picton and guess what ship was in Picton when we arrived - the same cruise ship that had been in Auckland and Napier before me.

Two Saturdays ago I was taking a ferry from Vancouver, Canada, to that city's north shore. I saw a cruise ship departing the port - the Statendam.

I am pretty sure that was the same ship I saw in NZ. You just reminded me to check my photos of the ship that I took in NZ to verify this.

birder,
I find Vacationstogo.com a great site for exploring cruises.
Just go to
http://www.vacationstogo.com
and put in from LA or SF or Vancouver and visiting Auckland and you'll get a list of all cruises doing this itinerary

PS
leave other options like region, date of travel, cruise line, etc at "any" (unchaged)- only enter ""depart from" and "port to visit"

Thanks everyone. We decided the best way to go was Air New Zealand Premium Economy, which was $600 more per person than regular economy. We got the upper deck in the 747, which is supposed to be nice.

Now, I have another question. Our flight out of LAX doesn't leave until 7:30 pm. What if any airport lounges can we buy our way into? First, are there any in Terminal 2 (the Air NZ terminal) that we could purchase passes to? Second, are there any airport lounges in other terminals that are not past security?

Thanks for your help! If you think I should post a new question, just let me know!

PS We did try the Sydney route, but they have no available upgrades that can be confirmed for the dates that we need. I didn't want to buy it unless I could confirm the upgrade.

Northwest WorldClub is at T2. $125 for a 60-day membership. It's a full membership, so you can bring guest and use DL, CO and other partner lounges during those 60 day period.

Here is the info about the Koru Club at LAX:
http://tinyurl.com/5mhwmv

The Koru Clubs are really nice. I used several of them (SYD, AKL, WLG, NSN, etc.) but not the one at LAX. You'd be able to use it for free if you have Star Alliance Gold status.

If they had a 90-day pass I'd buy it.

There is also a small Air Canada lounge in T2 (another Star Alliance partner).

Both the NZ and AC lounges are airside (after security). I doubt that other terminals (maybe TBIT) at LAX have street-side lounges (not T1 or T7 and pretty sure not T1 or T6).

I think that the Encounters restaurant at LAX might have reopened. It is in the "spaceship" inside the LAX horseshoe (streetside).