Internal flight travel in New Zealand
 

My husband and I are coming to NZ in mid march and we are arriving in Auckland and planning to promptly fly to Christchurch where our campervan is awaiting us. Do you recommend that we prebook our flight to Christchurch or will it be okay if we wait until we get there? Also any recommendations on cheap airlines would be great.

I'd book, why take a chance on not getting a seat?

Air New Zealand, Pacific Blue and Jetstar have flights from Auckland to Christchurch. Jetstar has rates starting at $49 each way, depending on time of day.

I forgot to mention that Pacific Blue offers Happy Hour fares - from their website:

<Fares so low they'll be gone in 60 minutes!

You'll be even happier with Pacific Blue's great low fares thanks to the introduction of Happy Hour fares.

Log on Monday - Friday from 12-1pm (NZST) for Happy Hour to grab a great low fare to go!

We will release a number of Happy Hour fares to a selection of destinations, which are only available by booking online.>

Try Air New Zealand as well, they are competing with the upstarts and you may find a competitive fare with more reliable (and better) service.

We took absolutely no internal flights at all in NZ, and we're glad we didn't.

We caught the fabulous 'Overlander' train (www.seat61.com/Overlander.htm) from Auckland to Wellington, right across all the scenery of the North Island in a day. Farmland, King Country, gorges, rainforest, coastline, dead volcanoes, national parks, a superb ride.

We stayed 2 nights & a day to see Wellington inc a visit to the NZ parliament, then took the morning Inter-Islander ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton at the tip of the South Island (one of the most scenic ferry journeys in the world) and the connecting train from Picton through the Blenheim wine country and along the seal-strewn coast (hence the trains's name, the Tranz-Coastal) to Christchurch.

Then we hired our camper van to explore the S Island, Milford Sound, Mt Cook, Queenstown, Dunedin and all that.

I'd heartily recommend this option to others.

www.tranz-scenic.co.nz books both trains and the ferry too, and it's not expensive.

We are heading to NZ in a few weeks. Due to time constraints we had to fly from one place to another. We tried a website www.webjet.com which compares the different prices for different airlines. Someone suggested I go to staralliance.com and I was able to get really good prices on Air New Zealand which were not available on the Air NZ website. (I don't know why that was so.)

Do check the Air NZ website from time to time. They have "Grab a Seat" specials which can be REALLY special, but they don't last for long.
Book ahead to get the best prices. Last minute purchases are seldom cheap here.
Rob.