My husband and I want to book a trip using our FF miles (hopefully to upgrade) on a trip to Australia/New Zealand. What is the best time of year? Also -- Does anyone know if I can use AA FF miles to book on Quantas? Thanks.

It totally depends on where you want to go in New Zealand and, especially, Australia. This is a huge country covering a number of different climatic zones. For example, the best time of the year to travel the tropical north is quite different to the best time to travel in the southern half.

You can probably check affiliate FF programmes on the Qantas website:
www.qantas.com.au

It might depend on what sort of weather you are used to and what you like. Some people love summer and going to the beach, others prefer cooler weather.

In the southern part of Australia we have wet but mild winters (except in the mountain regions where it snows) and hot, dry summers. January and February are the hottest 2 months with regular temperatures over 35 degrees celsius and occasional days over 40.

I believe, as shandy said, that the wet season in the tropical northern areas (Darwin, Queensland) is at a different time to south.

If you want to by pass winter and extreme heat, I would suggest come here Oct - Dec or Mar - Apr. I can't comment on the tropics.

Google "Australia school holidays" (without the quotes) and avoid those time periods when fewer families will be on holiday.

We found Eastern Australia very humid in Feb./March and that seemed really uncomfortable to us because we are not used to humidity. Two people in Sydney told us we should have come in June. Another friend who has a condo in Sydney said she thought we should have gone in October. New Zealand was warm, but not so humid.

It depends where in AU you're considering. The further north you go, the hotter it is. I've been to Queensland (Brisbane, Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands) in Dec, March and May/June. Sydney in Dec, and Darwin and the NT in May. Dec is very hot any of these places. March is still very warm. May was warm but not overbearing in all locales, though much warmer in the NT.

NZ has much cooler and more stable temps throughout the year. I've only been there in Dec and it was lovely. AA does codeshare with Quantas, so you should be able to use them. I've always used my USAirways miles on Quantas.

How long are you planning on going?

Just reread my post above and realize it was very poorly written (attributed to the late hour it was posted). We've been advised to travel in Australia at times other than school holidays, which may vary a bit from state to state, thus avoiding the increased number of Australians traveling within those time periods.

Thanks for all the comments. I didn't realize there would be such diverse weather patterns. We will be there for three weeks, however, as you can tell, we haven't done a lot of research yet, so don't know where we will be traveling (not the outbacks in Australia), but we do want to visit the north and south islands in New Zealand. I'll post again when I have a better idea of our travel plans.

I used my AA miles for a trip last April and am using them again for this October. We were able to get first class tickets for both trips, but it was very tricky. I think it is a bit easier to get economy and business, but you may still benefit from the strategy.

I had to call and reserve seats the day they are released by the airline. Qantas only gives AA two award seats in first (a few more for business and a lot more for economy) per plane and these are not automatically loaded into the system. So I called and agent and asked when seats for Oct 8, 2006 would be loaded and she gave me an estimate (it was around 330 days prior to the departure date). I got our outbound tickets mid-Nov for our Oct 8th departure.

We are planning on returning at the end of October, so I had to call back 3 weeks later in order to start on the return flight. This is also tricky as you usually can only hold award reservations for 2 weeks. So I had to call back at 2 weeks to ensure the reservation remained on hold. If you don't have specific days that you are going to and from, this should work for you. You just have to be flexible. The two seats get grabbed fast.

Also- not all AA agents are aware of the difficulty in obtaining award tickets on Qantas. I promise what I have written is true so if you get a hold of one that is not aware you can fill them in on what I have informed you. Or you can give up and call back for a better agent.

Also, You can't use the AA or Qantas website when looking for award seating. They aren't loaded in the system the same as other awards and you will miss the better seats unless you go directly through an AA agent.
Best,
Abby

Australians have their long summer school holidays roughly from a week before Christmas to the end of January. Combine this with the mid-summer heat and I'd suggest avoid January altogether. The two weeks starting Christmas would be the most popular time for workers to take holidays, especially if they have children.

If you came mid-late Oct through mid December you should miss school holidays and again Feb through mid April, but Feb is too hot IMO (and I'm a local!).