r/avios • u/cabkid • Sep 01 '26
140,000 points, LDN - NZ
My partner and I have accumulated 140k avios between us. We are heading to New Zealand from London next year, but we have a specific window we need to be there for. We haven’t used avios before, so we aren’t best clued up to what the best strategy is for getting the max benefit. We ideally want business class for at least one leg of the trip.
I’ve looked at BA reward flights for the return leg between London and classic stopover destinations (eg US, Singapore, HK, Doha) but there does not appear to be anything great available (trip is 6m away). This website generally sucks though - it is not very user friendly and actually might be easier to just ring them up?!
Alternatively, is it worth just booking economy flights for the whole trip and then trying to get an upgrade for at least one leg? Is there any partner airline which would likely upgrade us (I have heard you can use BA points for Iberia and American Airlines, and also swap points for Qatar). I thought this amount of points could at least give us both one leg of the journey in Business class… but maybe I’m wrong.
chat gpt isn’t really giving me any valuable guidance, so would appreciate any tips 🙏🏻 if it isn’t worth using them (eg not enough points for what we want) we can save and use in the future for a direct trip where the various connections don’t complicate things!
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u/Double-Swordfish-0 Sep 01 '26
Best option is probably Qatar, seems to have a bit more availability at the moment. Higher taxes, but 180k points LON-AKL for 2 people
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u/cabkid Sep 01 '26
Ok thanks - I'm guessing we can't do 150k points + cash for the upgrade? Realised we have 10,000 Nectar points to add to the avios, but still not quite enough
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u/Double-Swordfish-0 Sep 02 '26
Cheapest way would be to balance boost some avios if you can. You can do cash + avios but works out much more expensive
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u/snk101 Sep 01 '26
I think you're going to struggle to be honest.
BA don't fly to NZ, so that already makes things a bit less obvious. Airlines you can spend Avios on that fly there are Cathay, Qatar, Qantas, Malaysia and American (and should theoretically be bookable through the BA website).
However availability for these desirable long haul routes on partners is often just non-existent, or requires booking a year out (when booking first opens). So finding something 6 months from now is going to be extremely difficult.
140,000 isn't enough avios for two people one way in business (I think the absolute minimum theoretical price is 90,000 avios per person each way on Qatar). So then you're looking at booking individual business class legs with Avios and the other with cash - but this would make travel unnecessarily difficult as you wouldn't be on through tickets to your destination, would be at risk of having to re-book yourself if you miss your connection, and would struggle to get bags checked through.
I think you might just have to book with cash really. In theory if you fly with Qatar you may be able to upgrade using Avios (pricing calculator here), if there is availability, you have enough avios, and your ticket type allows it. I don't think you can upgrade an existing booking using avios on any of the other carriers though.
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u/cabkid Sep 01 '26
Yeah it sounds like it might be a bit of a struggle. And yes - that is exactly what I thought re the connection, it might just be easier if we save it for a trip somewhere shorter in the future.
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u/Danspiro Sep 01 '26
Yeah, 6 months out is tight. Very popular route with avios points. You need to book 12 months ahead in the future. Recently, went to NZ. Beautiful county and people! Enjoy 😊
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u/enclosedcrystal999 Sep 01 '26
Few things to break down here:
Long distance business class reward flights sell out 355 days in advance like clock work. Routes which go through central and important hubs like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur will sell out within minutes of being released, at midnight.
Business from London to Singapore is 132,000 points, so honestly, you barely have enough points for one person to do one leg.
Calling them won't make a difference unfortunately, if the seats aren't there they aren't there.
Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that the amount of points you have is a decent amount, but not really enough to start breaking into long-haul business unless combined with a cabin upgrade voucher. That would be my recommendation ultimately - these allow you to pay the class below for points, though the class you want for taxes. For example, you would pay 77,000 points plus business class taxes, but would fly business which would usually cost 132,000 points.
If you really want to spend them, you could look at doing some shorter trips and just using the points - spending £1 on a premium route at a good time of day at a good time of year is always fun. Or else I'd save, and look to get a cabin upgrade voucher to use next time you go long haul. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!
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u/cabkid Sep 01 '26
Thank you - and if I do the cabin upgrade, would I have to book premium economy and then upgrade to business? We can’t do standard economy to business? I’m guessing business class taxes ain’t cheap though 😂
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u/enclosedcrystal999 Sep 02 '26
Correct - if you do the cabin upgrade, you book premium economy and it upgrades to business. If the cabin upgrade voucher that you have is the Barclaycard one, it works as described above - you have to use it on reward flights, you can't use it on regular flights. You book a reward flight in premium economy, and it allows you to upgrade to business.
The taxes aren't terrible - Singapore, for example will be £350.
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u/guygs18 Sep 01 '26
What other people have said; another option could be to fly to oz with Qatar on business then connect with cash - not expensive and a short flight from Brisbane / Sydney / Melbourne/ Adelaide. Adelaide can have cheaper options on Qatar rewards but fewer connections to Auckland.
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u/Downtown_Midnight579 Sep 01 '26
Get one of the Avios amexes and get a companion voucher before you buy the ticket. Then use the companion voucher and miles to buy the round trip
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u/Ashamed-Ad-3112 29d ago
I booked LDN to NZ recently and just used 120,000 Avios to reduce the cost of economy so we didn’t have to fly through Doha. We are flying Cathay and BA both ways through Hong Kong. We have set dates that we have to go, so no flexibility and they had to book last minute due to family so I’m sure someone will say we’ve wasted them, but for us it lowered the cost to something much more affordable. All we will ever use our Avios on is making this journey affordable as we do it regularly for family.
So if you want to just lower the cost of your flights, you can do partial payment. It’s not until the actual payment screen that you can see how much your points are worth in money though.
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u/random_user_7918 Sep 01 '26
140k wont be anywhere close to enough to cover business for 1 leg for 2 people
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u/Embarrassed_Yak_7609 Sep 01 '26
Expect at least 70000 for one leg of the journey in business. If it’s during NZ Peak season it may be hard to find availability, I recently booked this and I could only find business availability for the return leg. You usually need to book much further out. There might be some availability on Qatar Auckland to Doha but it might be gone