Tag: Star Alliance

Air New Zealand to start non-stop service between Auckland and Newark

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Qantas just made international headlines by testing a jaw-dropping 19-hour direct flight between Sydney and New York.

Not to be outdone, Air New Zealand announced today that it will begin non-stop service between Auckland and Newark which will be introduced as early as October 2020. This will be the 5th longest flight in the world (behind Newark to Singapore, Auckland to Doha, Perth to London, and Auckland to Dubai). The flight will take 15 hours and 40 minutes eastbound and 17 hours and 40 minutes westbound.

Flying into Newark’s Liberty International Airport makes sense since Air New Zealand is a part of the Star Alliance and United uses Newark as it’s New York-area hub.

The announcement isn’t all good news, though, as the airline also announced that it will be stopping flights to London around the same time.

Since I’m based in California, I doubt I’ll be flying this route, although I’m excited for any new routes between New Zealand and the United States!

LOT Polish launching direct flights between San Francisco and Warsaw beginning in August 2020

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LOT Polish is introducing a new flight that I’m very excited about – direct from San Francisco to Warsaw, Poland.

The flight, which is set to start on August 5, 2020, will initially have the following schedule:

Mondays and Fridays:

  • LO35 Warsaw to San Francisco departing 11:35AM arriving 2:30PM
  • LO36 San Francisco to Warsaw departing 4:25PM arriving 1:00PM (+1 day)

Wednesdays and Saturdays:

  • LO35 Warsaw to San Francisco departing 5:20PM arriving 8:15PM
  • LO36 San Francisco to Warsaw departing 10:10PM arriving 6:45PM (+1 day)

I flew LOT Polish from Chicago to Budapest last year and had a great experience and I’ve been wanting to see Poland, so I’m sure I’ll take advantage of this flight!

New York Trip Deal: $669 round-trip business class (lie-flat seat!) from JFK to Lima, Peru on Avianca

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Avianca, which is part of the Star Alliance, is putting its business class flights from JFK to Lima, Peru on sale! Flights start at $669 round-trip, after taxes with great availability through December 2018, with many routes including a lie-flat seat.

This is a really incredible deal — last year, Avianca ran a similar promotion, but with business class seats costing around $992.

Last year, I flew Avianca’s business class from Bogotá, Colombia to Santiago, Chile and wrote a review about it. Although it wasn’t my favorite flying experience ever, I’ve heard the U.S. to South America routes have better service and that, coupled with the lie-flat seat, definitely make this a fare worth checking out.

To find this deal, use Google Flights and search for business class flights between JFK and LIM.

Heading to Madagascar for $263.12 + 45,910 Chase Ultimate Reward points

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You guys, I am totally stoked about an upcoming trip I’ve just booked — Madagascar!

It began with a notification from Secret Flying for $775 round-trip fares from Washington (Dulles) to Antananarivo, Madagascar on Ethiopian Airlines. When I checked for availability, I saw that I could book over Thanksgiving, and immediately snagged a ticket.

I decide to use a mixture of points and cash because I didn’t want to use all of my Chase Ultimate Reward points, but I also wanted to pay as little as possible (I have trips coming up to Lake Tahoe, Medellín, Italy, Charleston, and Scottsdale, so am definitely trying to ball on a budget at this point).

Thanksgiving is my favorite time to travel outside of America, mostly because it’s the only time when I can take a full week away from my legal practice and be in any time zone I want. For the rest of the year, I need to be able to work on California time, but over Thanksgiving I can go to places like Asia, Australia, and Africa without worrying that I’ll be missing out on business.

I was planning to head to Malaysia for Thanksgiving this year, but this deal to Madagascar was too good to pass up. Ethiopian Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance, and while I will be earning PQM towards status for the flight, it’s only at a 50% rate.

I’ll be there for 8 days and want to see beautiful landscapes, all of the animals, interesting flowers and trees, and spend some time at the beach. Luckily, I have 2 great friends coming with me who are going to help make the trip a blast (my friends added on a trip to Ethiopia to their journey, though I’ll sadly have to miss out on that portion). I am still in the early phases of researching things to do there, so if you have any advice or tips, definitely let me know!