Traveling New Zealand Solo in 7 Days

Every once in a while, you'll catch me using the Explore feature on Google Flights. Seeing if there's any deals worth pulling the trigger on.

Turns out two months ago there was. A non-stop flight from LA to Auckland, New Zealand. For $217.

Do I live in LA? No. How do I even get back? Not sure. But that $217 was screaming at me. So I had to find a way to make it work.

Went on Delta's website and found that while the return ticket was an steep $583 (making the $217 far less appealing), I could book it on points for 44,000 SkyMiles roundtrip. Much more manageable (and for my SkyMiles fans out there, a pretty good redemption given all of the devaluations in recent years).

So I booked it. March 10th to March 19th.

Oh. Yeah. I also had to get to LA. So of course I booked a separate reservation to go from Seattle to LA (and it cost me $256 roundtrip). So all-in, we're looking at 44,000 SkyMiles and $256. Not bad.

Day 0

The 10th, ground zero. My flight departed Seattle for LA at 11:50am.