New Zealand, shockingly enough, wasn't included in my brother's sabbatical trip but we decided it was worth pursuing after talking to a United agent who couldn't stop raving about it. At that time, I was already planning on joining him for Australia and had accumulated enough points to fund my entire airline ticket through United points (80,000 for a round trip to AU with a stopover included). After chatting with a couple other friends who'd been, we came to the conclusion that it was worth seeing and immediately booked a ticket to Christchurch.

The thing about New Zealand is that everything is very far apart. We were only visiting South Island during our trip but the main places we wanted to go were on average 6 hours away, meaning 12 hour round trip. Having not been to New Zealand before, this did not particularly sit well with me. I have long car trips and this seemed like an endless supply of them.