Getting to the Cook Islands

When travelling from Sydney, the first thing you need to know is there is a direct flight on Air New Zealand once a week. It leaves Sydney each Saturday to Rarotonga (6 hours), and returns each Friday from Rarotonga to Sydney (7 hours 15 mins). You really want to take these direct flights if you can, as it saves you 4 hours each way, and can also be the cheapest option. A week is just enough time to convert you to 'Island Time'.


We were fortunate enough to get 5 business class tickets using United Frequent Flyer miles. At the time, a return business class trip was only 25,000 United points. Soon after our return, this was changed to 50,000 points. I do wonder whether our trip highlighted to someone the anomaly that existed in the points table. Return economy flights range from about A$700 a ticket as of Jan 2014, so this has to be our all time best usage of frequent flyer miles!