$780 - Three Way Flight: San Francisco to Auckland to Melbourne and Back
$800 for a roundtrip flight to Melbourne from San Francisco is deal in itself. Especially for Christmas time. After further research, I found that I can add a stopover in Auckland without bringing up the price. In some cases, the stopover will actually REDUCE the flight price.
Now for the details.
Must fly out before December 14th.
Must fly back before December 28th.
Flights right around Christmas time and New Years Eve and Day can be a few hundred dollars more expensive.
United and Qantas also offer discount flights to Melbourne and Australia, but their flight discounts end in early December. They may re-announce discounts for Christmas time, but I’m not counting on it.
Flights on all other airlines are about 2 grand for round trip flights.
From the Auckland airport, you can catch a bus to the city center for $22 round trip or $15 one-way with AirBus.
From Auckland, you can easily rent a car or do day trips to the Waitekere Ranges or black sand beaches to the West.
Some people prefer to jump off sky tower, or go for a harbor cruise in Waitemata Harbor.
You can book multistop flights with Air New Zealand on their website. By far, the cheapest is always to fly through Auckland, as Auckland acts as the hub for Air New Zealand.
While there, I am personally looking forward to going on a canyoning trip with Awol Adventures:
[...] in AustraliaWe can all thank Air New Zealand again for this one. If you don’t want to do a three-way flight for about 50 dollars more, which includes New Zealand in your trip, you can fly one-stop to Australia from San Francisco fro [...]