When we last left our intrepid Empty Nesters, we were sitting at the domestic terminal in Auckland waiting for Jetstar check-in to open two hours before the flight to Christchurch. If Jetstar sounds suspiciously like the name of a low-cost carrier, that’s because it is one. The Australia/New Zealand branch (there is also an offshoot in Japan) is actually owned by Qantas and provides some competition to Air New Zealand on domestic and trans-Tasman routes down under.

There are generally two options on most domestic New Zealand routes, Jetstar and Air New Zealand. For the trip to Christchurch, I wanted to ensure we had at least three hours between our international arrival and domestic leg, so the timing of this Jetstar flight was better. In the end, we could have easily taken an earlier flight, but better safe than sorry.

At 9:50am, we got in line to check in with Jetstar and the wait was short. The rep was friendly and confirmed that I had purchased a flex add-on that included a checked bag each (up to 20kg) and a carry-on (up to 14kg on domestic flights) plus an up-front seat and a drink & snack. While our checked bags were weighed as usual, our carry-ons were not. Including all the add-ons, the flights cost us NZ$363 (around US$209) all in for both of us. I booked a few months in advance before fuel prices drove up fares.

After we checked in, I saw the line had grown behind us. Security was very quick, but there wasn’t much after security in the domestic terminal, just a convenience store. We found seats near our gate and waited until our flight was called for boarding.

Boarding was reasonably civilized, with the rear row numbers called first. We were in row 3 so we were one of the last groups to be called. There was still plenty of room in the overhead for my carry-on as it would not have fit under the seat as the legroom was very tight. Here’s the legroom:

You can see here that there are two rows in the front with a ton of extra legroom, but our tickets didn’t allow us to select these seats.

JQ231 A320 AKL-CHC
Scheduled: 11:50-13:15
Actual: 11:54-13:11

After takeoff, we flew down the North Island, crossed over to the South Island and got some great views of New Zealand.

Service was provided with a buy on board menu. I’m honestly not sure which of these options would be loaded for an eighty minute flight, but I expect it was just the cold options.

As I mentioned, our ticket included a snack and drink in the form of a NZ$10 credit we could apply to the menu. That basically allowed us to select a soft drink and a snack from the left side of that menu above. My wife got the banana bread (she said it was not great) and I got veggie chips (which were fine).

Weirdly, they sent me an email receipt for the free snacks. Anyway, we landed a few minutes early in Christchurch and waited for our (now just two) checked bags for a few minutes before they came out unscathed.

Thankfully, the Thrifty desk was very close to baggage claim and there was no wait for a rep. I had booked through a third party site called Discover Cars as it was much cheaper than booking direct, plus there was a great offer to book through Rove Miles. Hopefully, I’ll get those miles soon. All in, including with full coverage (and yes, I know my credit card covers CDW but liability, tire damage, etc. is also important when you’re driving on the wrong side of the road) it was around NZ$400 (US$230) for the whole week.

The Thrifty rep offered me an upgrade to a Ford Ranger pickup but I politely declined as the small SUV I picked was plenty large enough for the narrow roads I would be driving. I got the car I booked which was a Kia Steltos compact SUV and it was fine. CarPlay worked for Google Maps and the car was fairly new (around 10,000km on the odometer).

We headed out to the parking lot, found the car and headed off for our New Zealand adventures. It had only been about 31 hours since we left our house on Thursday!

Up Next: Crowne Plaza Christchurch Quick Review

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