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Total flying time through Dubai: 27h there, 23h back
Total flying time through Auckland: 18h there, 26h back

Overall, you'd be doing a lot less flying if you fly east. I see both priced at ~$2250 on Itasoftware. I don't include departure, arrival and layover times here though, which can make all the difference.

Another option is to buy a return flight from Perth to Los Angeles. You can get this for $1400 with China Southern through Guangzhou. Then buy cheap connecting flights LA - San Francisco and New York/Washington - LA. A little bit more hassle, but you would save a TON of money and you could throw in stops in Guangzhou (Hong Kong) and LA "for free" :)

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Yeah I included stopover time in my calculations. I've flown Air NZ before (Perth/Auckland/SFO) but there is a 9+ hr stopover in Auckland on the way out. It's a PITA!
When I looked at Matrix last week for flights in September, Emirates was the cheapest.I doubt the results returned China Southern, but I am quite happy to ignore them anyway. ;-) Emirates at $2k is pretty good from Perth. United/Qantas was actually more expensive on the dates I was looking at.

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Wait, why are you happy to ignore China Southern? Because it comes from China? It's the 6th largest airline in the world. It's a member of SkyTeam, and at the end of this trip you might have enough miles for status on one of its members and a free domestic/short haul r/t (not sure how CZ earns). Meanwhile, Emirates is not part of any alliance. On the longer segments, Guangzhou - LA, you'd fly on the world's largest and most modern aircraft, Airbus A380, with personal TV. Meanwhile, out of your destinations, Emirates' A380 only serves New York, all other segments including if you fly from Washington, you're stuck with the old 777. You could get a layover in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, or Macau which in my opinion are helluva lot better choices than Dubai, especially in September when Dubai is unbearable. All this, and it saves you ~$600!! But no -- stay away -- it has the word 'China' in it!!!

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Haha. You got all that from my post? No. I'm not scared of the word China ;-) I actually book flights to and from China every day for my job. (Not a travel agent though) I get constant reports from people I work with about different airlines and their service, ontime performance, etc. I've stopped booking China Southern as a result of their ontime performance. Where I book our passengers to in China, onwards after Guangzhou, only has one connection a day and our passengers were missing it when China Southern were late. It wasn't a code-shared airline we were booking with the onwards flight either so the connection wasn't guaranteed. (Cathay provides this guaranteed connection though so we use them now).

For myself though, I want to fly to SFO (this would be 2 stops in both directions as China Southern only fly through LA & Vancouver) and out of Washington or NY. Also, the layover in Guangzhou is 17 hours on the return before it flies back to Perth. I am not interested in layovers for this trip. Emirates offers nice short connections of 1.5 to 2 hrs and only one layover in each direction (I prefer 2 slightly longer flights than 3 shorter flights). I guess though if my China Southern flight is going to be late then a 17hr layover is a god safety net. ;-)

I'm not bagging out China Southern, or saying they are not a good value airline and that people shouldn't book them. I'm simply stating that they are not an airline I am interested in/ignoring for this trip. Similarly, I love Air New Zealand and would gladly use them again for a flight that suits me but the long layover in Auckland is not my idea of a good time and so I probably won't be using them for this trip either.