>if you are an American and you can point at New Zealand on a map or even point at the correct ocean, they'll let you onto their planes in cattle class if you pay for the ticket

On his retirement in the early 1960s my grandfather went on a world trip that included the US. He found that many Americans didn't know where Australia was, but for some curious reason they had an idea of New Zealand's whereabouts, so he used to say "Oh, Australia's a small island on the west coast of NZ".

By the way, QANTAS is sometimes referred to here as "Quaint-Ass". If you don't want to fly with them, you can "Fly Ansett and Chance It".