Although any reduction in earning is a mark against the program, APD are pretty much worthless now anyhow.
Have the drops in APD redemptions to book flights/upgrades on other Star Alliance airlines been announced?
Whoever conducted this review must think that most people who credit partner flights to Airpoints also redeem partner flights, which seems why they reduced both earning and redemption rates at the same time. But in reality this makes any partnership NZ has just a one-way street. What other airline would want to partner with NZ knowing their program is worthless? And to be honest to reduce redemption rates only makes us who have a big Airpoints balance life easier so we can say bye bye to NZ sooner. If their loyalty team isn't stupid what is?
Programs: Sliver of Thai, NZ GE Partner, QANTAS Club Bronzed, Velocity Red dust, AirAsia BIG nothing
Posts: 4,677
My upcoming flights on SQ WLG-BKK//PEN-WLG will go to my TG account.
The 12,000 miles in my TG ROP account will at least get me at least a free hotel night in a decent property, compared to the total of APD 40 I'll get for a fully flexi economy fare on SQ (yep, APD 20 one way) since NZ only credits SQ econ as discount economy no matter how flexible the fare class:
Quote:
Singapore Airlines Flights in full economy earn Airpoints Dollars at the discount economy level.
Also get this. Makes you wonder why they bother with these partnerships.
Quote:
•For Redemption Travel on Virgin Atlantic, Premium Economy is equivalent to the Business Class levels noted and Upper Class is equivalent to the First Class levels noted.
Whoever conducted this review must think that most people who credit partner flights to Airpoints also redeem partner flights, which seems why they reduced both earning and redemption rates at the same time. And to be honest to reduce redemption rates only makes us who have a big Airpoints balance life easier so we can say bye bye to NZ sooner. I
In real terms the reduced earn (in premium classes) is a reduction of 50-75% across the table. The reduced redemption rates are between 15%-25%. How generous of them. It certainly means that burning what we have will be an easier decision. [but I am still suspicious about how fuel surcharges will be handled under the new burn rates]
On the old table it takes 12 flights between Australia & Asia to get same flight as an award, new tables it takes 28!! (by comparison on Krisflyer, which is well known as one of the less generous star alliance programs, it takes around 10 flights, but admittedly with a higher fuel surcharge, which means on this pair at the moment Airpoints is OK, depending how you value the fuel surcharge)
It's quite a shock to see Airpoints earning for a typical long haul discount economy flight from 100 Airpoints in 2004 to now just 20 Airpoints while the redemption rates remain nearly the same. It is quite clear the dollar system does not work and NZ could only do endless patchwork making it worse and worse.
Ralph Norris saved this company by simplifying the entire business, including among many other things its loyalty programme (which in those days was a genuine loyalty programme).
Now, these continued changes under Fyfe which are short-term, short-sighted moves stacked in favour of Air NZ at the expense of the customer are unnecessarily increasing complexity and increasingly chipping away at loyalty.... hardly shrewd business moves. And they ask why long-haul is losing money.
Yes it's a little more complex than that, but a strategy that rewards loyalty is surely smarter than one that drives previously loyal customers away.
It seems that the only customer feedback they will understand is one that hits them where it hurts... in the pocket.
[quote=craver;19287879]Yes it's a little more complex than that, but a strategy that rewards loyalty is surely smarter than one that drives previously loyal customers away.[quote]
Indeed. I realise that the airline needs to make money, but loyalty programs are not a one way street. The give me some perks with a low marginal cost, and I give (well, gave) them my business automatically.
Quote:
It seems that the only customer feedback they will understand is one that hits them where it hurts... in the pocket.
NZ is getting approximately 15% of the annual spend they got from me two years ago. Probably not a big deal from one person, but it all adds up. I'm sure I'm an easier sell than the lowest cost irregular vacationer so it's hard to understand why any sane business would want to push it's easiest customers away.
To date have spent only 7.5% of the previous 2 years spend.
They have just messed around too much, cut backs are stupid, driving peopel away from paying for up front seats seems such a waste especially when they replace them with One Up people paying maybe 3-400 in airpoints dollars instead of getting real cash of about 7 - 800 fro business.
Programs: NZ Gold, BA Silver, BD Silver, QF Bronze, AF Ivory, FlyBe, ANA
Posts: 381
Let's be blunt, Air NZ couldn't give a damn about partner earning because it has next to no effect on its own revenue.
Airpoints is a loyalty programme which now has two primary goals:
- Ensuring loyalty amongst core frequent flyers (which are mostly NZ based business and frequent leisure travellers);
- Earn revenue from partners associated with the scheme.
Given NZ only really faces serious competition on the Tasman and on trips to Europe and Hong Kong, it can sit back and know that it has the domestic business market sewn up along with most of its long haul routes. On the Tasman it knows most NZ business fliers will have Airpoints accounts so it already incentivises enough of them to fly Tasman (Space + is the real attraction for them) to not be too bothered about giving any more up.
On long hauls it has decided that it will attract the premium customers by product (BP) and by facilitating easy upgrades from PE. The economy customers it largely sees as occasional travellers, so collectively Airpoints is marginal in attracting them, and besides it figures if people have an Airpoints account that is enough in itself to encourage loyalty (fewer will have QFF or Emirates etc accounts), partly because few bother checking how much they get for that loyalty for occasional trips.
NZ is likely to see Airpoints airline partners in two lights:
- Airlines flown incidentally by NZ travellers on overseas trip;
- Competitors.
The first category covers the NZ's in the US (UA/US), Europe (LH group) etc, as well as those choosing routes to Europe via VS, NH, LH etc. As far as NZ is concerned, they will fly with the partners anyway, and if not, it is no big deal. After all, NZ faces the flipside of this which is Star Alliance and VS FFs who fly on NZ long haul and expect serious miles in return. Quite simply, there are more Star/partner FFs on NZ than there are NZ FFs on Star/partner flights (although VA will have been changing that a little). NZ pays out to its partners when their FFs fly on NZ, which given it is a mileage based programme, is a lot. By contrast, most NZ FFs on partners will be short haul in the US or Europe, or the handful of long haul/codeshares. In other words, NZ is designing the partner scheme to, in effect, ensure that balance is in its favour.
The competitor point is simple. NZ doesn't want its FFs on SQ or TG to Europe, given they are competitors (SQ in particular). Given there are precious few other Star/partner options to Asia or Europe, adjusting earning rates on those routes effectively makes earning on NZ whilst flying SQ nearly worthless.
That's it. It has largely abandoned seeing value in increasing Airpoints membership for Australian, US or UK based members, because they are relatively insignificant. Given the prevalence of VA Velocity and SQ membership in Australia, it figures there is little chance of attracting many who don't do more than TT flying there. In the US, it sees UA as dominant and in the UK, sees little point in engendering loyalty there (even though with the ending of BMI there has been a scramble of frequent flyers seeking a new Star programme - which seems to have mostly benefited Aegean and Turkish).
From my UK perspective, NZ has missed a trick here. It could have made short trips within Europe, Trans-Atlantic and Europe-Asia trips far more lucrative, but carved out Europe-LAX and Europe-HKG as low earners on partners to "protect" those routes, meanwhile growing some seriously HVC Airpoints members who fly frequently around Europe and to ME/Africa/USA in premium cabins. It would have been gaining a lot of members and payments from partner airlines, and with reasonable redemptions on partner airlines and its own flights, could have maintained a niche.
No. NZ is an airline focused on its dominance of NZ based business travellers, growing the NZ based leisure market and wooing overseas based leisure travellers. It has relatively little need for Airpoints except as a way of leveraging revenue from retail transactions in NZ into the scheme (which is quite profitable).
It quite simply thinks a combination of dominance/monopoly on many routes, belief in its own product and a paucity of loyalty is all that is needed. It doesn't think it will bleed significantly to QF/EK, SQ or CX as a result of devaluing Airpoints, largely because, with the possible exception of QF, there aren't any other loyalty programmes with the scope/scale to capture the bulk of travel originating by air from NZ (and it sees Airpoints as virtually irrelevant to foreign origin travel on the airline).
Ticked off by the latest in a string of cutbacks, studying all the analyses, this GE is thinking to jump ship, probably to UA. By November, I'll have, besides the coming year of GE, 2 more years of GE banked. How can I use that to stray, to become established with another programme? I'm inhibited by thinking I'll have to start at the bottom when crediting Star flights to UA—no extra baggage perks, lounge access, priority checkin and boarding. I don't suppose while crediting the Star flights to UA, I can flash my NZ GE card and ask for the perks? Also once I break free from NZ, after using up my banked GE years, then how does NZ treat Star Golds, in terms of seat selection, Space+, etc?
Ticked off by the latest in a string of cutbacks, studying all the analyses, this GE is thinking to jump ship, probably to UA. By November, I'll have, besides the coming year of GE, 2 more years of GE banked. How can I use that to stray, to become established with another programme? I'm inhibited by thinking I'll have to start at the bottom when crediting Star flights to UA—no extra baggage perks, lounge access, priority checkin and boarding. I don't suppose while crediting the Star flights to UA, I can flash my NZ GE card and ask for the perks?
If you book the flights under your GE number and then, in the lounge before the flight, get the agent to change the FFP accrual part of your booking to your UA number, you should be able to get your GE perks and the UA credit.
If you book the flights under your GE number and then, in the lounge before the flight, get the agent to change the FFP accrual part of your booking to your UA number, you should be able to get your GE perks and the UA credit.
That's what I intend to do with Velocity in the remaining few transpacific journeys I plan with AirNZ over the next two years. (You can count them on one hand - 3 already booked and upgraded)
I'm not intending to bother with using *Gold RU's as I prefer to avoid lotteries - they'll likely expire unused.
With banked GE I have a couple of years of AirNZ based *G before I need to actively consider attaining *G elsewhere.
Programs: Air NZ Gold Elite, SPG-Plat, Intercontinental Platinum Ambassador, Avis President's Club
Posts: 1,163
Quote:
Originally Posted by pbl22
If you book the flights under your GE number and then, in the lounge before the flight, get the agent to change the FFP accrual part of your booking to your UA number, you should be able to get your GE perks and the UA credit.
There are two problems with this.
It will work at many ports in the USA, although some lounge agents will just pretend to change over the FFP to shut you up. But even then, if you have used your Gold Elite status to upgrade from Premium Economy or Economy to Business Premier, it will show in UA's system as an R class booking which is ineligible to earn points.
The other problem is that at Sydney and other ports outside the USA, where no-one will actually change over your booking. This will mean that as far as UA is concerned you credited your points to NZ.
Personally I have just switched to Virgin. There are no long-haul upgrades, but the network is viable, especially once HA starts operating AKL-HNL. Already from here (BNE) the Virgin network allows me to book:
Business Class non-stop to LAX for $5989
Business Class to any other US city outside Alaska between $6000-$6900.
Business Class using HA to HNL for $3729
Business Class to the US west coast using HA for $5209
Those fares to LAX are barely better than on NZ, but the loyalty program is much more generous. I can't justify buying NZ Business Class fares to HNL any more, and I was buying up to 12 tickets per year previously.
This is my first post, but have been lurking around for quite a while now. Finally thought is was time to sign-up and start contributing.
I think it has been pretty clear what Air NZ has been trying to convey to their frequent fliers over the last while, and this recent change is not at all surprising.
I gave up on their program ever since they started reducing partner airline earning, over a year ago.
Before Air NZ diluted the value of Airpoints dollars with the Airpoints top-up feature, using points for partner award bookings was never worth while. However when I look at the new partner award chart, it seems that you can get some very good deals on flights. Assuming there is award availability.
e.g. A return flight(works) from AKL to PER costs over $1000, but if you booked an award flight flying Virgin you would pay only $635 (460 + 175tax).
Or a oneway flight from NZ to North America(I presume that also includes the east coast) are $750 for economy and $2040 for Business, which is unbelievably cheap.
However, does anyone know what surcharges are added? And what the maximum mileage, that can be flown for a given route is? Do they allow you to fly from NZ to North America via Asia. Or NZ to Australia via Asia?
