Can you help me work the numbers to become silver...
 

Hi there

My husband and I are Jade, 290 status points each.

Sept 2013 :Flying PE Syd-Lax, =145 SP's..please correct me if the numbers are wrong
total then =435 SP's...still Jade.

Then LAX- MCO on virgin america,main cabin...My question is:?? do they give SP's for ANZ and how many..I can find the charts but cant seem to find the numbers.

I am really wanting to hit silver before we travel home, as then we can apply for UG's??

Thanks

Only StarAlliance partner flights credit SP to Airpoints (with the exception of NZ-ticketed trans-tasman Virgin Australia flights), so you're out of luck here.

Once you reach silver (which can take up to six weeks from the time you qualify due to the way NZ's systems operate) you will obtain a single Recognition Upgrade. This RU can be used for a single sector, single cabin, space available upgrade. So even if you were to reach Silver soon, the RU may not be useful for your return trip anyhow.

You can apply for OneUp upgrades irrespective of status, although NZ*S gets an automatic 10% uplift. Depending on your travel schedule and propensity to OneUp over the next year, it may be the effort to get to silver.

General consensus is that Airpoints is a miserly program and only useful for those stuck on fares not crediting elsewhere or short distance domestic hops.

A couple thoughts, both of which are probably not that useful:

1) Not sure if this would even work, but you could split your flight from SYD to AKL onto a separate PNR. the per-sector SP earnings are more than the combined total NZ gives out. Minimum TT SP is 30, and then you'd get 130 for AKL-LAX in PE for 160 total, which would get you right to 450.

However, there's a bunch of caveats with that such as, would they still detect it as same-day travel and apply the 145 SP? Misconnect risk? Potential downgrade of service from SYD-AKL if you got booked on the 77W coming to AKL with PE seating to match your int'l. leg. (I'm not even sure if they do this).

I'm sure someone else here can better advise you as to how risky this might be.

2) Or, would it be worth changing your LAX-MCO flight to UA or US? You would earn 25 SP for that flight, which would also be enough.

I have to ask the question: are you really only looking to acheiving Silver Status so you can get a RU on the way home?

If so, then I'm with NZ*Trout...forget it, as it's not worth the hassle of separate PNRs or doing a short leg within the US on a relevant carrier just to get your 15SP when you may not get the use of the RU for a number of weeks anyhow.

Besides all the bad press on FT regarding OneUp, it is probably the better option for you in this case (IMHO). IIRC, Oneups on the LAX to AKL leg from PE > BP are tough to get, so bid high.

If you're on NZ on the way home...then you will make Silver easily enough, and you could then use the RU on another trip....

Of course, there are no guarantees on RUs being granted every time nor OneUps...but there's a whole lot of other threads on that :D

Good luck!

thanks for your advice
 

as we only travel this route once a year, its hard to get any recognition with any airline...but would be nice :)

we'll just enjoy our PE once again this year and see how things go. We actually had a successful one-up bid last year and loved the biz product, although the PE was awesome as well....

thanks again for taking the time to reply :)