Craig Whitmore

I have a few thousand Airpoints to spend next year on other flights (All accrued in the past year via other flights, using CC for most things, flybuys etc) . As (far as I know) if I use these points to book other flights on AirNZ I won't get any Airpoints or Status Points .

Can I book AirNZ to AU (Via my Airpoints) and them ask them to change the FQTV on that flight to my Velocity Account and get the Status Credits on that Program?

Kiwi Flyer

No. Using airbucks means the flights are ineligible to earn points on any programme.

smandkjc

You can use them for accommodation at certain hotels/resorts.

Kamadan

Not entirely true.

Last year I used my Airpoints Dollars to book a Trans-Tasman flight, and happened to book on a VA operated flight but with an NZ flight number both ways. Imagine my surprise after my weekend trip that both showed up with their respective booking class' APD and Status Points.

This happened not just once, not twice, but 3 times now in the past year or so, most recent being a trip over Labour-day long weekend in October.

It's easy to explain this "anomaly": as APD is treated like real money for the purpose of booking flights, the booking class shown on the ticket would be the same as if you booked and paid using real money. Seeing as it's a VA operated flight, it's VA who then passes the booking class info back to NZ (which I assume is an automated process across their computer network).

I think this is a unique quirk of NZ's deep-alliance arrangements with their partners, so this will only happen with VA TT flights or CX AKL-HKG flights.

Now back to the OP's question:

If you were to use APD to book NZ operated flights on NZ metal, I doubt you will get anything when you try to change FFP to VA, as NZ's system will note and flag that as "ineligible to earn". However, if you book VA operated flights with NZ flight number, I would say you stand a good chance to gain the respective Miles and Status Credits with VA.

Kiwi Flyer

That is clearly an error. The bug may continue or may not.

Xiaotung

Absolutely correct. That's probably one of the reasons why NZ doesn't allow members to use Airpoints like cash to book on other airlines however you can use them to book rental cars and hotels like cash. To VA and CX in these circumstances, Airpoints is just another form of payment and they are booked into revenue booking classes.

NZ can prevent their own flight from being credited as you will see FQTR noted on boarding passes.

serfty

I guess after being posted here, it's days are numbered.

Kamadan

I talked about this somewhat openly last year in my trip report to OOL flying VA.

And this is still happening more than a year since... so... your guess is good as mine as to when this glitch/bug is going to be fixed.

serfty

Sure; maybe the cost benefit was not there back then. Anyway, I doubt my airpoints account will ever again have a enough balance to concern myself here - it's (perhaps ironically) remained on 2˘ since April 2012 ...

Xiaotung

I don't think NZ can fix this alone and these other airlines wouldn't be bothered as it makes no difference when NZ pay them for the booking.

VA allows their members to use points to book on any airline and any flight (albeit requiring unrealistic amount of points) and these bookings will be accruable as well. When these transactions occur, the airline is acting as nothing more than a travel agent. There is no bug. It's just the way it is.