smanch

Hi folks, newbie here. My partner took a job in Wellington and I am still working in Boston so have been going back and forth on Air NZ & United flights frequently. My first trip was in February and I should earn Gold on my next BOS-WLG flight in a couple weeks.

I have few quick questions.

1. What is the best strategy for getting upgraded to PE? I'm a student so don't have a lot of extra cash ... on the long-hauls, is there any mechanism to get upgraded other than RUs and bidding in OneUp with Airpoints dollars? Does it matter how far in advance one uses either of these methods? From quick browsing on this forum it seems that I'm not terribly likely to get an RU, even once I earn Gold, seeing as I mainly fly the busy routes (LAX-AKL, SFO-AKL; have done AKL-IAH once too).

2. I'm doing the trip roughly once a month these days. Do Elites tend to fly more than this? I haven't done the arithmetic (I probably should...) but my sense I'm likely to stay at Gold unless I begin traveling more than this. Are Elites just fabulously wealthy and/or have somebody else bankrolling their tickets?

3. If anyone else travels regularly between the US and NZ, do you have any tips for how to get upgraded on United? A couple of times I've asked nicely at the United gate and mentioned Air NZ status and have been moved to Economy Plus, but it's been pretty haphazard. I had assumed when I signed up for things that having status on *A would just automatically help on United, but my assumption appears to have been incorrect! On one United flight where I bought a super cheap first class ticket, people with Silver status on MileagePlus had been bumped up for free — but I think that even if I had Gold at the time, I wouldn't have automatically been upgraded ahead of the Silver MileagePlus folks.

Thanks for the assistance and apologies for the very basic nature of these questions.

Sam

sbiddle

There are 3 ways to get upgraded - RU's, Elite Airpoints upgrades or OneUp. Upgrades to BP on SFO/LAX routes are like a lottery as there are no shortage of people wanting to upgrade and also no shortage of people who will pay to sit in BP. There is no "cheap" way to sit at the front of the plane and no way to guarantee a seat short of being Elite and getting in with R class availability which will clear the upgrade when booked.

Elite status comes with flying a reasonable amount but also choosing what you fly in premium cabins that are paid for. If you're only flying Economy you'd get pretty close to Elite after 12 RTN flights.

*G or NZ Gold will not entitle you to upgrades on United. If you want United upgrades you have to me a member of United's MileagePlus and have status with that which can't be applied if you're not on a UA ticket.

jswong

I would definitely do the math(s) on this. It is difficult for me to see how you could not do better flying and crediting to UA. If flying once per month, even once every 2 months in economy you would earn enough for 1K (presuming you make the PQD threshold). You would then earn 6 GPU's and generally these are not too difficult to clear on routes down under

Not quite right. On NZ, upgrades are only possible on NZ tickets. On UA however, upgrades can be applied regardless of ticket

Of course I have not really answered the OPs question. BTW welcome to FT!

Kiwiwings

Being an Elite will help your chances of upgrades clearing as well as enabling you to buy APD upgrades. An Airpoints credit card will help you with status points although as a student I imagine your spend is much less than many of the other members on this board. What you should strongly consider doing is purchasing your United domestic flights in first class whenever the price is not unreasonable. US domestic first class earns huge amounts of status points compared to most other flights. According to the calculator a direct flight from LAX to BOS will earn you 120SP. Obviously flying first is often just not economical but keep an eye out for good deals on first class flights. Just make sure they are in booking class A or F, other wise you won't earn anything.

Mwenenzi

samuelmehr Welcome to FT
Upgrades on non USA airlines operate very differently to upgrades on USA airlines. With with non USA airlines always expect to fly in the class you buy. It is only USA based airlines that give out upgrades like confetti for free (by status or no $$ cost upgrade instruments) or easily with miles and/or miles-cash co pay.

As UA & AA now fly into AKL you may be better with them. By world standards Air NZ is not a good ffp

USA based airline ffp's tend to be more generous (status benefits/earn/burn/upgrades/award cost/award cash surcharges/expiry/affiliated credit card ff mile earning/promotions) compared to non USA based airline ffp’s (even after the recently announced changes to some USA ffp’s). But if you are not flying the airline of your ffp the useful benefits are somewhat limited.

smanch

Thanks, this is real helpful.

For Air NZ Elites roughly how often would you say that you fly per month, and roughly what % of the time do you purchase a PE or BP ticket vs. economy (whether or not you end up upgrading it)? Just trying to get a sense.

On MileagePlus, I considered changing but the problems there are (1) on domestic UA itineraries I think won't be able to use United lounges, since they have this weird and super confusing lounge access policy, but more importantly (2) most of the cheaper UA flights to NZ get routed through SYD, which adds 6+ hours to an already long trip. So I figured that it would be better to just go with Air NZ. But I'm open to switching it up soon once I earn NZ Gold in a few weeks.

On credit card spend, this one is complicated. My income is in USD and I've found that credit card rewards are far more lucrative in the US than in NZ. I've been using a CapitalOne Venture card that pays a flat 2% cash back, has a good exchange rate (no fee) for NZD, and no annual fee. So an Air NZ credit card would have to be paying a fantastic return rate in status & Airpoints Dollars to match that — on top of which, I imagine that the NZD-USD conversion is less of a good deal than the other way around (though I don't know for sure). So credit card wise, I think my best option is what I have now (i.e. a cash discount on flight purchases) unless I switch to MileagePlus in which case I could get one of their cards.

On AA, I also looking into their program, but the problem there is that there just aren't many AA flights direct to AKL from the US West Coast, and the few that there are are often $500-1000 more than comparable Air NZ flights. So it would be an expensive change.

On UA domestic first/business class, it does seem that the conversion rate is really good to status points. I did a couple of legs that had ludicrously cheap tickets and earned like 100+ SP for a flight that was 1/10 the length of AKL-LAX (for instance). So maybe I should be trying to fly A/F/C/D/J/P as much as I can on the within-US legs.

smanch

Also, one more quick question. I got NZ Silver on 25 August and will upgrade to Gold on 10 Nov or so. Will I have Gold until 10 Nov 2017? Or until 25 August 2017? I'm not totally clear on what counts as the beginning of a year for Air NZ.

drajknox

1y from upgrade date then I believe soft landing to Silver another year if don't requalify Gold.

sbiddle

Number of flights is largely irrelevant as SP earn is a complex combination of route, aircraft type, fare class and price paid. If you booked cheap fares you could fly return from New Zealand to Australia every week and not get Gold after 52 weeks and 104 flights.

smandkjc

[QUOTE=samuelmehr;27390747]Thanks, this is real helpful.

For Air NZ Elites roughly how often would you say that you fly per month, and roughly what % of the time do you purchase a PE or BP ticket vs. economy (whether or not you end up upgrading it)? Just trying to get a sense.

We had Elite status for about 5 years and would just take about 5 flights a year, all to the Pacific Islands from NZ but always buy BP tickets.
We now travel enough to retain Gold status with just 3 trips and our credit card spend.
If we use upgrades we don't earn enough SP to retain status so usually don't use them.

NZbutterfly

Make sure you've used or applied your silver RU to a flight as you will LOSE it when you move up to gold. You will gain another 2 RU. You get 5 long haul RU's and 1 short haul RU on the way from Jade to Elite which I think is pretty good.

It's a rolling 12 month year so if you make Gold 10 Nov 2016, you'll have it until 10 Nov 2017.

I might fly 3 sectors in a month and the next 14 so it's wide ranging, mainly economy but there are some paid PE and BP flights in there depending on schedule and destination.

Given your NZ SP earn on UA domestic it sounds like you should be making the most of that!

Can your partner get the Airpoints credit card and you could be a supplementary user and pay the annual fee and accrue while you're over here in NZ to avoid fees?

smanch

I've got it applied to my next flight when I'll earn Gold, but I suppose if it doesn't clear then I'll lose it

smanch

Yes to both — I'm going to start keeping a close eye on UA First prices since they often cut them, probably as they know they're going to fill those seats anyway with automatic upgrades. On the credit card I have to do the math to be sure but I think that the flat 2% on all purchases I earn with my US credit card may outweigh the need for more SP. Or at the very least, the total return at 2% may pay for a PE or BP ticket, which would probably provide more SP than the Airpoints credit card's return rate (adjusting for the annual fee, which at the moment I don't pay). But I'm not 100% on that, would need to use a year or two of credit card statements to make a more precise prediction.