Ellice

Just doing a review of my FF membership. I'm trying to get a handle on how lucrative Airpoints are and how hard they are to earn and what they are worth in comparison to other programs. Other travel hacking sites try to value mileage points but I'm finding it hard to understand how much air nz airpoints are worth? It's impossible to do a straight comparison.

Does anyone have any links to reviews valuing air nz airpoints? If you have it would be great to read it. I've qualified for another elite year so I'm considering crediting points to Krisflyer, apparently they have better award availability for their members and they've dropped the fuel surcharges on award tickets. The air nz standby upgrades have worked ok but not knowing till you're at the airport is a drag. I've decided I'd rather work towards a confirmed award ticket rather than a standby upgrade. What are other people's thoughts on this?

Specifically is it a good thing to credit your air nz flights to kris flyer program or is this a waste? I know I can keep getting banked years but I think I have enough of those for the meantime. Me and my partner do fly up to SE Asia regularly to see family. But we always fly Malaysia Airlines there.

Ellice

Just rang Air NZ call centre to change an upcoming NZ trip booking over to accrue the miles with Krisflyer (my agent booked it with air nz). Got advised that air nz removed the ability to have two airpoints numbers in the booking a couple of weeks ago, ie one non accrual, but still getting the Elite benefits and the other being the miles accrual program number. She stated you can only have one FF number on your booking and that determines your status benefits for the trip.

The operator claimed I would get turned away at the koru lounge if I put my Krisflyer number (where I have no status) in instead of my airpoints number.

Has anyone tried to put in a different FF number for miles accrual then been turned away at the lounge for doing that, in the last two weeks? Just interested to know.

libertyuk

That seems rather petty given the Star Alliance rules appear to be:

As a Star Alliance Gold customer, you have access to any member airline lounge that displays the Star Alliance Gold logo. You will need to present your boarding pass for a Star Alliance flight departing from the local airport. If your boarding pass does not carry the Star Alliance Gold indicator, you will need also to show your valid Star Alliance Gold card. You are entitled to a maximum of one guest.

Then defines:

Star Alliance Gold customers: Customers holding valid proof of their Star Alliance Gold level status and a boarding pass for a Star Alliance member airline operated flight in any class departing from the local airport.

In other words, if you are on a *A flight and have *A status with another airline then you should be fine.

OneWorld certainly isn't that petty, as I use BA status on QF flights to access First Class lounges, but direct earning to QF even though I am only lowly Silver. I've only got *A status with NZ, so am unable to help

Ellice

Thanks Liberty UK. I need to do some more research on this one on whether once you have Star Alliance Gold it entitles you to that status level regardless of where you credited the miles (assuming you are travelling on Star Alliance).

The Air NZ call centre claims that there are no Star Alliance gold cards anymore (it's linked digitally to your airpoints card now) and that if I've credited the points over to the Krisflyer then I don't have Star Alliance gold level status unless I have it with Krisflyer, as well as Air NZ. ie the officious woman at the call center was stating that Star Alliance Gold level would not show up on my boarding pass if I have the Kris flyer number down for miles accrual.

She said if I presented my Air NZ FF card and they swiped it at the lounge then that would divert all the points back to my Air NZ FF membership number. I've never had my FF card swiped so far, I've always gained access with my boarding pass.
I'll have to have a chat with the ladies at the Koru club entrance as to how this actually works in practice.
I'm about to read the fine print of the Star Alliance Gold terms and conditions! Will report back.

NZbutterfly

I don't have any experience in the last 2 weeks but last year I switched the fields once in the NZ lounge to SQ after having a bite. I always felt uncertain whether I'd get in without SQ status. On here it seems other people flying NZ pop over to SQ lounges if they think the NZ lounges are too full even when flying NZ.

I never had any problems whether I had a VA # whilst building status and entering an NZ lounge, still showed that card.

I think VA is useful for shuffling points through to SQ albeit at a bit of a loss but as long as you have activity with VA every 24 months then the points live forever (for now), whereas with SQ it's a hard expiry of 36 months. I think you can pay to extend for 6 months or something. Or worst case scenario shuffle the points back to VA at a loss and accrue some activity there to prevent your SQ points from expiring.

I guess you just need to figure out if your flying pattern is going to get you a decent haul of points to redeem on SQ. Use SQ's calculator for an idea of earn and then look at the redemption chart. You can also search award availability to see if you think it's ok. I did this last year and thought it was ok.

You can buy SPG points during promo's and convert to SQ KF miles and also convert any AMEX points. Good way of keeping them in accounts where they don't expire.

Check out their partners also. I think they partner with Jetblue in the US if your flying leads you there, Kempinski and other hotels etc. Even rental cars have had promo's apparently just to boost your points.

I haven't really looked into the upgrade system. I think I read that people felt it was best to go for the award flights instead. To date I've only redeemed KF miles to bring down the price of an already low Scootbiz fare (not the best use but I was really curious about them). Not actually sure when I'll redeem but sometime before 36 months is up!

re: the APD valuation - I've not seen any but I guess it's because 1APD gets you $1 spend and that isn't variable. The earn is tied to spend and then there are the credit cards. Then there's the RU's and you can get as much or as little value out of those depending on what routes you use them on.

I should have accrued a J flight on NZ to SQ but at the end of the day I thought - I just find the NZ APD's more useful so accrued to NZ. It sounds like you'd travel to Asia more frequently which will give you more opportunities to use your KF miles than myself.

Mwenenzi

http://www.wheretocredit.com/air-new-zealand
Many low cost Air NZ fares only earn with Air NZ ffp.
But recently Air NZ earning to UA did improve
Finding the fare bucket can be a challenge.
With codeshares you need to understand the rules for crediting ff miles and what is an eligible flight].

Ellice

Thanks all for the useful advice. Looks like it's a bit iffy getting into the lounge but possible. I will look into the Krisflyer program and see if it's going to be of any use somehow within our travel plans. Actually may as well just buy the points via SPG when on special, it may be more straightforward. At least it's opened up my mind to other options to fly out of New Zealand other than NZ.

dadig

The very fact you could top up AP and with the influx of APD credit cards - makes it pretty much worthless in my opinion. If it weren't offering to family members (booking for 5 people), our APD balance was close to 5 digits.

drajknox

Mine's been 5 figures for quite a while but I have purchased a number of flights for my wife, upgrades etc and I certainly don't consider it worthless. I am disappointed about the relatively low flight earn and the inconsistency with APD/SP earn which often don't relate well to price paid or distance flown.

Whafe

It is indeed a fact I feel that most Airpoints schemes etc are nothing like they used to be. Remember when Air NZ Airpoints would give you a return flight to Sydney after a return trip AKL-LHR return.... Many moons back..

How many return trips AKL-LHR would it take nowadays? Heaps...

The main reason I go with ANZ Airpoints is that you can use Air dollars at anytime for any flight, to me that is hugely advantageous.

Overall the value and thought of free flight is far from a driver....

henrus

The current Star Alliance promotion pegs Airpoints at 20,000 apd to 1,000,000 miles of other miles based *A programs.

Based on this 1000 krisflyer (or other *A mile based programs) is equal to 20 APD.


But then a Brisbane to Auckland Business Class ticket will net somewhere between 50-76 APD but only 1783 miles on some *A carriers (which at *A's rate is equal to 36 APD).

I gave up on Airpoints last year after only just hitting Silver. I do like the rec upgrades which when used can provide good bang for buck but so far VA gold has been much better.

Xiaotung

This is not a fair calculation. I understand the Star 20th Anniversary promo will be awarded to one lucky member per programme only so it wouldn't hurt to be a little more generous to make them look good and to coincide with the number 20. And perhaps they knew members would be comparing 1 millions miles with 20,000 APD and they thought it would be a good idea to create such misconception.

What I use to calculate APD value is probably more accurate. Based on the credit card points conversion rates from Aussie based banks, (based on the same amount of credit cards points converted to Velocity vs Airpoints) I would put 1 Velocity point (mileage based) equaling 0.0125 Aussie APD. So 1 million miles actually are closer to 12,500 APD.

Top of climb

Yes, I just did this last week. No problem at all. I had to ask to speak to someone in the Premium team though.

sbiddle

I'm surprised you could do this considering the other thread on here says split FQTV/FQTS is no longer supported on any *A carriers.

Top of climb

I'd actually called to unstick a *A number from my booking (redemption booking through that *A FFP) and put in another non-NZ *G number instead. The primary call agent couldn't get the FFP number to unstick and I mentioned I'd been able to do it through the premium team before; she put me through. The premium agent then proactively offered to put my *G in number as FQTS and leave my FFP number as FQTV. Since this was what I was used to I didn't give it a second thought - I hadn't realised the rules had changed.

Don't know if the fact that NZ uses its own proprietary booking system, rather than an Amadeus product, has anything to do with the fact that it still can support FQTS/FQTV?