Air New Zealand Air Points - Brought back down to earth.......

....or at least "back down the back"...:D

Flew on NZ5 last night (LAX-AKL).... only my second flight since hitting GE...and ended up sitting in my originally asigned seat across the Pacific for the first time in 2 years....:(

That flight will leave me with 2 lessons:

1. Don't book a long haul flight on the last Sunday of the NZ school holidays and expect a points upgrade to clear...;)..AND

2. Grab 34C or H (?).. NOT an exit aisle..in row 43....

<Rant ON>

For quite a significant portion of the flight I was having my feet trodden on by folks waiting to ...go....(ended up using the video screen as a sort of barrier... just leave it sticking out at 90 degrees!!!)

...made worse of course by the number insisting on having bare feet!!!!! (ICK!)

..and what's with leaving ones seating area looking as if it was hit by a rampaging herd of pigs?? (I know that isn't reserved for Y but geez... it is lot more noticeable..)

<Rant OFF>

On the bright side the AVOD worked flawlessly...the food was perfectly OK.. service was good (Proper headsets were distributed to G/E down the back along with eyemasks etc if requested)...and the Concierge was "ever present", attentive AND pitched in to help with the 100% full Y cabin....

My own whinge paled into insignificance talking to another pax... who was travelling on standby staff "buddy" travel originally..but after waiting three days with no chance of getting a flight had purchased a one way/last minute fare.. OUCH!

Reportedly at least 80 folks (including a family of 4) were similarly stuck at LAX.....and while that's the risks one takes I cn't help sympathising!

My own whinge paled into insignificance talking to another pax... who was travelling on standby staff "buddy" travel originally..but after waiting three days with no chance of getting a flight had purchased a one way/last minute fare.. OUCH!

Reportedly at least 80 folks (including a family of 4) were similarly stuck at LAX.....and while that's the risks one takes I cn't help sympathising!

I have come across that situation with people on staff travel flying NZ at LAX several times. We can only imagine their stress levels and this would have been further compounded as NZ has only 1 AKL departure on the day after (Monday)

As for the person having to pay for a one way ticket. That would not have been cheap.

I guess you would not have realised school holidays were about to finish, as NZ and Australia have differant term dates.

Glad the trip back wasn't to horrendous. Did you manage to get a UG for AKL SYD?

...
For quite a significant portion of the flight I was having my feet trodden on by folks waiting to ...go....(ended up using the video screen as a sort of barrier... just leave it sticking out at 90 degrees!!!) ...@:-)Have a search on the Qantas Forum (and AFF) for "White Socks" ;)

Welcome to my world. Very rarely do my upgrades clear on NZ :(

For future reference, the NZ master thread sticky has a link to the key dates thread, which lists school and public holidays in NZ.

Kiwi flyer i'm intrigued that your upgrade requests and other posters rarely clear. My requests always clear touchwood. My last upgrade request that didn't come through was way back in 2005 on NZ2 because an earlier flight (NZ6?) was cancelled. All my requests are on flights to and from LAX or YVR.

So i'm wondering why mine always clear and yours don't.

Kiwi flyer i'm intrigued that your upgrade requests and other posters rarely clear.
Mine almost always clear as well. I think I have had only 2.5 upgrades that have not cleared. This is as NZ*S, NZ*G, and NZ*E over the years. I have often been the only pax to clear upgrades on some flights though (at least this is what I have been told).

PER-AKL Y-C in 2006.
AKL-NRT U-C in 2008.
MEL-AKL Y-C in 2009 - I cleared and my companion didn't.

I can only surmise that KF has to fly on "peak" days.. whereas folks like me who are travelling only for recreation can normally tweak our schedules to fly "mid week"... That is what I normally do and I share the last few posters almost 100% success rate on Transpacific Y>BP upgrades... and note that has been Y>BP... not Y>PE (which I'd honestly be happy with anyway)

This time the departure date was dictated by having no more vacation time to take!

The outbound upgrade cleared more than 24 hours out (a first for me as previously mentioned)... but of course that was a Wednesday night out of AKL...

Mr Sydney: NZ$2600.... "not cheap" is right!!! I felt quite sorry for her... (and Yes she was exceedingly cute... so sue me!!! :D)

And no... I don't apply for upgrades Trans Tasman generally.... and in this case I had 11A on the 763 so I really couldn't see the point... As an aside I have found as a brand new GE that the provision of "perks" when in Y seems to be much more generously and consistently applied than as a "mere" Gold...;)... YMMV of course and the sample size is still very small!!

The greetings and little extra touches are very nice... if somewhat embarrasing still! :rolleyes:

Kiwi Flyer: Thanks for that guidance on school dates etc... as an old crusty bachelor it hasn't been something I have taken note of!

EDIT:... I meant of course row 36 for the seats I'll nab next time.... and I really shouldn't complain.. it was an excellent trip all round... The UA p.s. flight in First was a treat (at least for a US domestic segment) and just about everything has already credited.. and correctly.... I just think I might be a tad too old now to do 18 flights in 6 days!!!!

I flew DAY-CLE-LAX on CO on the way home... 2 weeks too early to credit anything naturally :rolleyes:... but a very nice experience nonetheless.... I thought the aircraft were comfortable and the staff quite good... I checked in online the night before and even snagged an exit row on the 737-800 for the long CLE-LAX segment...:D I will certainly use them again once they are settled in to the *A....

I can only surmise that KF has to fly on "peak" days.. whereas folks like me who are travelling only for recreation can normally tweak our schedules to fly "mid week"... That is what I normally do and I share the last few posters almost 100% success rate on Transpacific Y>BP upgrades... and note that has been Y>BP... not Y>PE (which I'd honestly be happy with anyway)
Possibly, but a lot of my flights are on peak days (Friday nights), and have been when the flight is oversold or otherwise very full.

Maybe NZ just notice that Kiwi Flyer buys a lot of C tickets and don't want to encourage him to stop ;).

:D:D:D

You ARE a bad man......

...but I like those "data points" as I have already had to book another Sunday night return from LAX.... and I will live in hope...

That will be a certificate upgrade request which may help a little...

Following an experience 2 or so years ago when my upgrade as GE did not clear LAX-LHR I have had a couple of experiences when it does not clear. The worst was when mrs flykiwifly (also GE) had her boarding pass rejected at the gate which leads to that frisson of excitement when you know the upgrade has cleared and she was upgraded to biz. No rejection for my boarding pass when scanned next and no upgrade! I was left going "what about me!" When I had done the on line upgrade requests I had done hers first and mine second and I missed out as only 1 seat available.
My LAX-LHR failed upgrade was in March, outside of school hols, and I had it brought home to me when talking to the person in the seat next to me (also flying PE) who was waitlisted paying$$$$$$ to get into business and there was not even a seat for him as a paying passenger.
I think it was 18 months ago when they switched the 747 to the 777 briefly for the LAX-LHR-LAX run and I was booked into PE and expecting the 747 as that was what was showing when I booked many months in advance and had applied for upgrades with my vouchers. When they substituted the 777 I thought there would be no hope and luckily spotted a J class sale and paid the difference to fly biz as I really had my doubts that an upgrade request would clear on a plane with a much smaller biz class.
I have also taken to flying via the US (as much as I hate it) when flying to LHR on the rationale that if trying to upgrade there are more biz class seats to upgrade into and using Expert Flyer to help with the decision. This worked a few months ago. I tweaked my flight by one day as Expert Flyer (worth the money) showed upgrade class availability for GE by flying on the Tues as opposed to the Wed and the upgrade was acknowledged and confirmed within 24hours.

Yes most of my longhaul travel is on peak dates. To North America (or LHR via LAX) almost always on a Friday. From North America usually on a Saturday (or a Sunday if long weekend in NZ). To Asia on Friday evening or Saturday morning, and from Asia Sunday evening.

My success rate on NZ is stark contrast to QF (supported upgrades 100% successful but no op-ups), and SQ (lots of op-ups and also supported upgrades 100% successful).

----

Having said all that I see one of my two u/g requests on upcoming flights has cleared.

My own whinge paled into insignificance talking to another pax... who was travelling on standby staff "buddy" travel originally..but after waiting three days with no chance of getting a flight had purchased a one way/last minute fare.. OUCH!

Reportedly at least 80 folks (including a family of 4) were similarly stuck at LAX.....and while that's the risks one takes I cn't help sympathising!

1. A R/T ticket may have been cheaper.
2. Hopefully, the 80+ folks got a seat on the LAX-RAR-AKL flight.

I've had pretty good luck with upgrades so far - for a while I would book the PE flex fares and get the confirmed u/g to BP, but I've also had a good run even with a Y value fare that I booked - the computer cleared standby u/g's both directions between LAX and AKL almost a month in advance.

I think I've asked this before, but cannot recall - does anyone know at what level a human is involved in evaluating u/g requests? It seems that sometimes the computer processes it right away, and at other times it's gone to the Premium Team for review, and then gets cleared within 24 hours (usually same day).

Granted, I do buy a fair amount of BP fares, especially with all these wonderful sales - I can only imagine when the days of $10k BP fares return I'm sure my u/g success ratio will change for the worse, as those days usually mean companies are shelling out for it!

Most of my over to LAX/YVR would be on a Thurs/Fri/Sat and coming back generally on a Saturday/Sunday. The requests are either for Y to PE or for PE To BP.

I did feel a tad guilty once when i upgraded on a grabaseat ticket. However i figure airnz get enough of my money.

My luck has been pretty good too incl PE to BP AKL-HKG last Friday. Think BP must have been pretty empty as in addition to our 2 boarding passes issued at check-in there were another 2 PE-BP upgrades at the gate (plus 4 from Econ to PE).

That's interesting.. I thought HKG was a difficult upgrade to get...

One final comment.... the Airbucks spent on the unsuccesful upgrade attempt had already been recredited yesterday....so < 48 hours?

That is some sort of record IME..:eek:

skigirl... This very trip cost me less than AUD$1000. AND I did end up in BP one way.....:D I really ain't complainin'.....

I gifted upgrades when GE for four years and they all cleared except one. They were mainly lhr-Hkg and Akl-Mel. I guess I must have been lucky as lots have ppl have told me that upgrades ex LHR are difficult to get.