Air New Zealand Air Points - Air NZ selling LHR-SFO tickets with VX

I noticed today a "sale" on the NZ UK website for LHR-SFO, which of course made me wonder if NZ was codesharing on VS or UA for point to point travel.

No. It is LHR-LAX on NZ1/NZ2 and then LAX-SFO flying on VX (Virgin America) which is more conveniently located at T3 at LAX (adjacent to T2 for NZ) than UA.

Of course from an Airpoints point of view, VX earns you nothing. You are better off booking a separate LAX-SFO ticket on UA to get status credits (and indeed you can blag lounge access for what it's worth if you have a same day international boarding pass), although it is all next to nothing if the fare difference is a worthwhile saving.

What it does show is NZ seeing value in selling LHR-LAX for more than the point to point traffic.

No. It is LHR-LAX on NZ1/NZ2 and then LAX-SFO flying on VX (Virgin America) which is more conveniently located at T3 at LAX (adjacent to T2 for NZ) than UA.
A lot of NZ's US fares allow VX for US add-ons, and have done for a while (maybe 6-12 months). QF also uses them ;).
What it does show is NZ seeing value in selling LHR-LAX for more than the point to point traffic.
Indeed. NZ has been popping up in my corporate travel tool for SFO-LAX-LHR-<European destination> quite a bit in the last year, but rarely price-competitive to UA or BA.

Indeed. NZ has been popping up in my corporate travel tool for SFO-LAX-LHR-<European destination> quite a bit in the last year, but rarely price-competitive to UA or BA.

I was just looking at this scenario and I am (again) totally frustrated with NZ. Because they now only use VX instead of UA you can't use them LHR-SFO anymore because the last VX LAX-SFO flight doesn't connect. UA would have perfect connections.

Yes, I can book separate tickets but that isn't the point. NZ should try to make it easy for me, not hard.

I was just looking at this scenario and I am (again) totally frustrated with NZ. Because they now only use VX instead of UA you can't use them LHR-SFO anymore because the last VX LAX-SFO flight doesn't connect. UA would have perfect connections.

Yes, I can book separate tickets but that isn't the point. NZ should try to make it easy for me, not hard.
Indeed that is stupid. They are now a non-useful option ex-SFO to LHR/onwards. Interesting that they were showing NZ-coded UA options for SFO-LAX-AKL when I looked though, so they've only changed the fare rules through to Europe for some reason.