Air New Zealand Air Points - Country of Residence

Hey There,

Thought I would pose a question, I am a Gold Elite member who has recently moved to Aussie, and still maintain a residential address in NZ. Should I convert my airpoints account to Aussie or keep as NZ residential? Premium team have told me that I will lose flybuys, I know I would not use that in Aussie, but I still maintain a credit card in NZ which awards points to FlyBuys so don't really want to miss out on these, plus any minor spending when back in NZ at flybuys retailers. Also, I notice a lot of promotions are only open to NZ residents such as Lucky 7.

Anyone been through this situation? Would appreciate advice to maximise what little benefits are left of the programme.

Thanks.

I'm based in SFO but still leave my Airpoints account anchored in NZ. As you say, it's good for the promotions, most of which are NZ-only. I do wonder whether AirNZ would actually test the 'NZ resident' requirement if a large prize was won, though.

The only downside I've found to this is the inability to insert my US mobile number into the mobile field. It's been manually updated, however the concierges, and indeed agents sometimes, seem to have problems knowing if it's a valid number to dial me on.

Moving your AirPoints account to Australia will also remove the ability to purchase APD through OneSmart.

Of course you'll need some mail forwarding or the ability to pick things up - particularly the half dozen odd AirPoints/One-Up/Lounge-Access/Lounge-Access-Replacement cards. Last year's postage bill can't have been good for a company trying to cut costs...

Thanks for the reply, yeah i have mail forwarding in place, so shouldn't be too much of a problem. I think i will leave it based in NZ.

I will be flying a lot on DJ domestically, it's a shame they don't offer status points on those flights even though as a Velocity member I can earn Status Points on NZ domestic and long haul flights, go figure how that is a fair relationship!

I will be flying a lot on DJ domestically, it's a shame they don't offer status points on those flights even though as a Velocity member I can earn Status Points on NZ domestic and long haul flights, go figure how that is a fair relationship!

It might be a blessing in disguise, you should get DJ Gold without too much effort, which comes with privileges you don't get with NZ G/GE.

Like NZ*Trout I'm California based (just further south than SFO), but I have also lived in Australia and Singapore. In all cases I just left the account NZ based, as I could see no benefit in converting it.

You can still convert Airpoints earned in Australia (e.g. Amex, CBA, etc..) to your NZ Airpoints account - they just come in with a conversion rate.

Keep it in "NZ" ...

AirNZ have made the prgram virtuallly worthless for Oz accounts ...

- No onesmart Airpoints purchases

- Hotel earn is adjusted by ~78% e.g. A Hilton stay earns 20 for a NZ account but ~16 for an Oz account

Keep it in "NZ" ...

AirNZ have made the prgram virtuallly worthless for Oz accounts ...

- No onesmart Airpoints purchases

- Hotel earn is adjusted by ~78% e.g. A Hilton stay earns 20 for a NZ account but ~16 for an Oz account

I used to transfer my credit card points in Australia to NZ account when exchanges rates were good. The best rate I had over the years was around 0.68. I no longer do this due to the introduction of onesmart top-up which has made any transfer pointless. Why would you transfer all these valuable points to NZ now that you can simply buy Airpoints when many of the credit card transactions came at the expense of surcharges? I now transfer them to DJ and I am very close to a return Business award to LAX for 2. Even if I transferred them to NZ, these points could only get me across the ditch in Business for 2. You do the maths. I don't know what NZ management was thinking. That's a lot of cash flow the banks could have paid NZ in advance.

Thanks for the advice, i think I will leave it in NZ. I already have a credit card which converts to Velocity and I should be Gold on DJ by September due to a trip on SQ to Europe which i don't need to credit to NZ as I have a couple of long hauls on NZ in Oct which will firm up Gold Elite for another year, so kind of got my bases covered.