Air New Zealand Air Points - How many points for reward ticket with change of flight number?

My brother's looking to book a reward ticket from London to Nadi - he has to change planes in LAX, but he won't be stopping over. He asked me how many points he'd need and (I'm ashamed to say) I couldn't help him. Does the cost of the ticket depend on the total mileage, or (like upgrades) do they add the cost of each flight individually - I'm suspecting the former, but having never booked an award ticket I not sure. Thanks for your help in advance (I'm sure mad_atta's already reaching for his trusted award calculator http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif)

Cheers, Zac

[This message has been edited by Zaco (edited 07-29-2002).]

Hi Zac

Good news: the points level required is calculated based on the total distance, rather than the sum of the sectors involved. In this case, the return distance is 35,300km = zone 9 = 130K economy / 195K business. He would actually be allowed one free stopover (i.e. stopping for >24 hours).

Speaking of trusty award calculators, I wish the award calculator (https://registration.airnewzealand.com/travel/frequentflyers/airpoints_rewards.jsp?pid=7016&currsite=www.airnz.com.au) on the NZ site would allow calculations on connecting flights such as this... it really is high time they improved the online AirPoints services. Online award bookings is certainly a step in the right direction, but why is it only available for NZ-based members?

Mad_Atta

Could you please explain why/how he is entitled to a stopover? When I booked an award for AKL-LAX-LON involving a 6 day layover in LAX I was charged the points for two separate rewards (ie AKL-LAx and LAX-LON). When doing the reverse trip in April 2003 should I expect to be able to do it on the basis of one journey?

gratn, regarding the free stopover, I'm no expert - I was simply quoting from page 39 of the AirPoints Member's Guide (http://www.airnz.co.nz/travel/frequentflyers/statpage.jsp?pid=7019):

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
"Kilometers are calculated in accordance with the Great Circle Distance rule. One stopver exceeding 24 hours is permitted on Air New Zealand services whether the Reward Travel is one way or return. No backtracking is permitted. When Reward Travel, on Air New Zealand services, involves Domestic and International journeys, these will be calculated as separate rewards." </font>

On the question of whether connecting flights are calculated as one award flight or two, I called AirPoints (since I was curious about this as well) and they confirmed that the AirPoints required are calculated on the total distance, rather than adding up the points required for each individual sector. Based on RChavez's experiences documented here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum7/HTML/000339.html), I suspect there may be some confusion around this issue among the AirPoints staff, so (at the risk of annoying airnzboy http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif) perhaps the time honoured advice of 'if you don't get the answer you want, call back later' applies in this case?

Mad-atta,

I think the issue with the RChavez's Air Points booking was that he was splitting his ticket between first class and business class and the AP people or the computer system could not just charge the higher first class fare for the LHR/SYD portion but had to charge LHR/AKL in first and then AKL/SYD in business separately.

So if you are in teh same class of travel for the journey it should be okay, but if half way you change class then it will be two separate awards.

Note, on many systems this has actually worked in our favour. For example the old QF system where it was cheaper on some routes to book one ways rather than return! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Mark

I think I should chime in here. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif I have found that the first few times I had called AirPoints that many of their agents were misinformed about how to properly calculate award mileage levels. It was only after e-mailing their Australian office that I was able to locate someone who could confirm that as long as I am transiting in AKL, then I should only be charged for the direct SYD-LAX mileage instead of SYD-AKL and AKL-LAX separately.

Now, while I did indeed notice the item in the terms & conditions of the members' guide, it does state that one free stopover is allowed. However, by the response that I received from Airpoints in Australia, I inferred that the reason I could use the SYD-LAX direct mileage was because I wasn't staying in AKL more than 24 hours.

With respect to the two classes of service, the confusion I experienced had to do with the fact that only Business Class is offered from SYD-AKL, which further complicated matters since I was trying to redeem F class. One of the agents whom I spoke with said that this was the reason that the sectors had to be separated.

However, the real truth is that as long as there is a connection, then you do the O/D distance, and ignore the connection (as long as it's valid per typical routings).

My suggestion would be to contact the Australian office via e-mail for clarification. They're quite efficient and helpful.

On a side note, it's rather ironic that all of this confusion over my connection in AKL became a moot point as a seat opened up on the SYD-LAX non-stop in F! The only thing was the seat opened up exactly one day after the end of the 7 day window where I was allowed to make changes without charge. So I had to pay NZ$50 to change my flight. But that's okay. US$25 is nothing compared to the US$100 that is standard here.

Thanks everyone for your help, glad to hear that it's the overall distance that counts

Cheers, Zac