Air New Zealand Air Points - upgrade or companion award?

The plan is for my wife and I and the baby to go to the USA for 2 weeks or so in Sept/Oct. Options are;

Buy a business class fare at maybe NZ$5k to SFO [in the promo that runs until the end of Feb], and redeem a companion award for 126k points.

Or, buy two economy fares at, say, NZ$1800 each and redeem 2 x 30k points sector upgrades for each of us for the return journey.

In either case if we end up in Business the baby pays 10% of that fare.

On the face of it the upgrade option is NZ$1400 and 6k points cheaper than the companion option, but the big difference is that the companion fare is positive and the upgrades standby.

Have I got that right? Does anyone have any comments on this scenario? If I book nearer the time are my chances of reviewing class loadings at that time more likely to help me secure the upgrades?

Any advice much appreciated . . .

Dave
Nelson

You have it right.

1. Companion awards are taken from FF award class and are confirmed or denied. The earlier you book the more availability (generally...).
2. Upgrades unless you have status are confirmed at checkin or at the gate, and you will be trumped by every NZ elite member.

The other factor you have not put in the equation is that the Business fare will bring three times (I think?) the tier credits that the economy fare will bring and therefore might move up up to a higher membership level.

Oh, and I am not sure how excited the gate agents will be at giving you the upgrade and then having to shift fare paying business passengers out of a bulkhead row to make way for you and the baby.

Mark

Thanks Mark, I hadn't considered the status angle, and of course you're exactly right about the upgrade at the gate. We'll be lowly ranked, and gate agents might be reluctant even if there are seats.

Looks to me like a business class fare would earn 60 'status credits' which is not enough to make silver so it's arguable, in our case at least, if that's a factor we need to consider; chasing status when realistically we won't achieve it. The guarantee of the upgrade though - methinks that wil be the driving factor.

Now just need to find a business class fare to LAX or SFO . . ,