Air New Zealand Air Points - Foreign exchange market for NZ Airpoints Dollars?

Have others noticed that Air NZ has burdened their already overcomplicated new Airpoints Dollars system by fixing the value to one Australian Dollar in Oz and one New Zealand Dollar elsewhere? Good grief, what a mess ...

Yes I noticed. Hence my questions on the main thread


For Australian members it seems all the tables have been converted to airbucks. There may be some small advantage due to rounding or any mistakes (deliberate or otherwise). I wonder how often NZ will adjust aussie airbucks to take account of currency movements? May open up some arbitrage opportunities.

On a completely unrelated question how will they deal with members who shift from NZ to Aust or vice versa? Presumable airbucks balance (and status to date) need to be converted using an exchange rate of some sort.


But having gone down the path of "an airbuck can be used to buy a fare of xxx" they had no choice. I havent checked but presume there is also a UK version of airbuck too.

Edited to add I have now checked and no UK version. All the other Air NZ sites refer to currency being converted at time of booking. I guess someone has done the sums to work out there are too many Airpoints members in Australia to calculate every time, but in UK it is still worth calculating at the time of booking/enquiry? Makes it tougher for those based overseas - not only is there uncertainty over the amount of airbucks required for award, but also need to factor in currency conversion. :td:

If the Australian member balances were actually recorded internally in $NZ based airbucks and converted to $AU for display, then Australian members would see their account balances mysteriously vary with the $NZ/$AU exchange rate.

A more sensible solution would have been to treat the Aussies like they treat everyone else and keep and display everything everything in $NZ based airbucks. That would eliminate the need for 2 sets of earning/spending charts. It would also eliminate the bizarre accounting issue of having the liabilities from AU members vary on NZ's books due to exchange rate fluctuations. Yuck.

Since they went with the dual currency approach, it looks like members changing their addresses back and forth across the Tasman at the right times could net profits.

Since they went with the dual currency approach, it looks like members changing their addresses back and forth across the Tasman at the right times could net profits.

That would depend on how airbucks balances are converted each time.

That would depend on how airbucks balances are converted each time.

If Air New Zealand fixes the conversion rate and doesn't let it follow the floating $NZ/$AU exchange rate, then that just opens up opportunities for arbitrage on the earning/redemption side.

Makes it tougher for those based overseas - not only is there uncertainty over the amount of airbucks required for award, but also need to factor in currency conversion. :td:

Certainly is tough for us outside of NZ/AU.

Even before the changes it seemed to be tough -- setting the status credit border between 10 and 20 SCs at 8800km seemed perfectly designed to catch the 8758km distance of LHR/LAX flights (or am I paranoid?) This margin between the LHR/LAX and AKL/LAX flights seems to continue under Airbucks.

Now, pretty much any other *A programme seems more generous with status.. its a continuing mystery to me why its so effortless to keep gold with BA exec club and skywards (EK) but so difficult with NZ airpoints... I fly similar amounts with each programme.

I think I'm gonna jump to bmi as my *A programme for status despite being a ferocious fan of AirNZ as an airline. Now just need to re-read the wonderful Mad_atta's advice about having two different FF numbers in a booking!

Even before the changes it seemed to be tough -- setting the status credit border between 10 and 20 SCs at 8800km seemed perfectly designed to catch the 8758km distance of LHR/LAX flights (or am I paranoid?)

I dont think you're paranoid. Also catches AKL-SIN/BKK nicely despite being half way to Europe.