Air New Zealand Air Points - help on defecting from Qantas

I live in NZ and am a top-tier elite with Qantas and next to the top elite with American. I'm disgusted with the present Qantas FF programme: their perpetual unavailability of long-haul business-class upgrades, plus absolutely no confirmed international upgrades whatsoever.

Will Air NZ do what airlines in the USA do, to encourage defections? That is, to encourage me to do my travelling on Air NZ, will they start me off at a comparative elite tier level, rather than my having to begin at ground zero? I take at least two RTW business-class trips per year.

If that is what you want to do I'm sure that Air New Zealand will look at your case (which is quite strong IMHO) and will look at comping you to Airpoints Gold - but if you fly a round the world business ticket you'd hit that status anyway.

Please make contact with me balaram - my email address is listed in my profile under Instant Messaging.

Do some background first. Find out who is the sales manager for the north island, find out from his PA (or whatever they are called) when is the best time to phone, and pitch your case.

May even be worthwhile faxing in your latest travel statement, and informaton about forward travel and spend (also if you can sway other coworkers, i.e. you influence group travel). Note do it a couple of hours a ahead of a confirmed time. So make the appointment, tell him/her you will fax some details and then discuss. If you fax first or too early it will passed down to some junior minion.

At least that is my experience that the sales managers drive the FF divisions and decisions, as unless you get lucky, the people in the FF department don't care two ....s about sales and just look at the rules.

Also you need to be honest, is a lot of travel 2 eco trips to europe with monthly trans-tasman, or is it 4-5 business class to europe with 4-5 to the USA per year. i.e. what revenue are you actually bringing. i.e. talking about upgrades will not be of interest to them, as to be interesting you should be buying business class anyway. If you look at what UGS or HON bring UA and LH respectively you know what league you need to be in.

Mark

Do some background first. Find out who is the sales manager for the north island, find out from his PA (or whatever they are called) when is the best time to phone, and pitch your case.

May even be worthwhile faxing in your latest travel statement, and informaton about forward travel and spend (also if you can sway other coworkers, i.e. you influence group travel). Note do it a couple of hours a ahead of a confirmed time. So make the appointment, tell him/her you will fax some details and then discuss. If you fax first or too early it will passed down to some junior minion.

At least that is my experience that the sales managers drive the FF divisions and decisions, as unless you get lucky, the people in the FF department don't care two ....s about sales and just look at the rules.

Great advice, and succintly put!

Good luck balaram - let us know how you get on.

Before making a move I'd also check that *A RTW will be suitable for you - does *A serve the places you need to go, and bear in mind the *A RTW products are mileage based (various levels up to 39,000 miles) not segment based as per One World.