Air New Zealand Air Points - No discount business fares from US to NZ?

I was looking at the US website for NZ and it has listed as a promotion fare from LAX to AKL $9985.

Does this mean there are no discounted business seats from now to the end of February 2009?

Discounted fares are pretty sporadic and can be released gradually over time, as NZ sees how many seats on a particular flight have been sold, at least as far as I understand it.

Usually the Z fares are a fair chunk lower than C or D bucket. Getting upgrades is pretty hit or miss too, assuming you're using an Airpoints account. I think UA MP still does not allow *A upgrades and very rarely, if at all, has outright award seats for BP. I use Expert Flyer to search a range of dates.

Fares have sure gone up a lot - I had to pay an extra 1125 NZD just to move one flight in Oct to 4 days earlier! :mad: