Air New Zealand Air Points - LHR min checkin (LHR-HKG)

The Air NZ web site (and their telephone line) says 2 hour min checkin at LHR (flying to HKG). Is that the absolute cutoff? I plan to get there 2.5 hrs in advance, but public transport is not always totally reliable. I could be hand luggage only if that helped. (Never flown NZ before, so not experience of this...)

thanks

PS flying J if that makes a difference

If I arrived 1:30 before departure I'd expect to still get checked in. Of course if this is later than published check in cut-off then the airline is within their rights to deny check in, or your bags may not make the flight.

I have got through at just over 1 hr before departure and have a colleague who was turned away (NZGE in BP) at 45 min. I think Kiwi Flyer's 1hr 30min is probably the absolute minimum to be safe.

Thanks for the advice. I don't *plan* to cut it that fine, but trains on a Sunday from deepest Herefordshire can be a variable feast... Looks like if I aim for 2.5 hours before, then I have about an hour in hand with any luck. I realise that anything beyond the official 2 hours is a grace period!

However I do have a tale of perhaps one of the tightest checkin times.

I am NZGE and was flying BP, I availed myself of the limo pickup for LHR originating passengers booked pickup at 1800 for the 2105 departure of NZ38, and as I then lived in North London, this would allow an hour to get to LHR with plenty of give if I had been delayed. 1800 passed, nothing. 1815 passed and I called, and was told I'd be phoned back. 1820 was phoned back and told I had booked for 1900, which of course was nonsense and I gave them an earful - after all NZ had arranged it for me, and it should have been commonsense that 1900 was going to be tight.

Fortunately the driver actually turned up at 1825, so off I went, and we sped along the A40 and he chose to use the A312 - a mistake. I didn't arrive at Terminal 3 until 2020. We joined the queue on the A312 at 1910 - it took a hour to go one mile. At 2000 I rang Air NZ and complained and said "keep the flight open", and I got a non-committal remark from a woman in Auckland who said she couldn't promise - I gave her an earful, partly because I was returning for the funeral of a very close relative.

Anyway I arrived, ran like hell to the Terminal 3, where I checked in, took 15 minutes to get through fasttrack security and passport control, then another 10 to find the gate where it was saying final call and I entered the plane at the very tail end of the last Y class passengers.

NEVER want to do that again.

That's pretty tight... though I can beat it. Admittedly, only for a trans-Tasman. I needed to go to HKG and PEK (from SYD) for a day in each to talk to prospective ad agencies, and I scammed work into letting me buy a Circle Asia ticket in J (plus a separate HKG-PEK) which saved them about $500, and allowed me (with some creative routing and multiple domestic hops) to spend a long weekend in New Zealand to see friends and family, try out Business Premier longhaul, and finally requalify for *G. I think my final itin was SYD-AKL-WLG-BHE-WLG-CHC-AKL-HKG-PEK-BKK-SYD :) Anyway, having finally coaxed that complex itinerary out of our increasingly flustered work travel agent, I nearly blew it all by being very slow to get out of bed on the day of departure, then having a dodgy taxi that nearly had a complete transmission failure and had to limp extremely slowly through the M5 tunnel (threatening to stop at any time), with the result that I arrived at the check-in counter at 6.23am for my 7.00am flight. Nobody batted an eyelid, I (and my checked bags) were swiftly checked in, a problem with my onward ticket was sorted, and I was through security with plenty of time for a quick drink or two in the lounge before boarding. I was very impressed (and relieved!). Of course that speaks volumes for the relative efficiency of things at SYD - if only I could do that here in NYC, sigh.

By contrast, arriving for an Air Canada SYD-YVR flight with a confirmed upgrade from flexible Y to J, at least 1hr15m before departure, I was greeted with surly attitude, lots of hopeful people hanging around the business class desk, and generally given the impression that I was lucky my seat hadn't been given away!

Anyway, I would have thought 1h30min would be absolutely fine, in biz, with NZ. I've never found them to be the kind of airline that gets too hysterical about rules like check-in times.

Checked in at 7:23am for my 7:30am AKL-MEL flight, with bags.
Checked in at 5:45pm for my 6:00pm MEL-WLG flight, with bags.

Slightly more convincing was required for the first one, but no problems with the second one. NZ is generally accommodating if flying business and/or FF pax.