Air New Zealand Air Points - Domestic Status Point Run? Questions

Hey guys,

Am in the unusual position where I will fail to requalify with NZ this year (too much Skyteam flying..) and am contemplating booking a few grabaseat/smart savers to make up the difference - and given I do very little domestic flying I have just a couple of questions for the more-experienced than me.

1) Do you earn status points for each segment in a day, or is there a limit? And how strictly do they administer the points based on origin-destination rule? Thinking of something like AKL-WLG-CHC-WLG-AKL in a day.

2) Does NZ still have reduced earning should you connect onto domestic flights from international ones? I recall earning fewer points for a CHC-AKL after a NRT-CHC or LAX-CHC a few years back.

3) And has the oft-discussed dead month for earning definitely gone away? I have some free time for this a couple of weeks after the "earn XXX by 31 March 09" date, so will still be gold, but due to drop to silver sometime after.

4) Pointing out any other pitfalls would be much appreciated!

Earning on NZ metal is per journey not per flight. They have a liberal (in their favour) interpretation of journey for cases where multi-city bookings have been made.

Yes domestic flights as part of an international ticket only earn 10 airbucks.

The upshot is only possible to earn max 26 airbucks from domestic flights in NZ in a day. Of course you could fly more and credit the extra flights to other programs (as long as not grab-a-seat, smart saver or special sale fares).

With the current Grab-a-seat fares it works out to $2 a status point (AKL-WLG-AKL @ $58 gives 24 sp) but I take it its too late (Jul-Aug) for you stewardo.

Interesting that it will cost $3625 to get GE from scratch using this fare. Is it the best rate one can get?