Air New Zealand Air Points - Challenges...

Does anyone know of any challenges on ANZ?
I flew to LAX from LHR in April o ANZ (miles not bee allocated to UA yet because someone is useless!), I'm flying with ANZ again at the end of this month to HKG and should be going to HKG twice more at least in the next four months.
My miles are with UA at the moment, got about 38k in the bank, but have no status. Would it be better to shift my lot to ANZ, get up to Gold or Gold Elite and then get UA to status match? Or won't they do it from other Star Alliance carriers? UA won't give me the hair off a rat's back, so it's 50k to get to silver!

Welcome to Flyertalk Baggycat :)

No status matches (other than for NZ residents to QF as a one-off relating to Qantas stopping domestic service in NZ), challenges or fast-tracks to status.

Unless you are flying on the cheapest economy fares which earn points only with NZ Airpoints, you almost certainly are better off staying with UA Mileage Plus.

Factors to take into consideration including
- your pattern of paid flights
- what you want to redeem miles/points on
- which is most important - status benefits, free flights, and upgrades?

Just to add to the previous answer:

1. No equivalent to the AA challenge.
2. Gold status on Air NZ for non-NZ based passengers is all but impossible to earn unless you purchase at least two or three long-haul Business Class fares or at least four or five long-haul Premium Economy return fares.

You would have to buy eight Economy return fares from LHR to HKG to reach Gold, or nine from LHR to LAX!

Alternatively, three to four Star Alliance Round The World economy fares can be enough, or as few as three if you purchase several Premium Economy upsells on Air NZ.

If you're a Business Class passenger it's worthwhile. If you're not, stick to BMI.

Thanks for the comments, you just confirmed what I found out from ANZ this morning. I was quite shocked to see how bad their points system is!
I booked the flight to HKG at the weekend online, but alarm bells were ringing this morning when I found out that my expensive flight to LAX had been classed as G and that I wasn't getting any miles on United for the trip!!!
So I checked with ANZ about the HKG flight and I was told that I wouldn't be getting any for the return journey to Heathrow either! :mad:
So I had to agree to pay for an 'upgrade' to T class, £23 each, plus a £20 service fee - EACH! Which has really pizzed me off!
That result will probably mean I won't now be able to get to Gold this year as taking 11k miles out of the programme, I'm going to find it hard to get 5 HKG flights in before the year end.
As Silver is worth jack, I'll probably switch to Virgin next year instead as they fly direct to HKG, LA and IAD which are my 3 main destinations anyway... no wonder ANZ are being forced into cutting services!

As Silver is worth jack, I'll probably switch to Virgin next year instead as they fly direct to HKG, LA and IAD which are my 3 main destinations anyway... no wonder ANZ are being forced into cutting services!

keep an eye on CO when they switch to *A in a couple months. currently they earn on Virgin. if they keep that deal then it might be very interesting to collect on them.

otherwise if you're having trouble making status interesting *A airlines to look at are Air Canada Aeroplan (35k miles for gold), BMI, or Asiana (40k over 2 years for gold). AC and BMI have better rewards though.

keep an eye on CO when they switch to *A in a couple months. currently they earn on Virgin. if they keep that deal then it might be very interesting to collect on them.

What does that add? You already can earn on VS on some *A FFPs, including NZ, BD & SQ.

Just to add to the previous answer:

1. No equivalent to the AA challenge.
2. Gold status on Air NZ for non-NZ based passengers is all but impossible to earn unless you purchase at least two or three long-haul Business Class fares or at least four or five long-haul Premium Economy return fares.

You would have to buy eight Economy return fares from LHR to HKG to reach Gold, or nine from LHR to LAX!

Alternatively, three to four Star Alliance Round The World economy fares can be enough, or as few as three if you purchase several Premium Economy upsells on Air NZ.

If you're a Business Class passenger it's worthwhile. If you're not, stick to BMI.

Apologies for lack of text in message above.

What I was going to say to DCF was that two AKL-LHR roundtrips are about 45,000 miles which will get you pretty close to Gold on SQ or TG.

Just a quick update: decided to stick with UA, am regularly flying to HKG, twice now, and back again to Guangzhou next month, so am going to be one flight off Gold after that. Should be able to get one more to GZ before the end of the year so that takes care of it. Can't say that it's a happy ending cos I'm still down the 11,400 miles on the LAX trip though. :-/

Anyone been on Air China? Any good? Food awful? Thinking of using them next...

Anyone been on Air China? Any good? Food awful? Thinking of using them next...
Will let you know after tonight's SIN-PEK.

Will let you know after tonight's SIN-PEK.
I was op-up'd last night on CA970 to business. If this is their business class, then I'd hate to see their economy class.

The seat was worse than NZ PE; and the food and service was worse than NZ Y. Mainscreen entertainment only.

This was on a 767-300ER, 3 class. I'll let you know after Sunday on the return.