I'm now home and happy in San Diego. Our Air New Zealand flight was quite good. My wife and I compared notes during and after the flight. Air New Zealand's business class accommodations where superior to those on Qantas. Economy was more of a wash but she felt there was a little more room on Air New Zealand and that the seats were more comfortable.

Two check-in tales. While checking in at the Premier area for Air New Zealand, I noticed that the person in front of me at the counter was Helen Clark. I guess we know what airline she prefers! After we received our boarding passes I went outside to the general counter to inquire about upgrading my seat (The Right Honorable Clark was taking quite a bit of time at the Premier desk). I chatted briefly with the service rep and he set about working up some numbers for me. We chatted some more about what had happened to us while he was working as well. He came back with an upgrade cost of about $3,000 and then made a comment about how badly things had gone for us the day before with Qantas. He had me wait while he checked for an open seat to upgrade me at no charge to business class. Unfortunately, the cabin was full so I was out of luck. However, it's quite a dramatic contrast to my (and many others) experiences with Qantas.

With regard to JetStar, I did indeed have a separate booking. At the time we made reservations they were not code sharing with Qantas and we could not book our reservations all the way through. That's why there were so many people in the same situation as us. Recently, they did start code sharing but we were unable to link our bookings (we tried weeks before the flight). Regardless, JetStar is wholly owned by Qantas and provides service for them from Christchurch to Auckland. Everyone knows this and everyone knew who was screwing them... Qantas. I can tell you they didn't make many friends with the two or three dozen passengers who were affected. I'm thrilled that the insurance was able to get us flights on Air New Zealand rather than rewarding Qantas for their poor customer service. As an extra added bonus, it looks like I'll be getting my miles back as well so Qantas will have to refund American for the unused segments.

Qantas has made it abundantly clear that they are not interested in helping their customers. What a great way to do business.