Originally Posted by
Aerosett
Not being able to earn partner mileage on low longhaul fares, whilst being able to do so in AP favours AP members. Yet when it comes to redeeming, AP members are disadvantaged compared to other airlines' members, with extremely high burn levels for longhaul on NZ, especially in premium cabins and even higher levels for other carriers.
Broadly I agree that AirPoints is a disappointing FFP when it comes to earn/burn and using it for actual reward tickets. I only use Airbucks for upgrade awards on long haul flights because that's where the only value is for me - I was actually thinking about this the other day that I often credit other airline sectors to NZ (usually shorthaul in Asia), so NZ gets revenue from that. Then I redeem the Airbucks on NZ for upgrade awards which is something that has minimal actual cost to NZ over and above the paid seat that I already had, and it gets a liability off their books. Very profitible and very cunning!
However, I think this is because Air NZ has successfully brainwashed the NZ population or because the NZ population is, on average, stupid. Most of my friends/family/whatever love the fact that with Air NZ they can use their small amount of airbucks to get their AKL-WLG $49 ticket for free, or that they can buy a saver $200 airfare to Sydney for free. None of them think about using them for long haul and even surprisingly few think about using them for upgrades.
When I point out that the FFP is poor-to-impossible to use for long haul awards they tend to be surprised and say "you can do that?" "doesn't it take forever to get enough miles?" etc.
So in this regard, NZ as a business has been pretty smart giving the mass market what they want - but the mass market is quite stupid.
Originally Posted by
Aerosett
[*]Status Bonus on earning - this would at least help alleviate the high burn levels in AP.[/LIST]
I would like to see this also.
Originally Posted by Xiaotung
2. Stop discriminating *A partner flights earning.
I would also like to see this, but it depends on mindset. Is it that NZ is discriminating, or is it that they are giving an "NZ-only" bonus? QF effectively does this with their status bonus - it isn't network wide, it's only on QF/BA/AA/JQ. Flying CX I did not get a Gold bonus...
Definitely I think codeshare flights should earn at the NZ rate at the least.
Originally Posted by Xiatong
5. Honour *A baggage policy by allowing free checked in baggage on Seat Only fares for *G members.
Also agree with this.