<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Horizons:
I am planning a trip in 18 days from Auckland to Dunedin and back. The dead lowest fare on the AirNZ.com website is NZ$908.00.
When I told friends in Auckland about this, they went to the AirNZ.co.nz website and found a return fare of NZ$375 -- but only for New Zealand residents. What is this all about? Is there a special fare for white people, too? This wouldn't bother me so much if AirNZ chose to stand alone in this world. But they are part of the Star Alliance, and this type of discriminatory treatment should be forbidden among Alliance members.
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Has anyone else, particularly a Star Gold member, been in this predicament with AirNZ, and how did you handle it? What are others' thoughts?
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Without much checking I assume what you came across is a "SITI-only" fare. This is a pretty common fare-restriction in many parts of the world that basically means that this fare must be sold and the ticket must be issued inside the departing country ("Sold Inside/Ticketed Inside" departing country).
I've seen this many times before, e.g. SKs last-minute specials out of AMS or BRU carry that restriction as well, making it a little harder for residents of other countries than NL or B to purchase these fares. Also, many of LH's cheap fares out of Germany carry this restriction (the W-class ones mostly).
So I guess the "residents of NZ" only clause was ment regarding the point of sale/ticketing only, and the answer of the ticketing-agent suggesting your friend purchase the ticket on your behalf supports that IMHO. So it's not about your citizenship, but about the point of sale of the ticket.
Greetings - Dirk