Originally Posted by
nzatk
I think Simon has done an excellent job for Airpoints and Gold Elites.
1. Banking Gold Elite Years
2. Able to top up Airpoints on a 1:1 basis for flight purchases allows part payment of airfares.
3. Ability to upgrade and buy the air dollars instead of waiting to earn them
4. Earning options on both airline and credit cards for both status and ADP
Top 4 things and as a GE me greatly
I think we need to realise that we can not have all the bells and whistles of the past the airline can not afford it.
AK
I think I can only count banking GE years as positive. All the rest of your points simply do not encourage flying. Many years ago NZ made a choice to open all fares available to redeem which in my opinion is catastrophic. It not only made rewards so expensive it also forced NZ themselves to constantly lower earn rates in order to afford it.
They claim that the APD structure is more in line with fare paid rather than distance flown. I ask you to think about this. Over the past few years since Airpoints became APD, we have only seen fares go up, earn rates go down. So you are paying more and more to get less and less points. Fares going up means burn rates go up. So how is that in line with what they claimed?
If you look at other airlines, their rewards are discretionary so their members can redeem their free flights without spending ridiculous amount of miles. And the airlines are filling those seats which otherwise would have been left empty. Everyone is happy.
I don't mean to offend you but I think if you believe these are positive I am afraid you have been fooled.