Originally Posted by
NZbutterfly
What stinks is it's on the partner reward chart. Not sure what flights they're alluding to in that particular reward as the flight numbers change depending on the region your flying to so from Oz/NZ they'll have one number but they change the flight number from Asia/Americas for the sector onwards to the EU so how can that particular reward flight exist?
I also dislike the fine print for travel on Virgin Atlantic stating for PE use the Business APD award and for J use the First class award.
There are some strange partner routings like EU-HNL/PPT. Can't think of any partners that fly that route.
South America - Australia. Only QF/LA & NZ so no partners.
Central America - Australia? Who flies that? That's like offering Antarctica as a destination and saying it's 200APD but NO ONE flies there!
I think I read something about these values being per sector but they look really painful when you combine them.
There look to be some awards that are usable with decent value but that chart needs an overhaul.
EDIT: SQ's SIN-FRA-JFK (5th freedom?) looks to be SQ26 the whole way as does another 5th freedom route. Still can't think of any flights that work for NZ/Oz-EU that would be 5th freedom?
I doubt NZ spends much attention to maintain this, as it doesn't make it easy to redeem these awards. VS is, of course, a rip off in APD terms. VS thinks Upper Class is like First Class, which is ridiculous. It's a good business class, but given it uses the same seats NZ has and its main special feature is the LHR Clubhouse, it's hardly worth redeeming on VS with APD.
Having said that, the APD business class redemption rate Europe-Asia is pretty good value as is first if you can get it, even acknowledging that SQ is unavailable because of its own rules on the aircraft it blocks for redemptions. Grabbed FRA-NRT a few years ago in LH first, which was a complete delight.