Originally Posted by
oreocookies
But, like I said, I do not see anyway to upgrade my seat at all on the website - all the other classes of seats are X'ed out, and I can pay $50 to sit somewhere else in economy, which they call a "preferred seat," which I don't understand. Right now I have an aisle seat, which I guess is as good as it'll get. I'll just get up and walk around a lot, and buy some compression socks, I guess.
Paying to upgrade your seat = changing the ticket. You wouldn't be able to select a premium economy seat until you went back to your travel agent and paid them to change the ticket (at this point it'd be over US$2000 one way).
Originally Posted by
oreocookies
Sorry, where are you seeing this? I do not see any upgrades for sale. I would pay for a Premium Economy upgrade if I could get an aisle seat, but I do not see any way to buy one. When I try to call Air NZ, I sit on hold for hours and no one answers...
You've been booked through a work travel agent so it's game over. Air New Zealand won't even talk to you about changes/upgrades because you've booked through a travel agent so calling them and waiting on the phone is just wasting your time and theirs.
Now there are a few if's to the following however if your ticket is issued on an Air New Zealand ticket number meaning it starts with 086 and the flight number on your ticket starts with NZ then another option would be to purchase a Koru membership for ~US$582. This is Air New Zealand's version of the a Delta Skyclub or United Club membership.
The membership lasts one year and comes with some perks that would really help your trip
- Lounge access (Air New Zealand lounge in Auckland and Lufthansa lounge in JFK)
- Priority check-in and boarding at Air NZ counters
and the biggest perk for you would be "Frequent Flyer seating", I've logged in looking at NZ1 on the 15th of July and see the following options:
36C would be a really good one with almost unlimited legroom to stretch out (noting it sticks in to the aisle) but otherwise some of the "Frequent flyer" seats on the 787's have an extra 2 inches of legroom (row 37 and 38) so these would be good picks.