Originally Posted by char777

Thanks for this. I saw this before I got to the airport today, so this helped.

To update, when I got to the NZ counter at ZQN and the agent asked where I was going, I simply said SFO. She asked if I already had my UA boarding pass, and I did, so I gave it to her. She looked at it, typed on her computer for a few minutes, and concluded that she couldn’t check the bag all the way through. She said that she maybe could have done it had I not already checked in for the UA flight, but I couldn’t quite follow all of what she said. She also said, as expected, that she would have been able to do it if it were all booked as one ticket.

It didn’t seem like she was being punitive or anything — ANZ agents simply have limited or no access to UA’s computer system.

Arriving at AKL, claiming bags, walking to the international terminal, rechecking bags, and getting through security took about 45 minutes altogether in the priority lanes.