Originally Posted by
LyingFlat
I don't see how... Frank and to the point, yes. But "aggressive", hmmm...
It's quite clear that the OP is trying to be cheap and not have pay an extra $25 for a Seat+Bag ticket. If that $25 extra might add too much cost to their trip, then maybe they shouldn't be eligible to enter NZ anyway as they wouldn't have sufficient funds to support themselves whilst here...
After over a decade in the industry, seeing people search for ways to save inconsequential sums deeply frustrates me.
I recently chartered a Global 7500 for a client which cost USD300K. The number of tweaks the client made to bring the cost down from about USD305K to USD300K was mind-blowing. At the other end of the market, plenty of NZers will book an itinerary to Europe that has an extra 15 or 20 hours of travel time just to save $30 or $40.
It doesn't matter if the person is used to flying on NZ or not - I have yet to see an airline consider separate tickets to be a "connection". In fact, airlines often go out of their way to stress that separate tickets are not "connected" to one another....
I think we should take it easy. You could argue that people coming on Flyertalk is to be cheap. I have once myself got an NZ agent at LAX to thru check my bags onto SYD on a separate Seat Only ticket and got away with it. Do I consider myself cheap? Maybe, but I don't see anything wrong with it as long as you are prepared to cop the excess baggage fee should it not work out. And I was.
In OP's case, I wouldn't do it because during a domestic "connection", you will be asked to re-check in your bag and that's potentially where you could be charged.