Successful/unsuccessful oneup bids
Dec 24, 2016, 5:12 pm
#887
Join Date: Oct 2016
Programs: CX, NZ, EK, SQ
Posts: 8
Congrats "ec47". Another successful PE to Business "OneUp". Enjoy.
And thanks for your thoughts "Kamadan". Absolutely, not even "anecdotal" I'd suggest, more like statistical fact. You simply CANNOT trust seatmaps (as in "seat select" (as opposed to SeatGuru et al.)) to reflect the true state of any particular flight's seat loading or percentage loading between cabins.
Fortunately however, airlines are heavily dependant on statistics. Just as you can toss a coin five times and not be particular astounded if it comes down as five consecutive heads, it would be statistically astounding if you tossed the same coin five thousand times and achieved five thousand heads.
So it is with airlines. If they flog up and down a particular long haul route 365 days of the year for enough years they gather some fairly powerful numbers. An airline that didn't use these numbers to fine tune the number of seats offered in the various cabin classes to achieve the highest load factor possible would soon succumb to smarter competition.
So if the number of seats in the three cabins has been properly tuned and shows an unusual pattern (heavier or lighter visible occupancy than expected at any particular time prior to departure) it is statistically probable the pattern will be repeated in all three cabins. And yes, I do understand that booked but not selected seats will show as “empty”, but the “pattern” theory will remain viable as the ratio of “booked AND selected” to “booked BUT NOT selected” will similarly remain statistically similar and predictable from one cabin to the next and one flight to the next (more or less).
I've booked this route (AKL-HKG, and on into Europe on the majority of occasions) reasonably often over the last ten years or so and have often been surprised at the high number of seats (generally Business, once previously PE, also successfully upgraded) I see in “seat select” as “selected” six months out. This current late decision for a purely recreational Christmas break in Hong Kong (booked PE due ridiculously high Business fare and PE on "Deal") showed an unusual pattern indicating a probable light load, hence low (successful) upgrade bid. Considering the continual, unsatisfied, "what should I bid" queries on this (mainly) and other sites, my "For what it's worth" heading was intended as exactly that. If I hear any better suggestion/s I'll pass them on.
And thanks "sbiddle" for your confirmation that "the vast majority of OneUp bids are rejected". I've never had the same access to Air NZ's business records but I guess that even without access to "inside" information it's pretty simple to deduce that if you can only bid for one class "up" and you have (Air NZ 772) a possible 246 Economy pax bidding for a possible 40 PE seats, that five out of six ("the vast majority") will indeed miss out.
However, with regard to the successful bid I commented on, in PE you have only 40 potential bidders for 26 potential Business seats. And, of course, while there is some small financial incentive for Air NZ to move an Economy seat bidder to PE, they have plenty of incentive to move PE up to Business and free up the PE seat for an Economy bidder, thereby gaining maybe three times (?) the revenue of a (likely) lower Economy to PE “OneUp” upgrade offer.
As for auction vs Air Miles/Air Points/Air Dollars. Loyalty schemes cost "lots" to administer. The cost of administration is supplied by ... ME ... and ... YOU. Based on a recent Emirates leg (Business) AKL-CDG, around $4.00 to $5.00 per flying hour. We (wife and self) ended up “burning” Emirates Skywards credits in their gift store. Around $99.00 credit each for about 23 hours flying time … I’d rather have a slightly cheaper fare and the money in my back pocket. PS: just viewed today's forthcoming AKL-HKG "loyalty credits". $100 for 11 hours flying (that's costing me $9.00/hr) and 108 status points (whoop-de-doo).
Yes, I fully understand that if you’ve diligently beavered away accumulating Air NZ loyalty credits to achieve your “Elite” status that it must be more than a little annoying to see an auction process eroding upgrade availability. But our Air NZ loyalty credits will probably end up expiring as we generally prefer to use a different carrier for most of our long haul ventures, mainly because AirNZ doesn’t go to many destinations in its own right and we don’t like to be tied to their Star Alliance code share offerings. And, while their “red eye” to HKG is great for eliminating one night of expensive Hong Kong hotel or apartment cost (and is the reason we use this flight, but usually on a Cathay ticket if going beyond HKG), we don’t particularly like their now ageing, admittedly comfortable, but poorly conceived, “get dozy, get up, fold down your setback, drag out your mattress, pillow(s), blanket, arrange same, climb into your 22” wide “bed” (you’ll never confuse it with your “home” bed), from the foot end (just like you do at home?), now fully awake again, and settle down for the niggly light turbulence that will start in about five minutes and last until descent starts”. Give us Cathay’s or Emirates’ “motor fully up, motor fully down” seats any day of the week (if schedule suits).
So, yes, I’d love to see loyalty schemes binned and, no, I don’t imagine they will be any time soon. Next time your “Elite” status is renewed and you settle down for an enjoyable Air NZ loyalty upgrade long haul, perhaps you could spare a few seconds to silently thank those who don’t use their “rats and mice” loyalty accumulations, thereby subsidising those who dote on them.
And apologies to all for straying from my original reason for posting which was to suggest, in the absence of any better offerings, that if the cabin you have booked (particularly PE, a little more difficult from Economy) looks to be lightly or heavily loaded close to the seven day “OneUp” cutoff, the cabin ahead of you should, statistically, reflect a similar load pattern. Use it as a hint to bid low or high as the case may be and let us all know if you find any better "system".
And thanks for your thoughts "Kamadan". Absolutely, not even "anecdotal" I'd suggest, more like statistical fact. You simply CANNOT trust seatmaps (as in "seat select" (as opposed to SeatGuru et al.)) to reflect the true state of any particular flight's seat loading or percentage loading between cabins.
Fortunately however, airlines are heavily dependant on statistics. Just as you can toss a coin five times and not be particular astounded if it comes down as five consecutive heads, it would be statistically astounding if you tossed the same coin five thousand times and achieved five thousand heads.
So it is with airlines. If they flog up and down a particular long haul route 365 days of the year for enough years they gather some fairly powerful numbers. An airline that didn't use these numbers to fine tune the number of seats offered in the various cabin classes to achieve the highest load factor possible would soon succumb to smarter competition.
So if the number of seats in the three cabins has been properly tuned and shows an unusual pattern (heavier or lighter visible occupancy than expected at any particular time prior to departure) it is statistically probable the pattern will be repeated in all three cabins. And yes, I do understand that booked but not selected seats will show as “empty”, but the “pattern” theory will remain viable as the ratio of “booked AND selected” to “booked BUT NOT selected” will similarly remain statistically similar and predictable from one cabin to the next and one flight to the next (more or less).
I've booked this route (AKL-HKG, and on into Europe on the majority of occasions) reasonably often over the last ten years or so and have often been surprised at the high number of seats (generally Business, once previously PE, also successfully upgraded) I see in “seat select” as “selected” six months out. This current late decision for a purely recreational Christmas break in Hong Kong (booked PE due ridiculously high Business fare and PE on "Deal") showed an unusual pattern indicating a probable light load, hence low (successful) upgrade bid. Considering the continual, unsatisfied, "what should I bid" queries on this (mainly) and other sites, my "For what it's worth" heading was intended as exactly that. If I hear any better suggestion/s I'll pass them on.
And thanks "sbiddle" for your confirmation that "the vast majority of OneUp bids are rejected". I've never had the same access to Air NZ's business records but I guess that even without access to "inside" information it's pretty simple to deduce that if you can only bid for one class "up" and you have (Air NZ 772) a possible 246 Economy pax bidding for a possible 40 PE seats, that five out of six ("the vast majority") will indeed miss out.
However, with regard to the successful bid I commented on, in PE you have only 40 potential bidders for 26 potential Business seats. And, of course, while there is some small financial incentive for Air NZ to move an Economy seat bidder to PE, they have plenty of incentive to move PE up to Business and free up the PE seat for an Economy bidder, thereby gaining maybe three times (?) the revenue of a (likely) lower Economy to PE “OneUp” upgrade offer.
As for auction vs Air Miles/Air Points/Air Dollars. Loyalty schemes cost "lots" to administer. The cost of administration is supplied by ... ME ... and ... YOU. Based on a recent Emirates leg (Business) AKL-CDG, around $4.00 to $5.00 per flying hour. We (wife and self) ended up “burning” Emirates Skywards credits in their gift store. Around $99.00 credit each for about 23 hours flying time … I’d rather have a slightly cheaper fare and the money in my back pocket. PS: just viewed today's forthcoming AKL-HKG "loyalty credits". $100 for 11 hours flying (that's costing me $9.00/hr) and 108 status points (whoop-de-doo).
Yes, I fully understand that if you’ve diligently beavered away accumulating Air NZ loyalty credits to achieve your “Elite” status that it must be more than a little annoying to see an auction process eroding upgrade availability. But our Air NZ loyalty credits will probably end up expiring as we generally prefer to use a different carrier for most of our long haul ventures, mainly because AirNZ doesn’t go to many destinations in its own right and we don’t like to be tied to their Star Alliance code share offerings. And, while their “red eye” to HKG is great for eliminating one night of expensive Hong Kong hotel or apartment cost (and is the reason we use this flight, but usually on a Cathay ticket if going beyond HKG), we don’t particularly like their now ageing, admittedly comfortable, but poorly conceived, “get dozy, get up, fold down your setback, drag out your mattress, pillow(s), blanket, arrange same, climb into your 22” wide “bed” (you’ll never confuse it with your “home” bed), from the foot end (just like you do at home?), now fully awake again, and settle down for the niggly light turbulence that will start in about five minutes and last until descent starts”. Give us Cathay’s or Emirates’ “motor fully up, motor fully down” seats any day of the week (if schedule suits).
So, yes, I’d love to see loyalty schemes binned and, no, I don’t imagine they will be any time soon. Next time your “Elite” status is renewed and you settle down for an enjoyable Air NZ loyalty upgrade long haul, perhaps you could spare a few seconds to silently thank those who don’t use their “rats and mice” loyalty accumulations, thereby subsidising those who dote on them.
And apologies to all for straying from my original reason for posting which was to suggest, in the absence of any better offerings, that if the cabin you have booked (particularly PE, a little more difficult from Economy) looks to be lightly or heavily loaded close to the seven day “OneUp” cutoff, the cabin ahead of you should, statistically, reflect a similar load pattern. Use it as a hint to bid low or high as the case may be and let us all know if you find any better "system".
Dec 28, 2016, 6:43 pm
#889
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: SFO
Programs: UAL - Premier, SPG - Plat
Posts: 41
Just come back from a 2.5 weeks vacation. Booked 2 economy ticket for USD$1350 each to visit 4 cities : MEL, SYD, WEL, AKL (SFO-MEL, SYD-WEL-AKL-SFO). we bought a jetstar ticket to connect us between MEL & SYD
Use One-up to upgrade some of the legs
12/05/16
NZ7 SFO-AKL (Boeing 777-300)
Y-PE
Bid USD$485 per seat(no status)
Received an email 10 days out that they are still considering the bid, accepted 8 hour out
"One interesting note: the PE cabin has 2 empty seat (right behind us). i'm not sure if it's because they can't sell all of the PE seat (via one-up) or if the people who booked it didn't show up"
12/07/16
NZ123 AKL-MEL
Y-PE (777-300)
Bid USD$75 per seat(no status)
Accepted 4 days out (even before our NZ7 flight!)
12/23/16
NZ8 AKL-SFO
Y-PE (777-300)
Bid Price USD$485 per seat (no status)
Accepted 8 hours prior to departure
This is our FIRST experience with ANZ and we definitely very please with the upgrade. It's too bad that i heard they are doing away with the Spaceseat because they are not making a lot of money from it. We are glad that we get to test it before it's discontinued.
Good luck to others on their one-up bid.
Use One-up to upgrade some of the legs
12/05/16
NZ7 SFO-AKL (Boeing 777-300)
Y-PE
Bid USD$485 per seat(no status)
Received an email 10 days out that they are still considering the bid, accepted 8 hour out
"One interesting note: the PE cabin has 2 empty seat (right behind us). i'm not sure if it's because they can't sell all of the PE seat (via one-up) or if the people who booked it didn't show up"
12/07/16
NZ123 AKL-MEL
Y-PE (777-300)
Bid USD$75 per seat(no status)
Accepted 4 days out (even before our NZ7 flight!)
12/23/16
NZ8 AKL-SFO
Y-PE (777-300)
Bid Price USD$485 per seat (no status)
Accepted 8 hours prior to departure
This is our FIRST experience with ANZ and we definitely very please with the upgrade. It's too bad that i heard they are doing away with the Spaceseat because they are not making a lot of money from it. We are glad that we get to test it before it's discontinued.
Good luck to others on their one-up bid.
Last edited by ryukus; Dec 28, 2016 at 6:53 pm
Dec 29, 2016, 1:21 am
#892
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 778
I've been lurking this thread for a while now and I'll finally get to use a OneUp upgrade for the first time when I fly to HNL early next year.
At a glance, the flight I am taking there has no business class seats available for purchase (I'm not talking seat select, I'm meaning if you offer NZ $ = they don't have any for sale). So I will be looking at upgrading to PE, possibly both ways. I have two questions:
1) From what we know, does NZ take into account the fare you paid when considering the offer? Reason being was I got an S class fare and managed to pay $699 return from CHC which I consider to be a very low price.
2) The lowest offer I can make is $200, with $630 being considered average. What would be recommend for this route?
Thanks in advance
At a glance, the flight I am taking there has no business class seats available for purchase (I'm not talking seat select, I'm meaning if you offer NZ $ = they don't have any for sale). So I will be looking at upgrading to PE, possibly both ways. I have two questions:
1) From what we know, does NZ take into account the fare you paid when considering the offer? Reason being was I got an S class fare and managed to pay $699 return from CHC which I consider to be a very low price.
2) The lowest offer I can make is $200, with $630 being considered average. What would be recommend for this route?
Thanks in advance
Dec 29, 2016, 4:34 pm
#893
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: SFO
Programs: UAL - Premier, SPG - Plat
Posts: 41
codyc1515
i assumed you bought CHC-HNL-CHC at economy (Y). the one-up feature only allow you to upgrade the seat 1 level up. So, the most you can upgrade is to PE
secondly, be aware that all flight to HNL is done via Boeing 787-900 (789)
https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Ai...eing_787-9.php
if you go to seatguru, you can see that the seat configuration suggest that the PE is the new PE for ANZ and not the spaceseat. just thought you should know this before you make your bid
as for your most important question -- does ANZ takes into consideration your original fare class when they are considering your offer. i DONT KNOW the answer but i would argue that they WILL NOT take that into consideration. it should be treated as a new/separate transaction. see example below:
passenger A paid $500 for 1 economy seat & bid $500 for an upgrade
passenger B paid $900 for 1 economy seat & bid $300 for an upgrade.
if i were ANZ, i will approve passenger A bid since both the $500 (from A) and $900 (from B) is realized revenue and they are stood to make $200 more if they approve the $500 bid from A
btw - when i bid USD$485 for PE, the dial is showing average (it's literally the minimum that i need to bid at average)
just my 2 cents.
good luck and most importantly -- have fun!
i assumed you bought CHC-HNL-CHC at economy (Y). the one-up feature only allow you to upgrade the seat 1 level up. So, the most you can upgrade is to PE
secondly, be aware that all flight to HNL is done via Boeing 787-900 (789)
https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Ai...eing_787-9.php
if you go to seatguru, you can see that the seat configuration suggest that the PE is the new PE for ANZ and not the spaceseat. just thought you should know this before you make your bid
as for your most important question -- does ANZ takes into consideration your original fare class when they are considering your offer. i DONT KNOW the answer but i would argue that they WILL NOT take that into consideration. it should be treated as a new/separate transaction. see example below:
passenger A paid $500 for 1 economy seat & bid $500 for an upgrade
passenger B paid $900 for 1 economy seat & bid $300 for an upgrade.
if i were ANZ, i will approve passenger A bid since both the $500 (from A) and $900 (from B) is realized revenue and they are stood to make $200 more if they approve the $500 bid from A
btw - when i bid USD$485 for PE, the dial is showing average (it's literally the minimum that i need to bid at average)
just my 2 cents.
good luck and most importantly -- have fun!
Dec 29, 2016, 4:38 pm
#894
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: New Zealand (most of the time)
Programs: Air NZ Elite *G, Honors Gold, IHG Platinum Elite
Posts: 6,122
Based on a discussion with a few people I'd pick the chances of a One Up clearing are probably non existent. Being a leisure route there are lots of RU's lodged and PE cabin is normally full.
Dec 31, 2016, 11:00 pm
#895
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 778
Yeah. I was wondering if it was possible to find a NZ*E to add me to their gifting register and then gift me an Elite APD upgrade. Obviously I would pay them. Not sure if this is possible however and I'd feel pretty rude asking someone, even though I'd be the one paying.
Jan 5, 2017, 4:26 am
#896
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 1
OneUp - Pounds v NZD
Hey team,
I am flying from London to New Zealand in a couple of weeks and I'm keen to make a OneUp bid. Currently my bid options are displaying in pounds sterling rather than New Zealand dollars. Does anyone know if this puts me at a disadvantage (i.e. is a £400 pound bid worth more than a $400 bid)?
More generally, if anyone has any suggestions for what would be a good bid that would be helpful. I am flying through LA and reasonably relaxed as to whether I get the upgrade or not.
Thanks heaps!
Nick
I am flying from London to New Zealand in a couple of weeks and I'm keen to make a OneUp bid. Currently my bid options are displaying in pounds sterling rather than New Zealand dollars. Does anyone know if this puts me at a disadvantage (i.e. is a £400 pound bid worth more than a $400 bid)?
More generally, if anyone has any suggestions for what would be a good bid that would be helpful. I am flying through LA and reasonably relaxed as to whether I get the upgrade or not.
Thanks heaps!
Nick
Jan 6, 2017, 1:34 pm
#898
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: New Zealand (most of the time)
Programs: Air NZ Elite *G, Honors Gold, IHG Platinum Elite
Posts: 6,122
Just posting this here on behalf of somebody:
NZ 119, 9 Jan 2017
AKL - SYD
Seat + Bag -> Premium Economy
Bid $105, very weak bid [no NZ status, *A Gold from SAS]
Accepted on 5 Jan 2017
NZ 119, 9 Jan 2017
AKL - SYD
Seat + Bag -> Premium Economy
Bid $105, very weak bid [no NZ status, *A Gold from SAS]
Accepted on 5 Jan 2017
Jan 13, 2017, 7:41 am
#900
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Isle of Anglesey
Programs: DL Silver, NZ, VS, HH, IHG Gold, Marriott, Hertz 5*
Posts: 217
09 Jan 2017 NZ 2 Los Angeles (LAX) London (LHR) £275 GBP per passenger (2)
Economy to PE
Jade status. Debbie's Silver lapsed a few months ago.
Declined 8 hours out.
First time I've had a one-up go down to the wire like that.
Economy to PE
Jade status. Debbie's Silver lapsed a few months ago.
Declined 8 hours out.
First time I've had a one-up go down to the wire like that.