Thanks a bunch Trumpkin & KiwiHighFlyer.

Clarified two important queries I had regarding changing OneUp bids, and the number of seats available/ fare class nuances.

I think I have convinced the better half to modify the bid (she was suckered by the AirNZ low/ average/ high rating at first go)...will prob halve to around 400-500APD, and yes, will check with 7 days out, to see if things are getting more packed in PE so as to modify again, if required.

Will advise on whether or not it worked ( :

I feel the Air New Zealand OneUp program is just a big money making scheme for Air NZ which does not benefit Airpoints members.

Flight end of September 2012
AKL- LA, Economy to Premium Economy, bid NZ$860 for 2 seats, rejected.
LA - LHR Premium Economy to Business Premier, bid $460 for 2 seats, rejected.

I then called AirNZ direct and found out that the AKL to LA flight was indeed sold out in Econ and Premium Econ.

I then questioned the LA - LHR leg.
And told that there were a 'number' of seats available in Business on my LA- LHR leg?
I questioned why we had then not been allocated those seats, to which I was told, 'I'm unable to answer that question, please direct your question to [email protected].

Uhm?

It's early days in the OneUp programme for sure.
But my initial thought is it's another 'lose lose' for us and a 'gain gain' for AirNZ.

Bring on the competition.

Can feel your frustration on not getting the upgrade to BP for sure...but 230APD each to go from PE to BP??

I'd say you got outbid....or if there were seats still available...they obviously didn't appreciate your cheekyness! BTW, the old Standby Upgrade for this was 480APD.

P.S if you really must go from AKL-LAX, there is no competition. We're stuffed on this one.

It's worth noting that the One Up "bid strength indicator" appears to show the same rating regardless of the currency it is denominated in.

For example, I can only bid in £ sterling (or APD$ converted into £ sterling), but I could never bid for the equivalent of APD$460 for two people to upgrade LAX-LHR PE-BP because that would be £115 pp which is below the threshold for making a bid.

The scale doesn't recalculate very weak to strong according to currency conversion, just the nominal amounts.

So a bid of £300 to upgrade LAX-LHR in BP is "weak" but if it had been APD$600 for a NZ based member it would be "good".

What's the effect of that? Assuming Air NZ prefers the maximum value (and so will value £300 over APD$300, it means NZ based Airpoints members are at a disadvantage compared to foreign based travellers who, because of their stronger currencies (and frankly higher purchasing power parity to income) are able to outbid them.

So it is plausible that bids in APD from NZers can be outbid by US$, £ and Euro based bids in cash, because the same nominal amount (worth more in foreign currencies) gets the same rating.

I think it's more likely it is just a bug in the software which isn't taking account of the currency when determining the bid strength.

When the bids are processed I strongly expect them to take note of the currency and not just the amount.

That's precisely it's intention.

+ 1
I too think the bid of $230 each was cheeky, however why they accept it is a mystery as it just wastes everyone time/hopes

Yes, it could be seen as a cheeky bid. However it is just like bidding $2 on a $1 reserve auction on Trade Me. You know you're unlikely to win with the $2 bid, but at the same time it is a valid bid and you might just have the winning bid.

By not specifying a reserve Air NZ run the risk of not having enough people bid over their reserve price. However if they specify a reserve price then it is likely to make people more likely to bid closer to this value and it will stop some people submitting very high bids.

yes agree too on your comments but the flight they bid on took off with empty seats in biz class, so Air NZ seem to be ignoring the lower bids??

'LA - LHR Premium Economy to Business Premier, bid $460 for 2 seats, rejected.'

I have to admit this offer from PE to BP was a test of the system.
I am actually really happy with my PE booking.

However, confirmation of the AirNZ greed or move to increase profits at the expense of loyal AP members (understandable as they run a business also!) is apparent here:

http://plusgrade.com/

'Want to see how Plusgrade can get as much revenue as possible out of every flight?'

Say no more.

As a newbie I really appreciate all your previous comments. Thanks.

Sorry that was actually NZ$280 pp not $230.
Still did not make any difference.

Just had a look at all Plusgrade's clients. It seems that other airlines run Plusgrade and their own FFP upgrades in parallel. I can see these other airlines have concerns of not upsetting their high value customers. No idea why NZ went to such an extreme.

Our family of four is currently booked Auckland to LAX in PE departing in approx 3 weeks. Flight is only half full at this stage with full availability in BP.

I am going to make a one up bid for BP. Have absolutely no idea what to bid and was delighted when I stumbled across this forum. We have no status. Husband is koru but that's all. Do you think that a bid of $1250pp would be high enough?

I'm Gold with NZ and my bid of $900 from PE to BP got declined 3 days out from departure on a lightly loaded PVG-AKL flight a couple of weeks ago. The flight was showing C4 D4 Z4 J2. I was shocked and called the premium team, they were apologetic and spoke to the revenue team while I was on hold, but came back with the news that they didn't want to confirm any OneUp bids for U to C upgrades on that flight because they wanted to keep the C seats for revenue purposes :rolleyes:

When asked what they'd do with the seats if they didn't sell (and mostly likely none of them did), they said they would be used as recognition upgrades (10 on the waitlist). I have had no success with OneUp bids on the long haul routes yet, even with *G status about to go to *GE. Pretty annoyed as all my bids have been very high and I actually needed the upgrades over the last few trips due to an injured neck. From numerous phone calls to the premium team, they could confirm though recognition upgrades are looked at and considered before OneUp's are assessed 7 days out, and they do still have priority "to an extent" over the OneUp's fortunately/unfortunately ;).

The honest answer is nobody knows, but my only observation is that the old (and still the valid) fixed standby upgrade rate from PE to BP on this route is APD$480.

Assuming you are bidding $1250 for all four of you, that comes to $313.50 a head. If Air NZ was seeking to use OneUp to increase revenues, it wouldn't want to allow such a relatively cheap upgrade. On top of that, such a bid would definitely rank lower than recognition upgrades presented by GE, G and S members.

My bet is that your chances are very low as NZ will either upgrade all four at once, or none of you. A group of four is going to be hard to accommodate if, after allocating recognition upgrades and higher bids, there are less than four seats available.

Since it is all very new and news about successful and unsuccessful bids is patchy, I wouldn't guess as to what would work, but if I was bidding I would start at the GE standby bid price and work upwards.

Kiwihighflyer's post indicates that if Air NZ thinks it might sell the seats, your chances are slim, and are behind recognition upgrades that may be allocated at check in. Good luck nevertheless!