Gasfoodlodging

I'd say for 1250APD per person, you'd be doing pretty well.

As LibertyUK has pointed out, the old standby fare for this upgrade was 480APD, so AIRNZ would be pretty happy if you bid 1250 I suspect.

Of course, with 4 pax looking for an upgrade, it might be tougher, especially if Kiwihighflyer's thinking is correct in that those seeking recognition upgrades (those flyers with status) are placed first in the queue.

Very interesting to see how you get on...this may be a case when a high bid (essentially 6000APD!) gets put before recognition upgrades (as many others on this forum have speculated occurs anyway).

Best of luck!

P.S cross posting is where you've posted the same question on two threads ( :

WLGNZ

I have had it confirmed that recognition upgrades do clear before oneup.
So after seats are sold, and recognition upgrades are cleared, there may be seats availiable for oneup.
The AKL-LAX route is pretty busy so I would not hold my breath for oneup upgrades.
But I do wish you good luck.

mmonster

+1 WLGNZ
although you say flight is half-full, chances are, they will be full or close to full closer to the date of departure. Although it might not be a fair comment, we cannot simply add the seats available from ZJCD classes to know exactly how many seats they have really sold. seat maps are not trust worthy either since there might be real bookings without a seat selection

I just do not really believe that with no competition AirNZ would only be 1/2 full on those routes, but all the best to your bid!

Janec

Easiest way and more true to see how many seats available is to do a dummy booking, anything up to 9 seats can be done, to see if it allows the seats/tickets, however you will not know how many recognition awards are in the system for upgrades first.

Still nice to know NZ appear to be putting the recognitions through first^
Thanks Air NZ

Dilmah

At the moment there is full availability in BP and PE is half full. With the same seating capability in both cabins, even if all pax in PE used recognition upgrades or oneup bids I would hope with bids of over 1K each we would be in with a chance. Flight is on the last weekend of school holidays and I understand AirNZ has put on additional flight that day as lots of families returning to NZ from LAX. We are however on outbound flight. Anyway fingers crossed and will post an update once I hear.

Dilmah

In the end I made a bid of 1400 each, so 5600 in total. If that's not enough for an upgrade where 3 weeks out BP still has full capacity then I won't ever bother with OneUp again.

Janec

I think that 3 weeks out a lot can happen, its a busy route and popular, also seats will be sold as a lot of business passengers can book late, hence lots of HV NZ customers that put in for recognition and oneups with weighting added to their bids, why not ring Air NZ and ask how much for buying business seats now? if there are so many seats available now as you say then the cheaper biz fares should still be available, at least then you know for sure

Gasfoodlodging

Glad your maths is better than mine!

Good luck, please let us know how you got on.

deaconknives

Perth - Auckland Sunday 30th Sept
Bid $320 - Successful!
PE to BP

libertyuk

That flight now shows as C4 D0 Z0 J0 which indicates it's fairly full in front (vindicating the upgauge to a 777).

I presume this now includes the successful upgrades.

deaconknives

Yeah nice work to check - It would be good if someone made an post on how to use expert flyer to help choose the right amount to bid for the situation, I asked my travel agent once or twice.

I will post back after the flight with what the loading was.

mmonster

indeed a lot can happen in 3 week's time
from the info I have got Dilmah, you would be traveling on 12/13 Oct? NZ does have 3 services from AKL - LAX on those two days NZ2/4/6

maybe I am looking up the wrong thing, but the only flight that you can book 9 Business seat on 13 Oct is on NZ2, the others do not have more 9 seats. and looking at availability on EF

NZ4 C4 D3 Z1 J0 U7 E7 O7 A7 Y7 B7 M7 H7 Q7 V7 W7 T7 L7 S7 G7 X2 K6 P0
NZ6 C4 D1 Z1 J0 U7 E7 O7 A7 Y7 B7 M7 H7 Q7 V7 W7 T7 L7 S7 G7 X4 K7 P0
NZ2 C4 D4 Z4 J1 U7 E7 O7 A7 Y7 B7 M7 H7 Q7 V7 W7 T7 L7 S7 G7 X2 K7 P0

when you have J down to 0, or 1, it can mean that they are pretty busy or they do it deliberately to up-revenue

so unless you are on NZ2 and assuming that you are traveling on that date, there is not much chance to get all 4 seats. You keep on saying that the cabins are 1/2 full, they certainly don't look like it for me (hope I am looking at the wrong dates)

also, while your bid is quite high, AirNZ would still not give that to you if they can sell these at approx. $1k extra each on top of what you are bidding

Given the PE seat at $1869 one way on A fare (lowest of PE classes)
the fare difference that I get on NZ2 between PE and J for the first J seat is (selling at $3819) fare diff of $1950 ($700 more than what you are bidding) or
Z (selling at $4194), fare diff of $2325 ($1075 more than what you are bidding) or
D (selling at $4569), fare diff of $2700 ($1450 more than what you are bidding)
C (selling at $5569), fare diff of $3700 ($2450 more than what you are bidding)

I really hope that my calculation could be wrong above, but without status and with Recognition Upgrade going first, while what you are bidding is quite a lot per pax, the chances are not high I am afraid...

The concept for OneUp is to max. revenue or else people would have booked in the higher fares to start off with, so maybe it is good just to go easy and relax and maybe put in a little bit more next time!

but all said, Good luck! =)

deconz

You can't add C, D, Z & J together as the availability above shows how many of each booking class the airline is offering and often overlaps. Therefore it is possible if someone books 1 x J on NZ2 (or 1 of anything higher) the availability could change to ...

NZ2 C3 D3 Z3 J0 ...

indicating they had only 4 business seats left, of which 1 was able to be booked as J class.

BTW, NZ only ever shows a maximum of 4 seats in business class. However, there could be any number higher than this actually available on a particular flight.

mmonster

Thanks deconz I think you are preaching to the converted here =p
I think you are quoting what I ve said few posts back =) you are quoting me so I just want to have this cleared =p

It is just me lying out how many seats airnz are willing to sell at each fare with regards to the oneup process and in general, I do not think that AKL to LAX would only be half full in J

It was also true what Janec said about the booking engine

Cheers


Edit: too early in the morning, I guess I see where you are coming from there... when I say "all 4 seats" it is what Dilmah is bidding on and not the taking literally C4, D4, Z4 etc. =)

mmonster

Edit: too early in the morning, I guess I see where you are coming from there... when I say "all 4 seats" it is what Dilmah is bidding on and not the taking literally C4, D4, Z4 etc.