Kiwi_FF

So if you book a round trip ticket using a flexible ticket, when you check in for the first time the NZ IT system (and I use that word loosely because fiasco seems more appropriate) checks you in for both flights and you cannot then change the return flight unless you go through the call center, which if you have even tried to do it while driving a rental car at peak time you will understand is not an experience that is in anyway pleasant or sensible. You cant opt out of being checked in you have no choice.

Further if you book a return flight again flexible you cannot cancel the outbound sector other than by talking to the call center and then since you do you loose the ability to change the return flight in fact it drops off the app and web site and does not even appear to exist.

This is just mind numbingly stupid, unhelpful and whilst I may have little choice domestically is why when I travel internationally and have a choice NZ is not it!

So the bottom line is you have to make two single bookings and double your own administration or fly another carrier, hmmm let me think!

SFO_FT

I share your pain. The airlines that do an automatic check-in (UA ... I mean CO ... does the same thing) create an annoying situation.

Kiwi_FF

Its also part of the constant scamming and nickel and diming that has alienated me and gives me great pleasure to use other carriers to Europe.

Have you ever noticed if you change to a higher fare they charge you more but if you change to a lower fare there is no refund. SO if the fare is $80 lower which it often is (or more) they scam you the refund.

This complete lack of integrity is stupid and shortsighted but I guess we can all see that by the miniscule number of posts in this thread now that most people have voted with their feet.

Scamming anyone let alone your most frequent travellers is about as dumb as it gets! You would think someone in the NZ ivory tower would start thinking about why SQ can fill three 777's a day to Singapore plus Emirates, Cathay and all the other carriers eating NZ's lunch and stop behaving like plonkers and trying to stiff their customers all the time.

pbl22

Completely off-topic, I'm sorry, but the number of new threads in this forum and, indeed, the number of recent posts on this forum are amazingly low. Maybe we are all really sick of NZ and have gone elsewhere. Although I've been bingeing on GAS fares recently to see parts of this country I haven't visited since I was a kid.

serfty

Other airlines do similar as this, NZ are not on their lonesome.

As to the reference to "all really sick of NZ", Airpoints is no longer a FF incentive program.

There is little good any more to report about it so I guess people post not much.

zqsn5678

what's the point to bank GE years when the program is ...... (fill in the word(s))? in hoping someone will fix the airpoint program in the next year or so?

i really really do think NZ*E and even NZ*G deserve much much better treatments and privileges!

serfty

Any 'banked' years I have were earned before the changes to upgrades this year - GE standbys were the only real incentives remaining after a period of gradual reduction in benefits (especially for non NZ residents) and that took the cake - in several years I won't have any Airpoints based status

Rebound

It gets better, on November 9th they will start charging for seat selection of 'Priority Seats' - eg Space+ on Trans-Tasman - even for Gold Elites...

everywhere

You are not meant to know about that until tomorrow.

KiwiHighFlyer

You have got to be kidding me. What are they trying to make our national carrier into? Full scale LCC like JQ?

craver

Oh boy. When this comes out it's going to need its own 17-page thread

Rebound

I just sorry for hijacking the thread, but get ready for more madness!

pbl22

I've just noticed this morning that seat selection is no longer available on my Night Rider fares.

Kiwi_FF

I think the absence of threads clearly shows people have voted with their feet and lost interest.

You can screw people out of small change on the home market but each time I buy a business call trip to Europe on one of their competitors they loose a decades worth of nickel and diming.

Case in point this year two trips to Europe and two to Asia NOT on NZ, total expenditure about $35k or more. If they applied any common sense on pricing I would have gone with them but I guess they think they are better off selling a few seats at $14k and giving the rest away to upgrades than selling them all at $10k like the other guys do.

I'll bet no one from faulty towers has the balls to try and explain how you charge more for a changed seat on a"flexible" but don't refund when the new seat is less.

Frankly I feel no loyalty towards them whatsoever, a situation entirely created by their endless manipulation of the supposed "Loyalty program" (do they really think their customers are such muppets they don't notice!) and nickel and dining on just about everything else.

Last rant and last post for me I'm more than over them. Just one more job to do and thats bail from the Legends dinner invite I got for mid November. Cant stand the hypocrisy of it!

Sayonara folk.

serfty

To be fair, QF already do this for their international flights - charging elites for exit seats and, for those with no status, any economy seat.

Will that be for S2S TT or those travelling to/from the USA (in 'Economy") as well?