Originally Posted by Gasfoodlodging

Thanks MattNZ...I wish I had seen that prior to August this year...I was pulled aside as my boardbag was 27kg...so I had to take two spare boards out to leave them in the car. The check in staff obviously were unaware of the 32kg limit (and I had also assumed a limit of 23kg).

Having experienced very inconsistent approaches by AIRNZ check in staff over 15+ years of travelling with boards (surprisingly worse on domestic as opposed to long haul)...I was just happy not to be charged.

However, I was a little peeved as being Koru I was entitled to have another bag free of charge and there was NO way they would enter into discussion about 'it all evens out'. It's all about Health and Safety you see! As tempted as I was to just tape the two boards together to create another peice of baggage, I just couldn't be bothered...and I didn't really need them given the lack of pow

To be sure I'd still like confirmation from Alastair on any changes to this policy, and is it now 23kg or 32kg???

Originally Posted by Gasfoodlodging

Snowboards are surprisingly thin without bindings...And it shouldn't matter how many are in there if you're under weight and within dimensions...

Originally Posted by baldingeagle

My concern with a bike is that anything with total linear measurements over 62" is treated as oversized, and a typical cardboard packing box definitely exceeds 62". Or did I read it wrong and a bike is specifically exempted from the linear measure rule?

Originally Posted by zoovet

Originally Posted by AlastairR
Yes this has been removed. ...

In summary the charge used be 50% of the first bag rate which on the Tasman was $75 = $37.5, and on our Longhaul sectors was $115 = $57.5. Now that we have introduced prepaid baggage these rates have actually decreased to $55 on the Tasman and $95 internationally which you can now utilise for your sporting equipment or any other baggage you wish to carry.

I go from Auckland to North America every year just to ski, and take my skis with me. I booked and paid for an AKL - YVR flight months ago, when the baggage concession allowed my ski bag to travel for $57.50 each way. Now AirNZ has increased the cost to $95, thus increasing the price of my flight. How is this an "actual decrease" Alastair?

Originally Posted by DCF

Alastair,
Thanks for your replies. Very sporting, and much appreciated.

Since you are responsible for ancillary revenue, but are new to this site, can I please make my argument for why Plusgrade aka OneUp isn't just antagonistic to HVCs, but is rank bad business too?

Many of us who are Gold Elites have always taken our families on discretionary additional leisure travel, and have tried to judiciously use the upgrade system to convert Premium Economy tickets into Business Premier travel where possible.

Until you axed Confirmed Upgrades from U class I used to buy 4 U class tickets for my family to Los Angeles every year as an additional discretionary trip, which delivered around A$15,000 in fare revenue and around $4,000 in Confirmed Upgrade revenue, although that was denominated in Airpoints. Now you've removed the Confirmed Upgrade incentive and for the same money we can get 1.5 Business Class (purchased, not upgraded) trips to Hawaii on Hawaiian or Virgin or Jetstar, and we do. I ask my wife if she'd like to play lotto with OneUp and she cannot conceal her contempt - she ensures that we just buy a Business Class trip to Hawaii on the opposition.

Your airline's accounting and departmental model means that the revenue appears not to have shown, but in my family's case I am certain that you used to get considerably more revenue than Plusgrade now delivers, it's just that it wasn't accounted for in a way that clearly showed it.

Confirmed Upgrades: which genius axed them?
Confirmed Upgrades made a lot of business sense.

Firstly, you needed a high-yielding ticket to be allowed to use them: Y or B or M or H or U. Not, for example, the lower 3 of the 4 Premium Economy fare buckets.

Secondly, they delivered a lot of revenue - at least twice as much as Standby Upgrades per sector long-haul.

Thirdly, they could only be used towards cheaper fare buckets in the higher class cabin - Z or O class.

Because Airpoints were used this was hidden in the Airpoints results. But it had the potential to deliver more revenue than Plusgrade, left higher fare buckets available for sale, could prioritise HVCs to their satisfaction and you didn't have to pay another company to run it for you.

Really, you shouldn't have been dazzled by Plusgrade and you needn't have paid them a cent.

How Confirmed Upgrades could have generated more profits then OneUp
You should have just:

1) increased all Confirmed Upgrade costs by 50%
2) introduced Cash instead of Airpoints payment for Confirmed Upgrades
3) Discounted Confirmed Upgrade costs by 35% for GE pax, 20% for G pax and 10% for Silver pax.
4) At 7 days before departure, allow any passenger to pay for a Confirmed Upgrade into Z or O class provided they have a YBMHU class ticket.
5) At 2 days before departure (after G upgrades have cleared) allow any passenger with any ticket to apply for a Confirmed Upgrade into any unsold premium seats, but at 150% of the normal cost.

Job done! Forget Plusgrade, forget auctions, just do it yourself. A GE wanting a Trans-Pacific Confirmed Upgrade from Premium Economy into Business Premier could pay $800 provided they had bought a U ticket. A G could pay $1000, a S could pay $1100.

And then, at two days out, anyone could pay $1500 for an upgrade from Premium Economy into any unsold Business Premier seat.

It's simple, there's no external company to share the profits with. You get to sell as many C and D class seats as you would have anyway. And you provide elites a motivation to buy U or YMBH tickets in the first place.

You sell your cheapest premium inventory, but your HVCs get first bite of the cherry - the only bite from Days -355 to -7. And you get payment in cold, hard cash.

There is a reason why this matters. My family has 4 GEs (well, currently 2 GE and 2 G, but only because you are driving our business away so successfully).

We book these trips 355 days out, and where there used to be 4 R class seats to upgrade into, we took them. When there were only 2 R class, we took them AND we paid for dearer tickets (U class) for the other 2 passengers to buy Confirmed Upgrades into Z class.

When you axed Confirmed Upgrades you drove us to downgrade from U class Confirmed-Upgradable tickets into cheaper A or O class ones.

There are many, many of the reductions in Gold Elite and Gold perks and introduction of rigid ancillary charges which have driven HVCs away or driven us into cheaper fare buckets.

If you'd just talk to us here first, we could come up with suggestions which would satisfy us but deliver you the revenue you want.

Honestly, subcontracting out to Plusgrade instead of optimising Confirmed Upgrades is monumentally dumb business.

And Alastair, every single one of us on this board will tell you the same story about every recent change. We are the HVCs: we understand the system. You think we "game" the system to freeload something for nothing, but it's not that - we just weigh up the rewards for our loyalty that a range of airlines is willing to offer, and when we pick a program we make sure that we use the fruits of our loyalty. I live in Australia, and Air NZ's loss in my custom has seen me acquire elite status with Qantas and Virgin and Hawaiian Airlines.

We know when changes are neutral to us or negative to us. And for two years, the airline has been kicking us in the nuts, then has had the cheek to spin it to us as good news we should be grateful for.

It is the spin and the lies that really piss us off the most. For example, you take away seats in Premium Economy for us on a 777-300, then replace them with the same number of crappy super-narrow 10-abreast seats in Economy, and you tell us that we have the same number of premium seats.

We're not stupid. We fly on the airline all the time.

Originally Posted by libertyuk

Welcome Alastair, as others have said, regardless of any concerns, you are very welcome here to engage and discuss the many matters people have, although I am sure that you are not responsible for many of the Airpoints issues people have (e.g. I agree with DCF's model which makes a lot of sense, but I am guessing this is outside your remit).

My simple gripe is the loss of being able to pre-select what are now preferred/exit row seats on long haul flights as Gold or Gold Elite. That IS a loss of value, as no longer is it first come first served (with HVCs able to select such seats when booking), but it's money with HVCs getting what's left over.

As a Gold or Gold Elite (I have been both with NZ for 16 years barring one year at Silver) I've always just liked to select my seat at booking and forget it. Now you're effectively saying "pay some more" or else wait until 48 hours beforehand.

I have BA Silver status which enables me to select preferred seats when I book, for free, indeed my Star Gold status still gets me access to preferred seats on Lufthansa Group flights for free.

I don't object to monetising good seats in economy or even premium economy, but this is a drop in privileges. Particularly grating if one is Gold Elite. Could it not be staggered so GEs can select for free at time of booking?

It's also grating that you price differentiate all of the seat select according to country of booking. I understand yield management all very well, but charging Australian and UK bookings so much more (when people travelling from those countries have plenty of alternative options) seems counter-intuitive.

Finally my pet peeve is that my partner is in an exit row on a long haul flight in Y, booked months ago when we were travelling together (I'm G, she's S), and wants to move to the row behind because we are no longer travelling together (and she is short and prefers a seat in front when alone), and despite several attempts, Air NZ wont shift her there without charging her, even though it can make more money with her abandoning the exit row seat so it is for sale (she isn't keen on the offer of moving 25 rows back). That just seems ridiculously bureaucratic in handling a transitional issue.

On the plus side, do I understand correct that if I travel alone I am offered an unsold Skycouch if I am G/GE and one is free 48 hours in advance? That is a plus.

Best regards, hope you can remain on here and find it a challenging but interesting experience!

Originally Posted by Gasfoodlodging

Alastair, while we have you...for absolute clarity, can you please confirm that as long as a ski/ snowboard bag is under 2m in length, and under 23kg, it will not be subject to any 'excess baggage' fee under the new policy (for both domestic and long haul)? i.e. it is a standard bag...

Thanks, and good on you for fronting.

Originally Posted by AlastairR

Another note to this and the other baggage questions. The reason why it says one surfboard, one set of skis etc, is that historically customers would arrive with these not in bags.

If they are in one bag we have no issue accepted say 2 sets of skis in one ski bag and as long as they are under the weight and bag dimensions they will be treated as one standard bag
Thanks

Originally Posted by MattNZ

wholeheartedly agree with the above.

The problem is even worse on a wide-body flight to Aus. for example:
A non status passenger books a seat only fare this saturday on the 773 to Sydney, and pays $20 for a 'premium' seat to sit in the 1st row of premium economy. This person has no loyalty to airnz & pays hardly anything for what is a pretty good perk in my opinion.

If a GE books a works fare on the same flight, they also have to pay $20 for that seat (but yes, could sit in PE for free on works in a different row).

??

The value to Airnz of these customers is vastly different, and yet they are both treated the same by this system.

I would echo the sentiment that GE should be allowed to select whatever seat they want for free, based on fare & aircraft type - and that's coming from a Koru memeber who has very little chance of achieving GE.

Hopefully as it's only version 1.0 of this system, our feedback will go into revisions that make it a bit more logical. But I've always been an optimist...

Originally Posted by AlastairR

Note that we did originally consider selling following a similar model as some overseas airlines whereby we sold premium seats and at the same time gave HVC’s free access to these seats. However our initial conclusions where that this could be worse for our GE’s as all of the best premium seats would be sold initially and our HVC’s that generally book lat,e would have inferior seats to choose from.

Originally Posted by AlastairR

Hi,
Thanks for your feedback and we definitely collate and take these views on board as part of our review process.

Note that we did originally consider selling following a similar model as some overseas airlines whereby we sold premium seats and at the same time gave HVC’s free access to these seats. However our initial conclusions where that this could be worse for our GE’s as all of the best premium seats would be sold initially and our HVC’s that generally book lat,e would have inferior seats to choose from.

Thanks

Originally Posted by AlastairR

If you booked your ticket prior to the change you will still be charged the old rates.

In terms of the new prepaid rates –these are cheaper for standard bags, however you are right in terms of sporting equipment the costs has actually increased slighty.