pbl22

Does anyone know why that is?

Trumpkin

Just like row 3 on 737s, although once in a blue moon this doesn't happen.

The reason is for seating of VIPs or people with movement difficulties.

justakiwi

Using your customers as unofficial beta testers. I worked for a company that used to do that. They're not around any more....

justakiwi

Xiaotung

Classic. This is typical "being not afraid of making mistakes and being yourself" gone too far. I hope the new CEO will actually start to manage the airline.

DCF

I'm the first to agree that it is bad management for Air NZ to continue rolling out changes without testing them first.

And they need to stop using spin to lie about retaining existing benefits.

But overall, I don't find Fly Customised to be an egregious model. Once Seats To Suit was retained, this was inevitable.

What I object to is the separate devaluation of Airpoints and the switch to OneUp, when I think most of us could have come up with a better model for management and HVCs alike.

pbl22

Currently sitting in 14B (!) on a Night Rider. On booking several weeks ago (before Fly Customised) I selected seat 2F. It was 2F every day this week and 2F this morning. Now I seem to have been bumped. Now I realise that seat selections aren't guaranteed, but I would have been mightily annoyed if I had paid money for the Preferred Seat. Could this mean that GEs can get bumped by people who actually pay real money? And 14B? Can't recall the last time I didn't sit in Space+, let alone a middle seat.

WLG Base

I booked a flight on 14 Dec AKL-WLG for same day. Unable to select seat even though full fare. Rang Premium Line they couldn't select seat either. At kiosk I was able to change from my allocated row 22 to row 6!!

Mapnz

Was that a night rider too ?

Mapnz

Was that a night rider too ?

youai779

I also had the same trouble, I booked a Flexi Plus fare from AKL-ZQN one day out from departure and I was unable to select a seat. I rang premium and they had trouble and said they would get back to me. Never heard from them but when checked in I was in 1F, when I called they were not able to see why even they couldn't assign a seat.

BulePilot

I have a multi-city booking for a 3 and a half week visit in NZ on 6 flights. I'm about to board the first flight soon.

The seats were selected on the 13th of November, from memory only one flight is grabaseat+bag, all the rest are flexi.

I noticed on the mPass app that the only visible seat was for today's flight and that had changed from 2D as requested to 4D.

Asked the nice girl at the Koru Club counter and she said she can only look 2 days ahead. She didn't seem to like this 'fly customised' rubbish either. I'm guessing it's been the source of a lot of complaints in the Koru Lounge.

I'll have to ring the call centre as I can longer access the booking online.

Just glad I don't fly Air New Zealand internationally seems like it's all becoming quite a headache for Star Golds/HVC etc.

samnz

Another change. At some point over the last week or so, it seems NZ has withdrawn the unpublished* domestic seating benefits previously on offer to NZ*S - namely access to HVC seating outside of Koru Hour.

I realise NZ is clearly not going to care about the loss of revenue from a lowly silver if it doesn't seem to be worried about GEs jumping ship, and don't claim to be a HVC. However, FWIW the loss of this benefit means I won't make any special effort to retain silver from late this year. In previous years I have organised my travel, and directed some extra travel to NZ to make sure I retained the status, primarily for the seating benefit.

Given that Space+ is usually less than full off-peak even with NZ*S access, and is now not available to me even if I was prepared to pay for it, I don't get the thinking. I'm sure not suddenly going to pay $5 for a seat down the back on a grabaseat fare now.

*while not published on the main Air NZ site at all, this benefit is mentioned on the NZAgent site, and at check in kiosks

highpeak1

Not sure if this was a benefit, but I have just made a booking for my wife on a domestic leg (she has a GE partner card) and it would not allow her to choose any seat without charging for the privilege.

As I say, I am not sure if they have thought through the rules on this one yet and I can't be bothered checking whether partner cards are just GE Lite cards.

spintwin

Hi all - I can't find where this has been discussed, but is there still an issue with the online seat select? I'm flying TT tomorrow morning and have my original seats as booked (which I believe was before the changeover) - but if I want to make ANY change, it's attempting to charge me. I thought as NZ*G I was able to access seating FOC within 48 hours of departure? Or am I off the mark? There's been enough confusing changes that I've lost track.

Sidenote, I had a chat to some ground staff at ZQN last week and they all said they haven't learned the new systems because they assume it won't last. Here's hoping.

Kiwi Flyer

I have upcoming flights with NZ on longhaul business fare where as *G I cannot select a seat!

I've had nothing but problems with seating on NZ since this rolled out.