john60

I was told by a person supposedly in the 'know' that the oneup where you buy the upgrade takes preference over recognition upgrades whether they are elite or gold , I have a platinum card and a recognition upgrade, I was told to make an offer in the strong category on the oneup and this would give me a better chance, I was also told by an elite member that of 4 or so recognition upgrade offers he was only able to use 1.
Is there anyone on this forum that can explain exactly how the airnz upgrade system works? I have read the details on the web and understand the extra benefits between elite gold and platinum, but there seems to be no real benefits no matter what level of loyalty unless you pay.

Kamadan

This has been discussed thoroughly in the forums here. What this "person in the know" told you is simply not true.

You can also refer to this recent thread and all the points/posts made:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-n...d-sfo-akl.html

In short, RUs are ALWAYS processed before and take priority over any OneUp bids, plain and simple.

Anecdotal evidence from many HVC (Gold/Elite) members will/should also confirm this.

The hierarchy goes:
- Elite (up to 355 days prior if A (in PE) or R (in Business) class available)
- Gold (up to 6 days prior)
- Silver (up to 6 days prior after Elite/Gold)
- OneUps according to bid amount from high to low (with any HVC uplift factored in)

If there are not enough inventory (or if it looks to be tight) for a particular flight, any amount you bid with OneUp will simply not matter as they won't be accepted.

Also, there is NO "Platinum" level at all in Airpoints programme.
It goes: Jade -> Silver -> Gold -> Elite, with "Elite Priority One" the top level "strictly invite only exclusive" tier.

Having a "Platinum" Credit Card does not give you any HVC benefits with Air NZ. Credit Cards are completely separate to the Airpoints programme.

SeaProf

I see this is your first post, so welcome!

As has already been mentioned, all Recognition upgrades take precedence over OneUp bids.

In contrast to your friend, I have been successful on 16 of 17 upgrade attempts (15 of 16 long haul and 1 of 1 short haul), most of those coming as an Elite level member. My flights are mainly between North America and Auckland, Los Angeles and Rarotonga and Los Angeles and London. The one that failed was an Elite Recognition upgrade from Los Angeles to Auckland (there were over 30 Elites on that flight, if my memory of the captain's announcement is correct - it's the only time I recall the captain mentioning how many Elites were on a flight).

john60

Thank you for your reply it now makes some sense I also searched the other posts, I am a Silver forget the platinum.

Kamadan

As a reference point (and mentioned above as well), all my RUs have been utilized/cleared since having any sort of status tiers with NZ (did have 1 RU request not clear but I did use it up eventually on another flight), while I've had more than a few OneUp bids rejected in the past 3 years.

For flights between here and the US, the premium cabins are so full of fare paying revenue pax that I wouldn't be surprised if your "Elite friend" couldn't get his RU clear, especially during peak season (major holiday periods/school holidays).

The one time my RU didn't clear (as mentioned above) was on NZ7 SFO-AKL, but the Business/PE cabin was sold out. Bumped into an acquaintance of mine on that same flight and his RU didn't clear either, let alone anyone who would've tried to lodge an OneUp bid.

pbl22

I have had RUs not clear many times, because the only time I fly on NZ is to take my family to the US in school holidays, when flights are chocker.

I am wondering whether the OP's friend "in the know" is an NZ employee, given the useful "knowledge" they imparted (and its potential benefit to NZ).

Xiaotung

I have long suspected that RU's do not always have priority. The reason is simple. Oneup is managed by a third party company called Plusgrade with a proprietary algorithm to maximise revenue. RU's are managed by NZ themselves. I don't believe these two talk to each other when deciding who gets an upgrade. So in terms of who gets priority, I think it's a hit and miss at best.

sbiddle

I've still yet to see any evidence whether physical or cimcumstancial that OneUp's clear before RU's

I've had a pretty good run with upgrades in the last 2 or so years - 5 RU's have cleared along with probably 3 or 4 OneUp's (where I've intentionally bid less than the Elite standby upgrade price), and some Elite standby upgrades.

The only time I've never bothered with an upgrade was flying from LAX during school, holidays because I saw no point. The GE next to me at the time was stuck in economy as well and got told there were from memory 12 GE upgrades in front on him that didn't clear.

The move to clearing RU's got Gold and Silver up to 7 days out made the process more manageable as it allows more RU's to be cleared before OneUp's are processed. Allowing OneUp's to clear right up until the gate also allows Air NZ to maximize revenue.

NZGez

Does anyone know - are RUs processed in the order that they are lodged within each status band? A "first-in-first-served" approach for all GEs? Then all G, then all S...?

Or are there some other criteria applied?

At face value, seems highly unlikely that Silver status will ever have a successful RU...

Kamadan

We have all been lowly Silver at least once...

Mine (Silver RU) was lodged on NZ1 AKL-LAX in one mid-August year if I remember, and it was cleared at check-in time, Y->PE. PE cabin was completely full on that flight.

There were only 4-5 open/unassigned seats in the PE cabin when I called the Premium team to check 3 days prior to travel.

Guess I must've been lucky to not have it go to electronic waste...

KiwiJC

Like others, I got my silver RU to clear on an LA - AKL flight without any issues (and I think there was spare seats too).

As long as you're not travelling in the middle of the school holidays or on a weekend the odds don't seem too bad with RU's. I've managed to strike the jackpot later this year though, I've accidentally booked a Friday flight in the school holidays - I don't expect to get my APD upgrade given there's no PE seats for sale (on any of the three flights that day) a month out

That will be my first APD/RU upgrade to fail though - I can't really complain.

SeaProf

Many of you know better if the following is normal or suspicious but it seems relevant.

I have a friend and a sister traveling on the same flight this weekend, both Jade status. I gifted an Elite Airpoint Dollars upgrade to my sister and my friend made a OneUp bid. My sister has yet to hear whether her upgrade has cleared while my friend has already heard her OneUp bid was rejected. I did a dummy booking and saw 11 of 24 Business seats are still available.

That gives me the impression that at least in some instances OneUp is given priority.

sbiddle

How does this show that OneUp takes priority? Reading your post seems to show the system working as it should with standby upgrades taking priority and clearing right up until the gate.

SeaProf

It just seems odd to me that OneUp upgrades have already been decided before gifted Elite AirDollars upgrades have been awarded. As I said, I defer to the knowledge of others on this matter as to whether this is normal or not.

I've personally never attempted a OneUp so I haven't really paid much attention to the process.

sbiddle

I'm a little confused. This is exactly how it's supposed to be - an Elite upgrade / Standby upgrade has a higher priority than a OneUp.

If you get an automated OneUp email rejection at T -72 it's for one of two reasons. First being it's been rejected because it's too low, and the second being because there is or will be no free seats so none can clear even at the gate.

As you can only book up to 9 seats on the Air NZ website there is no way of knowing there are 11 seats free of 24 (remember unallocated seats does not mean unsold seats).