stick1

I'm flying from the US tonight back to Auckland. I lodged an RU (economy->PE) months ago (I'm Elite) and rang Air NZ yesterday. They said the flight was getting full and so Ru's would be processed at checkin/at the gate. But a few hours ago I noticed I had been shifted from an aisle seat in row 37 to a bulkhead aisle seat (35H).

Is this just some shuffling of people to accommodate groups or something or is this likely to be a "consolation prize" (bulkhead seat) because i have missed getting upgraded to PE?

thoughts?

Kiwi Flyer

Most likely to keep families seated together.

jawnbc

Yeah I agree with Kiwiflyer. On my flight ex-Houston last month the Elite APD upgrade didn't clear until 4 hours prior to departure. Thanks to a previous tip on here, I knew to keep an eye on my booking via the AirNZ app: that showed the upgraded seat number before the gate opened for boarding.

sbiddle

% wise the vast majority of upgrades don't clear until the gate

edmm

Slightly off topic but related. In the regular Consumer email today there is a question regarding Air NZ Airpoints upgrades:

"Air NZ Airpoints - Recognition Upgrades.

Are you an Elite, Gold or Silver Air NZ Airpoints member? Have you ever had any problems redeeming the recognition upgrades you receive as part of your annual membership."

It then gives a contact email. Interesting, I presume (I may be wrong) it means there have been complaints to Consumer.

dadig

I feel it is inevitable - Just reply back and ask them to check this forum.

Air NZ is walking a fine thread for misleading/deception over a product benefit that can not be realised for its intended use.

For the number of RU's are lost moving up tiers as well Elite ones that fail to clear, I can imagine the airline would take a hit if they were forced to honour them

NZbutterfly

But this system on all airlines I thought existed only on the basis of unsold premium cabin seats. (Let's forget NZ EP1 or QF CL, EK io etc for now) which is going to change from flight to flight.

They're all subject to availability so can't be enforced by another agency or consumer guarantee act? It is being given for free. Sure I spend money with NZ but I pay the same ticket price available to a non airpoints member.

I missed out on redeeming my silver RU only because I didn't read FT earlier or the T&C to realise I lost it rather than gained an extra RU on turning gold.

FWIW I've been able to redeem all subsequent RUs.

stick1

Well I got the upgrade. Even got a window row to myself on a 772.

NZbutterfly

Sweet!

dadig

Glad to hear it worked out

magnummike

I find Elite APD upgrades have a better strike rate of confirming earlier than Recognition Upgrades. I'm flying AKL>HKG Thursday night, applied yesterday (5 days prior to departure) and it confirmed instantly. It's normally quite a full flight so I was surprised (pleasantly).

NZbutterfly

How many on the seat map prior?

Kiwiwings

I wish Air NZ would be more transparent about the order of upgrades. From what I can tell, some inventory is made available at T-355 that is reserved for Elite upgrades, the percentage would be interesting to know. But then their are OneUp upgrades, which can be confirmed from T-7. The Air NZ websites says "To ensure we have fully accounted for loyalty upgrades, we will be confirming requested loyalty upgrades before OneUp requests are approved." this obviously means that they will be confirming some loyalty upgrades before OneUps, but not all.

I think my real question is how do they decide how many seats to not accept for OneUps?

The website also says that OneUp's can be once again reviewed at T-7h to 9h.

Ideally what I would hope they would do, is at T-7, the number of unfulfilled loyalty upgrades is subtracted from the number of seats still available on the aircraft, then that many seats are given to people who requested OneUps. This way, the only way for people to miss out on Loyalty upgrades is if there was already not enough space at T-7 or if more people purchase premium seats after the OneUps have been processed.

Or maybe there is no plan at all and its all down the whims of the staff at Air NZ!

NZ_Flyer

It's 2 seats in Business (R class) and 2 seats in PE (A class?) from memory.

Basically around T-7 Air NZ will decide how many upgrades they will process and how many seats they will leave for sale (I imagine there's an algorithm based on historical data). Let's say at T-7 there are 10 unsold seats in Business with 6 loyalty upgrades and 10 one-ups and Air NZ have decided they will release 5 seats for upgrade at T-7 and process the rest at check-in to leave room for last minute sales. 5 of the loyalty upgrades will be successful, 1 of the loyalty's will go on hold till airport check-in, the low ball OneUp's will be sent a decline and the higher OneUp's will be told to wait until T7-9hrs before departure. Air NZ still have 5 seats at T-9hrs so they confirm the last remaining loyalty upgrade and then the two highest OneUp's, leaving a couple of seats free for last minute sale/change.

And that's only 1 example. As you can see, it gets even more complex the smaller the number of available seats are. I don't know if there are any documented cases of people being able to claim for sure that a OneUp offer was granted over a loyalty upgrade, but you'd have to assume there are some pretty robust IT rules in place which prevent a OneUp being granted while a loyalty upgrade is still pending.

sbiddle

As pointed out it's not really as secretive as you think it is.

R class is 2 per flight and A class varies depending on the aircraft type (but is a minimum of 2).

While I don't know actual numbers as that's clearly a closely guarded secret I do know the number of OneUp upgrades actually accepted is very minimal in the scheme of things. RU's and APD upgrades do take priority, and considering the huge number of Elite's now I wouldn't imagine there are many FFers who don't know one.

If you do know an Elite you'd have to be crazy to lodge a OneUp when a gifted APD upgrade will clear with a higher priority, and at a fixed price.