NZ_Flyer

Emailed the Elite team and CC’d Mark Street to give feedback that it’s just a crock and if they think we’re stupid enough to believe that they will donate the total cost of the Elite Gifts then they must really be out of touch.

MattNZ

This is some terribly weak messaging.

If the school donation was genuinely the case they'd promote it with some kind of $ figure or a "choose the school you want to donate to" kind of gift. You don't give away money quietly right?

This is either being handled terribly or is a complete crock. I'm with consensus on this and suspect the latter...

nzchick

What a pile of crap. Surely at the very least (if it really was about 'customer feedback') they would give their Elite members the CHOICE to either accept the gift OR donate to charity (I seem to recall them having charity gifts as an option in the past).

Total cop out, just ridiculous cost-cutting and a total disregard for customer loyalty.

I also agree with other posts - if they downgrade/eliminate the upgrade benefits (confirmed comp upgrades, confirmed airpoints $ upgrades etc) I will be gone so quickly they wont see me for dust...

Janec

+1!!!
Ask their loyal customers first?
These posts are feedback Air NZ and so far no one agrees with your decision

WLGNZ

+1
Long term Elite and no one asked my opinion on this.
Another AirNZ cost cutting measure to the detirment of loyal clients......

sbiddle

I hopefully everybody is emailing the elite team with their views.

dadig

don't forget to CC Mark Street (search for it)

MikeAKL

Remember that at one point an "Airpoints Gold" membership nomination was one of the gift options, as was an additional "short haul upgrade voucher". I cannot for a second believe that ANYONE would have provided "mixed feedback" about receiveing either of them.

Utterly disappointed.

drajknox

Funnily enough while I completely agree that not many customers would be happy with this change I did see a prominent member moan about the “short haul upgrade voucher” gift saying that as a non-Aucklander it was hard to use; I suppose something was better than nothing!

SeaProf

From a non-NZ Elite member living in the USA, donating to NZ schools does nothing for me. No one in my family has ever attended a NZ school, nor will anyone ever attend one.

MikeAKL

At which point that person could have re-gifted the upgrade to a friend/colleague and made their day. Go figure :-)

brenrox

It would take a special type of person to complain about a free gift. I think they would've been better off just to say nothing - there's no requirement/expectation for them to give anything. Instead, they have assumed the type of person a GE is, is someone who came down in the latest AKL rain shower.

libertyuk

Similar being UK based. I became Elite this year, in part, because of an increase in NZ based business (and flew both SQ and NZ in business/PE and a fair bit of trans Tasman on both NZ and QF). The value is in Elite upgrades and the partner card, but I guess NZ knows it has no serious loyalty competition. As long as JQ has no lounges or any serious QFF loyalty benefits on domestic flights, there are few incentives to avoid NZ in favour of JQ domestically. Unless you fly a lot to Australia (and domestically), QFF doesn't offer much chance to progress with AA being seasonal to the US, and QFF earning a lot less on CX and MH compared to QF.

However, QFF does offer lifetime loyalty, NZ doesn't.

Xiaotung

A great percentage of NZ long haul business relies on Australian connections. From next month, Velocity members will no longer be able to earn points on NZ long haul flights. Airpoints has hardly done anything in Australia for a decade. Even in New Zealand, in the past few years, NZ's loyalty development has been nothing but pathetic compared to VA and QF. It's incredibly sad that this all comes at a time when NZ already has the stingiest FFP in the world and NZ is making record profits.

I think NZ loyalty needs new leadership. What I have seen in the past few years have been nothing but boring stuff like Flybuys being replaced by various retailers, earning Airpoints Cents on some SQ flights, etc. All trivial and out of touch with the rest of the world.

JayKiwi

Couldn't say it any better than these quotes. Everyone's upset here has zero to do with charitable conscience - charitable giving is one of the most personal decisions someone can make. It is actually more offensive to make a giving decision on behalf of everyone, than to make a call on some wine or a food hamper, which might not be to everyone's preference.