oranjemakker

Exactly, and by all means provide a charity option as a gift, but this whole things reeks.

I requalified this year for GE within about 5 weeks and will have my banked year in a few weeks time.

Aside from domestics flights, i will now focus on OneWorld and when Star Alliance look to qualify for PPS Club with SQ.

I have also just booked my next flights to China on China Southern, about 60% of the business class price of Air NZ, one stop from Christchurch to my destination and better timings. Figure I might as well get top status on Skyteam.

This kind of insulting attitude to their best customers, added to horribly crowded lounges, cramped seats on 787, nickel and diming on making every phone call a negotiation on whether a fee should be charged, terrible earning rates, poor flight options out of Christchurch, mean I cant see why i should aim to go a AP$ above banked year.

So while not quite "see ya" this will cost Air NZ at least from me possibly 50K revenue this year

As a case in point, I have a 5 hour layover in Sydney end of this week connecting from a Malaysian Airlines flight and chose QF, at least i get to spend it in the First Class lounge.

drajknox

I don’t know whether the status match in the link below is still valid but it might be useful
https://www.ausbt.com.au/how-to-get-...s-status-match

RSkipage

I cant say Im surprised by this move. It is consistent with what I have been saying about Air New Zealand's continual dilution of loyalty recognition and some aspects of their product.

Because loyalty runs both ways, Ive followed through on what I committed to doing late last year and I rewarded Air NZ for their lack of interest in me by taking three of my four trips to Europe this year on China Southern. They have provided a perfectly comfortable and professional service.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the Air NZ experience overall, but I decided maintaining Elite status just no longer provides a feeling of my loyalty being important to them. I'll use Air NZ when it suits me and chase better value fares when it doesn't, since there is little other advantage. I'll drop to and maintain gold next year - Im deeming this strategy as "just loyal enough" to get enough benefit for myself.

I also think its interesting to note that they don't appear to track travel patterns of of their HVCs and when there are noticeable drop offs of utilisation, contact them to hear their views. Most other service oriented businesses would do this.

In any case, I doubt Mr Street will listen to concerns directly. If you all really want to get Air NZ Management's attention - spread your business. Let them see HVCs are unhappy through their balance sheet.

gratn

I think that point about not tracking HVCs in any detail is right. I'm far from a HVC but have still managed to do enough flying for Elite status in 7 of the last 8 years. The one year I didn't requalify I couldn't fly for four months. That should have been obvious from my flight history. I got a call from the Premium team a couple of weeks before my requalification year expired, to tell me I hadn't re-qualified and express disappointment for me. I explained that I knew I wouldn't re-qualify but hadn't flown enough. The staffer asked if there was anything they could do to help. I thought hey, great service, yes, so started to explain the blip in my usual flying pattern. Bad idea. All the staff member was actually offering was to book me lots of J travel (at my cost) to quickly get the status points I needed.

Moral of the story? It appears NZ only tracks travel by Elites by reference to milestones. Beyond that, from what I've seen NZ doesn't care or want to encourage additional customer loyalty.

CHCflyer

Please, Air NZ, feel free to take the one airpoint you took off regional flying (down to one from two airpoints) and donate to your worthy cause. You can also donate the four status points you took from my earning this year (down from 8 to 4), too.
My current 120 NZ regional flights per year do not qualify me for elite status anymore (though I manage to top it up from other flying) but earn me the princely airpoint sum of $120 - about the cost of a one way regional fare.

Susiew237

wow, I am never going to be elite or even likely to get back to silver lately but I think this idea has a certain whiff about it. I dont like it when people make charitable decisions on my behalf. I will make my choices about those sorts of things thanks very much and they arent about giving money to schools.

And who the hell are the people moaning about getting a gift. None on here.

I suspect this is why I pretty much discounted the loyalty factor a while ago in flight decisions. In the past I would have probably paid a bit of a premium to fly ANZ but now I'll fly with who has the best overall deal (which might be cost, service, times, plane type, seat etc)

oranjemakker

Thanks thats super helpful I will give this a go

poopbunny

You are confusing "mixed feedback" with complaints from FF about the diminishing value of the gift.

"Common" really? From who? Are you mixing up suggestions from FF with ones from C Luxon?


https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/airp...r-schools-2016
Wait a minute! This is something you were already doing anyway. So you have now decided to fund it using the budget from Elite Gifts.

or maybe it was to
- increase shareholder bottom line
- stave off another reduction in inflight catering
- produce another polarising inflight safety video
<insert your favorite here>

zoovet

One thing that always puts me off donating through a separate business firm is the thought that if it does send the money to a charity it can claim the 33% tax refund though the IRD. Hence even if AirNZ actually donates the value of all the elite gifts to charity, they will immediately be able to claim a third of it back from the IRD (this is OUR tax remember) as a donation claim. The sort of donation that is a win:win for AirNZ!

WLG Base

You are talking about the Tax Credit on Donations available to individual Tax Payers (IR526).

There are different rules for Companies around the treatment of Donations.

sbiddle

Maybe we could all claim a tax credit since Air NZ have said they're donating on our behalf?

RSkipage

Air NZ has already paid tax on the income it earned, subsequently donated and then claimed back. So yes there may be some benefit there.

But it isn't 'OUR' tax. There was never going to be a tax benefit to you unless you were going to pay income tax on the gift's value before donating it to a charity and claiming the tax deductible.

oranjemakker

What actually holds them to any account that they actually donate the full value of the gifts as an incremental amount, and no one will know any way as it will just become part of the larger schools programme.

Xiaotung

I am sorry but I don't agree that sending school kids to some excursion trips is charity.

On the Airpoints for School page it says:

Thanks to the generosity of our Airpoints™ members, we are thrilled to announce that all schools that participated in this year's Airpoints for Schools programme have met their targets early.

Generosity of Airpoints members? This is actually done by reducing member earn rates and reducing member benefits. If NZ wants to do CSR, why does it have to be in the name of their FFP? The purpose of the FFP is to entice customer to fly with you. Some FFPs allow you to donate your miles but that's an individual choice. Doing it on behalf of your entire membership base is quite ridiculous and defeats the purpose of a loyalty programme.

Kiwi_FF

Combo Nz and Lh fare in business class $8500 to Europe and agent advised zero air points as P booking class. Zero for an $8500 spend. Cancelled booking. Loyalty counts.....yeah right. Nice to have plenty of other options😁