wco81

Hoping for good weather like I had a couple of years ago.

Taking off over the lake and mountains on a clear day was great.

Mwenenzi

If you had booked ZQN-xxx-AKL on same PNR/ticket with your AKL-USA award flight all the risk would have been with Air NZ-UA. Seems to be a lot of effort/cost/risk to save a New Zealand airport transit.

On separate tickets I will take a risk on long haul/expensive to domestic/cheap flights.
On separate tickets I will not take a risk on domestic/cheap flights to long haul/expensive flights.
All about the cost/time for the 2nd flight.

NZ does not have the extremes of weather common in USA.
Queenstown does not have tropical weather. Too far south & inland.

wco81

Well I didn't think it was a risk when I booked.

Again, it's very rare to find J saver awards from US to NZ or Australia in high season.

Unless you're flying to China or something and have some crazy 30+ hours routing.

When I searched ZQN-SFO for the returns, there weren't any simple routings back to AKL. It was something really crazy, with a long layover. It might have even involved flying to Australia and then back to AKL, IIRC.

So I figured I'll just take the AKL-SFO nonstop, which again is a rare award for UA MP members and just buy the ZQN to AKL flight on my own.

I didn't realize NZ made it so difficult for *A members transiting from one *A flight to another in AKL. One might say cynically that the reason they won't check bags through is that they want you to buy domestic flights which higher fares which include the checked bag(s) or prepay a checked bag fee. Apparently no free checked bags, not even for *A Gold members.

Mwenenzi

Certainly a good choice to grab a J saver awards from US to NZ when it was available and sort out the domestic flights later.

At times transiting Australia and on to a secondary NZ airport, if that is your final destination, can be as good as/better than transiting AKL and then to the secondary/domestic NZ airport. Trans Tasman there are flights from many airports to many airports. Like ZQN-SYD-SFO on Air NZ/UA. Where as the long haul USA flights only go to AKL/SYD/BNE/MEL.

The interlining is nothing to do with extra fees for checked baggage. A fare with bags included will not be interlined because it costs more. Just separate tickets is an added risk for the airlines, so Air NZ will not do.

As above buy domestic Air NZ flight on the co.nz web site & not .com

Enjoy the trip. ^

nzkarit

The thing is you have two tickets, so you do not have connecting/transiting flights.

If you are on a single ticket you can check your bag through to the destination (you will have to collect it for border control but it will be tagged to the destination)

If you have domestic sector on a single ticket that has an international sector which includes baggage AirNZ will give you the international allowance on the domestic sector.

cavemanzk

sbiddle

The actual reasons are the exact opposite. It would be incredibly rare for a NZer to book a standalone ticket in conjunction with an international fare because the domestic add-on fares are all fixed prices and typically cheaper than you would get buying a standalone ticket.

Using the example of ZQN - AKL the fixed fare for a domestic add-on is NZ$130 which gives you full flexibility (with a few exceptions not they've introduced married fares) and your international baggage allowance. This cost is not visible to the end customer as it's simply built into the fare when they buy a fare from say ZQN-SFO, but it's very competitive for an airfare on that route - the entry level long term fare price for a flexi fare with bag on that route is NZ$129, which is far below the price most seats sell for.

cavemanzk

DCF

smandkjc

1.7KM was on the Terminal Information board and they do advise at the Air NZ lounge to allow at least 25 minutes to walk to the gate from the lounge.
I did find this quote from a NZ Herald article,

"New gates at the end of Pier B can handle one large widebody plane or two smaller ones such as an A320 and are about 1.7km from the heart of the main terminal building, reflecting the airport's physical growth."

I should add that when we got to the end of the 1.7KM we saw a security guard standing by the gate entrance and we assumed we were to wait there.
We later saw a small sign that was obscured by all the people waiting pointing us to go around the end of the wall for the interview to be allowed to enter the gate.
39th and probably last flight to Hawaii.

sbiddle

I'm not back to the US until next month and haven't actually been to the new US gates yet but while I've seen the 1.7km figure quoted as well I don't quite understand how it can be that far... although they've added on a few hundred metres just trying to navigate the shops!

You certainly aren't the only person I know put off visiting the US now with the private (non Avsec) security screening and interview about your trip.

smandkjc

Its not a straight line 1.7Km and I did not believe the board either but I think it is correct.
We had a hostess join us for the trek and she was complaining about it all as well.
Everyone was sitting or standing in the area outside the gate, we thought it was a small holding area until the people parted and we saw the sign at about knee height pointing the way to go.

sbiddle

I disagree about it being "madness". On the vast majority of days there would be no issues with such a connection.

It all comes down to the fact there is risk involved with any connecting flight, and people need to weight up those risk factors. If you're on a single PNR those factors are mitigated as the airlines need to look after you.

ZQN does carry some risk that other domestic destinations don't, but having said that Auckland weather can often be the root cause of domestic schedule nightmares that can easily affect the whole country. Auckland thunderstorms creating havoc are normally an afternoon thing in Summer though.

Top of climb

Only Air NZ's US flights are on Pier B at the moment - Hawaiian is still operating out of Pier A, which is a much shorter walk than to Pier B. No telling where AA and UA will be put when they come back online in the Northern winter.

sbiddle

Surely with the private security and secondary screening the airport would want to try and keep this all in the same area?