Airpoints allocated on takeoff or landing?
 

Hi All,

Does anyone know if the SPs are allocated on takeoff, mid-flight or landing?

I'm about to go from gold to silver but will be eligible for a tier upgrade back to gold after a flight AKL-IAH. The flight lands in Houston on a Monday in Dec at 2:05pm local time(Tues 9:05am NZDT). I have United flights on the Wednesday and I am not sure if I will make the gold tier upgrade in time for the SP to count towards tier retention for the next 12 months.

Looking at my previous years emails I can see that all tier upgrades have taken place on a Tuesday and the emails have been sent after 10am. I assume it's a batch process that allocates the tier upgrades. If SP are allocated on landing I wonder if a flight that lands on a Tuesday NZ time before the batch processing would make the tier upgrade?

A couple of years back I missed out on heap of United earned SPs. The first United flight I took would have given me a tier upgrade from silver -> gold but the flights weren't recorded by AirNZ. On my AirNZ flight back to NZ the SPs earned on that flight tipped me over to Gold. To my horror once AirNZ received the SPs from the United flights they were credited on the date flown which was before the tier upgrade and therefore counted for nothing.

I am fairly certain they are allocated when you take off. But you should ring. I have had good luck with them extending the eligibility window by a day because of a flight taken that was just out of the window.

Because my last flight had Wifi so I was able to know exactly when it was credited. It was roughly 1 hour after take off.

Isn't that normal for all FF programs? We have had folks asking if they can leave their FF number off a booking and then submit the BP's later to credit at a "better time"...but don't they always get told they will be credited to the date flown?

I believe it's departure, as often you will see them post if you are sitting on the tarmac during a delay.

I've had a couple of flights from AKL to WLG which couldn't land and the plane returned to AKL. No points were allocated, but flying down later in the day, each time the points were added when landing.

My experience is on departure as well.

With wifi Ive had access to the app several times in flight and they have appeared within a few minutes of take-off.

BCE

I just dealt with this a couple of months ago going from silver to gold while flying AKL > LAX return near the expiration date of quite a few SP. It can be really confusing if you're dealing with the date line. This ended up being a much bigger ordeal than it should have been, and suffice it to say my poorest interaction with AirNZ customer service by far. Ultimately they sent it to the Airpoints team who went ahead and credited me with Gold, minus 10 extra points which I have to make up this year.

Here's where I ended up with the AirNZ rep, after almost an hour of multiple clarifications and managers involved.

NOTE: I have absolutely no idea whether this person was correct or not, but they were adamant that these are the rules:

1) Status points are CREDITED to the date you departed, according to the time zone you departed from.

2) Status points are ACCRUED when you land, at the current date of the time zone you land in.

3) Status points EXPIRE at midnight NZ time, 1 year from the date you earned them - regardless of where in the world you departed from when you earned those status points.

The result was that I nearly missed out on ticking over to gold TWICE because my old status points were expiring while I was in the air crossing the date line, but my new points weren't accruing until I landed, two days later.

Note that for flights from LAX to AKL, this means that your Status Points are only valid for 1 year minus 2 days (eg depart LAX August 9th, land AKL August 11th, your points will expire at midnight on August 8th NZ TIME the following year.)

If you're in the same pickle as me, just ask to appeal to the Airpoints team, who will hopefully see reason and just give you gold. Don't try to use logic with the call centre staff :D

Yeah. I find the airpoints team to be pretty lenient. If you seem upset and sad they usually do try to genuinely fix it. We might have one of the worst FF programs in the world, at least we have really godo service!

Interesting that people have different experiences.
I too have had flights return to departure point with the SC not accrued as the journey was not completed. This was for domestic only.
In regards to the date they are credited to it has been local date of departure in all cases.

Don't call. Just email the premium team and cross your fingers. It's easier.