New *A reward chart and online booking
 

Without prior notice, finally NZ has destroyed the last valuable redemption option and changed zone based *A redemption chart to distance based, which has seem all long haul premium cabin rates significantly increased. For instance, Asia to Europe one way in Business used to cost APD 1215 and now it's likely APD 1750 depending on distance. Most other long haul flights that used to cost around APD 1500 will cost APD 2000 now. First Class long haul flights used to be only a few hundred APD more than Business and now we are seeing this doubled.

Due to Star Alliance requirement that asks all member airlines to bring partner redemption function online by the end of the year, NZ has been forced to revamp the reward chart. One of the reasons why NZ were reluctant to bring it online is that they didn't want members to redeem APD on partners because the rates were just too good compared to NZ's any seat for sale, especially in premium cabins. They wanted you to believe the advantage in redeeming on NZ services because you can always get the flight you want and *A redemption tickets are extremely limited. But now it's online and everything is visible so they increased the rates. They are really living up to the reputation of having the worst FFP in the world.

https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/airl...r-reward-chart

To hell with this, it was what I was accumulating APDs for.

Object lesson is, spend them, don't save them

Online Booking results.

I used a range of locations. Most resulted in:

I did get:

WLG-MEL in Business APD700 + $54.04 taxes

On the plus side it's my understanding that VS upper class flights are booked as business rewards and not first now.

No it isn't. They still say you have to call the contact centre, and incur the $120 contact centre fee per return booking.

I don't think the contact centre has more reward availability than online so why the need to call?

I haven't been able to find a single available seat on VS/EY.

What grinds my gears is its the lack of reciprocity by NZ when flying A* member airlines. You earn the same flying NZ tin on the SQ FFP but far less the other way around.

But what else is NZ to do? ...since you earn F* all APD flying anyway.

People could earn all the NZ APD they need on their CC spend, then fly a far superior airline, with far better food without having to put up wtih cringe worthy inflight safety videos.

No, online has zero availability. You need to call the contact centre for all bookings.

That's because you cannot book award seats online. At all. You must call the contact centre, like it says on the website.

I've got an Aussie Airpoints account and the new online booking link just ends up on a page saying "Partner Redemptions aren't available in your country".

A bit disappointing but as the rates are so poor anyway it doesn't really make a huge difference.

$2490 return from Jakarta to Frankfurt flying Oman Air's 787 Business Class product, and earn nearly enough Etihad Guest Miles for a one way award flight from WLG to MEL in Business on Virgin Australia.

I'm not sure paying 1750 APD + Taxes and surcharges is good value in comparison :

You can use the new online booking engine to book flights and no extra fees or surcharges apply other than taxes (ie you don't pay the $100 any longer).

I played with it yesterday and found plenty of availability on lots of random routes but nothing in anything but economy class.

Interesting. I saw an article on another website by a certain Steve Biddle that says otherwise ;)

Still, localised Air New Zealand websites all say you must call the contact centre for all bookings. New Zealand's website says you can book simple point to point journeys (i.e. no multi-city, no layovers, no transfers). Probably why xiaotung found nothing when searching.

Bye bye Lufthansa/Asiana/ANA First Class. I will miss you a lot. :(

Hello short-haul economy class! Airpoints just became the Avios of the South Pacific - sector & distance based, and probably more values lie in cow (or Fonterra?) class.

Airpoints' search engine and the programme value Make America (translation: United Mileage Plus) Great Again!