Flexible Tickets
 

Maybe a moot point but looking at flights from NZ next year a number of carriers are offering fully flex tickets across all classes and at reasonable pricing to boot. Alas AIRNZ is not among them, would have thought could be an option for them to gain some forward booking momentum and boost cash reserves.

For domestic bookings on NZ, I now almost exclusively book flexitime or flexidate tickets. Yes it is $40-60 dearer than a seat only ticket however the flexibility to:-
- just change flights because often I will book the cheapest flight as late into the day as possible and then switch to my 'planned' flight on the day (sometimes even finding it is cheaper to do that anyway if the flight I actualy wanted had a seat only fare >$60 more than flexitime/flexidate on another flight)
- cancel trips alltogether (e.g. if discussing dates with a friend I'll often book the flights right away and then later on when plans are eventually confirmed I find it was cheaper to book earlier with the flexidate than it was to book later with a seat only

Because of my strategy I was able to get cash refunds for my travel bookings from NZ which is another worthwhile benefit...

However this option is not availiable on international bookings on NZ's website. This is a shame as I'm actually looking at QF for some trans-tasman trips I will take when COVID-19 blows over. Yes, QF (under normal fare conditions i.e. pre COVID-19) offers/(ed) a range of options including fully refundable--but even their cheapest fare offers partial reufunds at the very least. NZ on the other hand seem to be no refunds on the entire range of economy tickets (as even when I force the engine to price flights in very high fare buckets it still says no refund). I suspect only the likes of biz class tickets have flexibility. So doesn't make sense for me to spend a good amount of money on a NZ ticket, when I can spend the same (or even less) on QF and get more flexiblity. :(

But then again COVID-19 may change things over the next couple of months/years/decades... Maybe we'll go back to all tickets being flexi? #wishfulthinking

Air NZ do offer the option of full fare flexibility on international flights as you progress through the booking process on line.

There certainly is an option.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7c0f69d3af.png

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a64f2c13bb.png

Yes the "extras" page has a tick box option on all international flights to make a ticket flexible.

Thanks for the info, I stand corrected.

For new readers to this forum, only the FlexiDate fare is refundable. The FlexiTime fare is not refundable.

I have only ever used the FlexiDate fare to implement the strategy described by KiwiSurfer for this reason. Others have been caught out on the refundability difference.

Finally, and I have done it, booking the cheapest FlexiTime or FlexiDate fare (say late at night) and hoping to move to a better timed flight can fail if that preferred flight is sold - you do need to ensure the initial flight timing actually meets requirements. I was caught out, just once. After that, I will usually stay up to 00:01 and make the change asap.

ha, my alarm is set for 00:00 so I am one minute ahead of you!!! Most of the time this works, not always, almost got caught out last week, had booked a 0715 am AKL-CHC, when I woke at midnight the only available flight was 1800 which was later than I wanted but I got one of the last seats. Would not have fancied that 5.30am wake up to get the 0715!

A couple of weeks ago using this strategy (flexi date) I booked flights for every week between August and December CHC-AKL-CHC and managed to get roundtrip at $223.60 including all card fees etc. and decent flight times. Very good fares