Best way to contact air nz? Call centre clogged
 

I'm trying to lodge recognition upgrades for giftees on my account. I can't do this online. It keeps coming up with "We're sorry, upgrade requests are temporarily unavailable. Please try again shortly."

I've tried ringing through to the call centre to do this. It recognises I've got Elite status. Just get put on hold with horrendous music playing in the background that's so bad and the wait so long that I have to hang up to get rid of the music. I've tried facebook messaging air nz, with the details it then comes up with a chat bot message that the message is too long. Can someone tell me what the best way/time to contact them. I do whatsapp but I don't do twitter. TIA

Website says 1hr wait times. There have been massive numbers of disrupts due to weather in the last 24 hours so that's put wait times back up again.

I totally agree. I wish they'd drop the music so you can leave it on speakerphone dead silent and hear clearly when someone has picked up your call.

Air NZ would do well to invest in a call back functionality, even if they didn't get back to you till the next day. Any decent company has this option as part of it's customer service offering.

They do have a call back feature. Just only use it when queue over X minutes & under Y minutes.

Got to remember when queue isn't less than a few minutes is because of IRROPS so a call the next day isn't going to cut it. Having people wait online filters out the people who are urgent IRROP related vs something that can be handled later, those people will try again once the weather has passed.

I make sure to call in the middle of the night, when most people are still sleeping. When doing so twice during the last couple months my wait has been about 25 minutes or less.

Worked for me last week, called back in 15 mins.

If the number of calls entering the callback queue consistently exceeds the number of calls being answered, you can get into a situation where the callback queue blows out across multiple days, for example. Some places, such as IRD, instead opt to stop taking any further calls.

Air NZ has callback functionality.

The limitations aren't obvious to people who haven't had to design or implement a phone system - callbacks are pointless once call volumes reach a certain point if there aren't sufficient resources. They are not some sort of magic fix

Air NZ suffered high call volumes yesterday and this morning due to bad weather for the last 2 days causing cancellations but by this evening the wait times had dropped right back again.

Getting upset with long wait times when there is clear weather delays doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Is it annoying? Yes. Do I blame Air NZ that the wait times are long? Absolutely not.

I disagree. I actually do blame Air NZ for this. IRROPs are far from a new thing. Why do I need to call to get a change made? It’s very hit and miss if the booking is able to be amended online FOC due to disrupts. This seems like an issue that should be trivial but I ultimately believe comes about due to a lack of investment in their IT systems. Instead let’s just throw some heads at the problem (call centre reps), which is surely more expensive.

Large numbers of calls taken during periods like this with lots of disrupts can be rebooked online - but people still chose to call. Yes there are scenarios where people need to call (and still too many of those) but many are people who are calling when they're unhappy the only option is say a day or two away or they want to call and rant and demand Air NZ pay for all their costs and expenses.

Agree. I recently had an aircraft change and the seat selection was therefore unavailable. Needed to ring to select a seat and after that was processed, the map was opened up.

Seems stupid that I had to ring, and that when an aircraft change is made the seat selection is unavailable.

Yep - bit of a joke, isn’t it?
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ca8d81387.jpeg

The process wouldn't have been complete. You would have been able tosee your seat allocation and then had access to the seating map once the process of reallocating seats had been done (which is normally a manual process).

Just updating, I got through to lodge the RU requests in the end yesterday. For some reason they had switched on the call back function. I’ve never encountered that before. And they actually called me back in 15 minutes. Was not expecting that 🤪.

As others have said if I could have done this online I certainly would have. I know that air nz is under pressure and I think Foran is doing the best job he can (what a nightmare of a job to have) but other airlines around the world are doing much better with their call wait times than NZ.

Ugh it seems AirNZ have now removed the callback option.

So frustrating after waiting an hour on hold last night only for the agent to somehow drop the call when putting back on hold (and didn't call back).

My experience is that mostly I have been on hold, but that sometimes I am offered callback.

Amen, would much prefer the call back
Called today, took about 30 mins for someone to answer AND she was awesome.

The call back is only offered when queue is stable is or decreasing.

If the queue is growing they stop call back as will make the queue worse. Hold works as a filter as people who need to talk stay and no urgent people just give up. Say when weather issues only really want people who are flying not people dealing with future stuff.

Called at 1am the other day and got through in about a minute. The agent didn't resolve my query, but that's another story.

I noticed you said you are elite. Despite the very long queues on the phone at the moment you can email [email protected] - you will get an auto reply saying 10-15 business days for a response though I've noticed they're actually replying in about 30 minutes.

That's a good tip, since in the past (pre-covid) that has taken at least a week for a response.

Overall I think my AirNZ loyalty is definitely being pushed to the limit after 10 years at Elite -- its the combination of paying outrageously high fares with wasting several hours on hold to fly an outdated product with packed lounges.

A lot of these issues have been floating around for years now prior to COVID (see earlier threads here about AKL lounge capacity issues, dated seats, poor IT/self service tools) but it seems they were emphasizing short term profits above all else at the time.

Just a data point. Been trying to ring NZ call centre as their It wouldn’t let me do it online. After two days of trying I got through at 1am…
That elite email isn’t being answered promptly. Just get that canned 10-15 day reply and the WhatsApp app isn’t being replied to either. Prompt service from the call centre used to be one of the real benefits of being NZ Elite. Even that is gone now.

Had a callback offered last night, which came through in 15 minutes.

Was trying to see if they would allow a Gold RU to be applied Y->Works Deluxe on a TG stock ticket - a long shot and a clear ‘no’. So that RU goes in the bin with the others…

I don't think they're allowed to issue upgrades or make changes on other airlines stock.

They can lodge ru requests in NZ at the call centre. I think because my giftee booked through a travel agent I couldnt lodge the request online. It would be good if air nz fixed this problem since the call centre waits are so long.

Though did the travel agent book on NZ ticket stock or another airline's ticket stock?

I have used RU on TA issued tickets no problem, but then again they were on NZ stock.

There are no issues lodging RUs on a flight booked by a TA.

I'm not sure why anybody with a flight booked by a TA would be calling Air NZ directly about a booking - in most cases Air NZ can't touch or make changes because a TA is just that - an agent you've engaged to handle your booking for you.

Are you saying that TA's can lodge an RU for you if, for example, the website was not allowing it?

Yes, and it's sonething I'd expect them to do after all you've chosen them to be your agent and they're getting paid commission for the booking.

As a reference point to the above, QF seem to have resolved their calling centre issues at least for Elites. I have had to call them a few times over the past few weeks to make changes I was not able to do online and answered within a few minutes, and the calls were at different times of the day. They seem to use a South African calling centre for flights that have an international leg.

One does wonder if its all due to their being some genuine competition in Australia from Virgin, keeping Qantas at least somewhat on their toes

Gave up after 90 mins on hold, went to bed and called back 6:30am PST (3:30am NZT) and got through in 2 mins, all I need to do is change an outbound departure date for one my kids, so simple but cannot be done online:
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2693d38bb0.jpg

On hold for 3 hours, 11 minutes. Only want to sort out conflicting info on ANZ website about whether *G (as UA Platinum) V-class (econ) ticket gets 1 checked bag or 2. The ANZ "checked-in-baggage" page and my ticket say 1, but when I booked the ticket the booking page said "...Star Alliance Gold or Koru members are entitled to 1 checked bag in addition to the standard allowance (to a max of 3 checked bags)."

drumroll please, the answer is that *Gold = 2 bags and the info on the eticket and ANZ website are wrong--or misleading, at best.

The ticket will have the standard allowance. On the day of travel passenger could have lower status, same status or higher status, The status on the day of travel determines benefits. Would be complainants galore if a pax booked a ticket, later got higher status and then on day of travel could not receive those increased benefits:- seat selection, lounge access, baggage etc

As already mentioned the ticket only shows the standard baggage allowance for the flight.

On the e-ticket it explains the baggage policy in detail and benefits to all HVC *A / NZ customers with status and that these are in addition to the baggage limit shown.

"Airpoints Elite, Gold, Star Alliance Gold and Koru Club with checked baggage are entitled to one additional piece without charge when travelling in Economy or Premium Economy on Air New Zealand ticketed and operated flights. This offer is not applicable to fares which do not have a baggage allowance e.g. 'seat only' fares"

This should have been pretty clear so I'm not sure what is misleading about the app or website.

It sucks that wait times are so bad but once again yesterday there were massive disrupts which are causing total chaos.
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The source of confusion is this:

1) The text on my e-ticket is different than written above:
Star Alliance Gold members including Air New Zealand Elite and Gold members are entitled to one additional standard piece of checked baggage without charge on all Star Alliance flights, where the ticketed itinerary has two or more Star Alliance airlines.
2) The ticketing webpage(s) at the time of ticketing did not include this caveat.

I'm only flying ANZ, so no extra bag?

You should be entitled to an extra bag per *A protocols.

The full text of my e-tix AKL-SIN-AKL text reads similarly: