I have a pending RU and APD upgrade on a flight I booked about 350 days in advance, Elite, Elite partner and child. I had really hoped it would clear early given the plane looked 100% empty but no such luck.

Not sure if its worth calling call centre or just wait it out.

With 3 people of the PNR it will not clear automatically. The robot will simply skip it.

You will need to call, and check for R class and then see what can be done (I suspect nothing unless the child is a lap infant).

i put in for 2 RU for AKL to NAN 3-4 months ago for Jan 26.. still waiting have rung twice for other issues... booked the same route for April last week and used the Elite AP upgrade and was sucessful straight away... using the RU really is a lottery, definetly wouldn't risk it on a long haul...

Elite APD Upgrades are treated the same and pull from the same R class inventory.

Jan still tail end of Summer holidays so guess plane full and other already have used the R class inventory. April guessing before school hols & public holidays so R class still available and got them when applied.

Every thing you described send to be working as documented.

Is it what we want? No. But it is working as documented.

Just call AirNZ before booking and check whether R class (for biz) is available or not. If it is, up to 2 pax on a PNR will clear immediately (for Elite). Otherwise it is a wait.

Thanks for that, hes not lap hes his own seat. We got lucky a year or so ago with upgrade confirmed about 8 weeks before but might call and try my luck as well this time. Worst I can get is a no I guess.

If the route is TT/pacific, then possibly there may be >2 R available. If the case then staff may be able to clear them manually.

My understanding is that for long-haul, only 2 R is initially released. More can be released later, and of course from T-7.

Its AKL to Honolulu, last time we got our upgrade 7 days before from memory so T-7 makes sense for a larger release.

T-7days is when they do the big evaluation and start to consider gold, silver & one ups.

It is in the documentation as the evaluation time. Nothing secret about t-7

Looking to book NAN next Nov. Well after school holidays and in the down period between those holidays and Christmas.

No R class released for any dates from 1 Nov>. Dummy bookings show seat maps wide open in Business.

If I book now and apply elite APD upgrades (or an elite RU), do we know if the robot picks this up once R class is released? Straightforward one pax in booking. Also assuming no-one else has already done this.

And rather than phoning every day, do we have any gut feeling when R class might be released?

I�ve done this at return date -355 for years and never met the no R class released before.

Not every flight will have R class loaded.

The robot should pick up R class that is released and sweep up the pending Elite RUs at the front of the queue.

No idea when R gets released on long haul, and usually 2x R . TT seems to always get an allocation of more than this. Not sure on Pacific flights, but perhaps there is some aircraft allocation uncertainty so far out�?

Could be uncertainty - it�s currently down as a v4 789 as was our return this year. Which was downgraded to a 321 after irrops earlier in the week affecting RAR initially. But you can buy business outright so 🤷‍♀️

Thanks for the summary, OP, very helpful. The ways of the Robot (and indeed the whole system) are indeed mysterious. Quick question in case anybody knows - Elite booked LAX-AKL for 10 days time on a night with 2 flights, and 16 22 BP seats available on one of the leased aircraft (3 class). Booked Econ on this flight., using 2 x RU to upgrade. I�ve been offered a decent fare to UG to PE (and then lodge a single class UG). Question is - how does the Robot see a single vs double cabin Elite UG? Do I stand a better chance from PE to business? As a data point for others - I booked AKL-LAX last minute on Boxing Day 4 hrs out from travel PE to business. Confirmed on checkin. NZ aircraft with 20 seats free. Lodged via Robot.

You can't tell if there are more than 9 free seats on a plane. An empty seat on the seat map does not indicate an that the ticket hasn't sold. Not everyone does seat select.