This may be something to do with married fares that I cannot understand but I could not find a recent thread to post the question in.

I was looking to fly CGK-DUD and in the recent past this was not offered by Air NZ. However it is now being sold, and starts at $1062 and involves:

CGK-SIN on SQ
SIN-AKL on NZ
AKL-DUD on NZ

I have been making a habit of searching for the same fares for AKL to see how much I'm being charged for the domestic add-on, and found a bunch of fares starting at $899 for CGK-AKL. However instead of going through SIN on SQ, they instead go

CGK-DPS on GA
DPS-AKL on NZ

What's going on here and why can't I access the cheaper flights through DPS/AKL? NZ291 arrives early in the morning and can connect to any number of domestic flights AKL-DUD.

CGK-DUD fares at $1062 were few and far between but there was widespread availability for the same period for CGK-AKL at $899.

When I checked, PVG, SIN, and HKG flights were all only +$80 when flying from/to DUD instead of AKL, adding to the pain of the situation above.

Welcome to the fairly hopeless AirNZ booking tool.
Can I assume you are trying to build these using the multi-city tool ?

Pricing will be determined by the fare loaded for various fare classes, and I think this is where the GA vs SQ differential lies. NZ seems to like to offer �cheap� options using non-alliance and so non-Airpoints earning. Some flight WLG-BKK see the final sector to BKK on either a non-earning fare class on TG or SQ (under NZ codeshare), or cheap on CX.

In some cases I have had to AirNZ call or use our Corp TA to stitch together what I require. Example being a return from the US - AirNZ only offered a tight flight on Alaskan IAD-LAX, despite there being UA flights and no matter how many options were attempted (IAD-WLG, IAD-LAX-WLG, IAD-AKL-WLG etc). There was around a $300 increase in cost for that flight.

thanks TK

I didn�t think this would be about married fares in my limited understanding.

while I did end up booking multi-city (as open jaw), the problem exists when booking return.

I was searching DUD-CGK return then AKL-CGK return in order to compare pricing. This is how I noticed the difference.

I guessed that if I forced the issue with Air NZ or asked a TA that something might be possible but instead I just worked around it.

My outbound one-way WLG-AKL-SIN-BKK was booked (mid-2025) in biz J $2650, with the SIN-BKK in Y on SQ under NZ codeshare. This was best SP/$ earn as other options +/- 2 days were $1000 more, so I went with it.

A few month later when re-checking options, I noted that using the multi-city tool and travelling 2 days later, saw the same routing/price but with a TG sector in biz (Z) now available as an option (wasn�t previously). I called and paid the change fee as the additional SPs (and comfort) were more than covered by the $60. Service fee waived as I could not do online.

Might I suggest setting aside the time to learn ITA Matrix. It accesses the GDS system directly and has the flexibility to let you build exactly what you want, if it exists at all. It then spits out the ticketing code sequence that you can give to any travel agent for them to process the ticket for you. It's great for forcing certain city pairs, carriers, and classes, and varying all those withina ticket in terms of timing and class. Very useful and powerful tool that Google do almost nothing to let people know it exists.

I second this suggestion. Links:

https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

alternate old version
https://oldmatrix.itasoftware.com/

tutorial
https://thepointsguy.com/airline/ita-matrix-tutorial/

thanks. On that note about Google, does Google flights itself use ITA Matrix and can that avoid the need to learn it myself?

edited as I would still need the information required to actually book if a desired flight sequence existed

I believe Google Flights uses ITA behind the scenes, but it is designed as a simple interface for most folks.

ITA Matrix is a much more powerful/useful tool once one becomes familiar with using it. Yes, 99% of the time an airline�s booking tool will provide a simple and effective method for flights - but for the tricky stuff sometimes a TA/broker is needed to construct the fare.

I have only used it once �in anger� to provide a TA with a specific fare construction in specific fare classes (once I satisfied myself). Saved them time as no �back and forth� over options!