What booking class does the domestic leg book into?

Could it be that the booking class is not available on the domestic leg on the dates you select, even though the cheap booking class is available ex AKL?

Booking class totally irrelevant. They are advertising one price form Auckland and another from New Zealand, if the Auckland price is available then the New Zealand price should be available otherwise they may as well just advertise the Auckland price and we take pot luck with the price from elsewhere in NZ as per usual.
it's a real shame that no-one from NZ or a certain government department is a regular on here as I am sure they have channels to bring these things to the attention of management - or do they and no-one higher up cares?

That seems to be the problem, looking at a few dates. On some days the itinerary forces an overnight connection in AKL, and puts pax on the last HKK-CHC flight of the day, which often seems to only have Y availability, which forces the fare into Y for the whole itinerary.
The New Zealand price is available, but is dependent on availability on individual segments. The segments you chose don't have availability for the cheap fares; and I note they are available on other days.

Ah ah, the old chestnut it must be Hokitika to Christchurch.

Look at 7 April to Samoa, from Christchurch $208, from Hokitika $900 - last flight out of Hokitika to Christchurch is $264, so charging $692 to go Hokitika to Christchurch, Hokitika to Auckland on last flight of day is $592, which means that 900 - 592 = $308 for a fare from Auckland they say is only $158 (Auckland to Apia). Yes heard it all before pay a bit more for misconnects etc - not what the advertising indicates.
A lot of the time it is cheaper for us to fly to Aus via Auckland than it is to fly via Christchurch even though we have to fly to Christchruch to get to Auckland

Quick look elsewhere and ranges from $617 to $258 for Hokitika to Apia, actually get a choice of flights out of Hokitika unlike NZ site which does not give that choice!!

Looking at flight availability, that is exactly what it is. If you have information to suggest otherwise, please share it.

Because the Y only availability on HKK-CHC forces the whole itinerary to a Y fare which results in the total price of $900.

I would hope your friendly travel agent should be able combine these so that a Y sector on 1 domestic leg can be mixed with the lower ex-AKL booking class. Not always possible to do what we want online.

Eg - try and seat 3 pax on the 1 PNR in different spots around the aircraft....

Let's look at the limit case regarding fare buckets. If one of the domestic sectors is totally zeroed out, should NZ still sell you the cheap fare?

And the limiting case regarding individual sectors; cheap single domestic sectors are continuously advertised, but I often don't get to book those as they are all sold out. Is that unfair?

Sure, perhaps NZ could load [more] inventory that's exclusively combinable with these cheap fares (and eat any additional arbitrage opportunity that creates) - but that's completely related to booking class.

Problem is that even when they were loaded the other day (I checked ~5am, when they were loaded about midnight), I personally couldn't find anything at the deal price from 5-6 NZ destinations across 5-6 different dates through out the advertised period. It appears they havn't loaded any into their inventory

NZ Trout - answer is yes. If you are going to put out a special you are required to have a reasonable amount of the special available, as you will see from Brenrox, within hours of it coming out some places had nothing.
Other point is why other sites can do it for between $250 odd and $650 odd when NZ cannot.
Realise this does not affect the majority of folks here, but I still ask why do they do it and why do they get away with it. The Comcom is not particularly helpful either, and like I said must be someone here from NZ who is willing to front up and explain.

Now this:
AMENDMENT TO SHORTLIFE SALE FARES TO SAMOA, NORFOLK ISLAND AND FIJI
Air New Zealand wishes to advise of a fare reduction of the Shortlife Economy Class sale fares to Samoa, Norfolk Island and Fiji (PBAGP37, LWRKP37, LDLXP37) effective immediately for sales to 15 Mar 2011. Below are details of the Seat + Bag Economy fares available. The Works and Works Deluxe pricing is included on the attached fare sheets.

To Samoa
Ex AKL Seat + Bag – PBAGP37 $188 ow via CRS ($178 ow via internet) plus airport & govt costs $26
Ex Rest of NZ Seat + Bag – PBAGP37 $238 ow via CRS ($223 ow via internet) plus airport & govt costs $26
Travel Period: 28 Mar – 30 Jun 2011 with the exception of:
AKL-APW: travel not permitted: 13 - 27 Apr 11
APW-AKL: travel not permitted: 20 - 30 Apr 11

To Norfolk Island
Ex AKL Seat + Bag – PBAGP37 $130 ow via CRS ($122 ow via internet) plus airport & govt costs $109
Ex Rest of NZ Seat + Bag – PBAGP37 $180 ow via CRS ($170 ow via internet) plus airport & govt costs $109
Travel Period: 27 Mar – 25 Sep 2011 with the exception of:
AKL-NLK: travel not permitted: 17 Apr – 15 May 11
NLK-AKL: travel not permitted: 01 – 22 May 11

To Fiji
Ex AKL Seat + Bag – PBAGP37 $163 ow via CRS ($153 ow via internet) plus airport & govt costs $26
Ex Rest of NZ Seat + Bag – PBAGP37 $213 ow via CRS ($203 ow via internet) plus airport & govt costs $26
Travel Period: 13 Mar – 31 May & 01 – 30 Sep 2011 with the exception of:
AKL-NAN: travel not permitted: 13 - 23 Apr 11
NAN-AKL: travel not permitted: 24 Apr – 02 May 11

Booking Class: International: P Class (PBAGP37), L Class (LWRKP37 and LDLXP37) NZ Domestic - please use V class
Restrictions: 1. Card Payment Fee: A fee of $5 per person per one way journey applies to card payments
2. No child discounts with the exception of LWRK/LDLX which are adult fares less $10 one way
3. ^ Where travel is operated by one of our codeshare partners only The Works product will be available.


Wingtips 1991

Yes, that's fair enough.

I guess that's a downfall for NZ having gone with some heavy customisation on their web booking engines. They're obviously following a different set of rules to the third party booking engines, which can only follow the published fare rules.

I wouldn't think it's a Comcom issue unless they are knowingly and repeatedly putting out specials that can't possibly be booked. Keep on with NZ if there is genuinely a consistent issue with lack of cheaply combinable inventory. Talk personally to someone higher up the chain if you're not getting a sensible answer from the lower ranks.

V class is a reasonably higher than P/L classes, imagine how tight availability would be if the domestic legs had to book into P or L classes.

Off the top of my head, V is what the Tasman legs book into for longhaul Economy flights to/from Australia.

Problem appears to be fixed now, as well as slightly lower prices. I tried CHC, IVC,ZQN & AKL to APW and 'deal' flights available were identical. I did want to be able to say that if the deal is available ex AKL, it is available from elsewhere in NZ.....But...wayoutwest, you might not want to try from HKK....I think they are just trying p*** you off now

[QUOTE=brenrox;16006969]Problem appears to be fixed now, as well as slightly lower prices. I tried CHC, IVC,ZQN & AKL to APW and 'deal' flights available were identical. I did want to be able to say that if the deal is available ex AKL, it is available from elsewhere in NZ.....But...wayoutwest, you might not want to try from HKK....I think they are just trying p*** you off now[/QUOTE/]

You so right.
The whole world is against us from the Coast.
Too much time wasted driving to CHC so pefer to fly - but *******

Just looked at 4 April and $900 from HKK, $208 from CHC and $216 (full flexi) HKK to CHC.

Oh well, NZ do now have someone looking at it but probably too late as this has been an ongoing problem for at least 13 months that I and NZ are aware of.

Quick Question - "Your tier anniversary is coming up on Tue Mar 29 2011." - I rang Air NZ to ask to see if after that date i will get my 2 x Gold U/G vouchers, however they have told me that i won't until 1st May.

I said that is fine as i am only 54 SP off GE i will probably hit this in April/May, the CSR said to hit GE i must get 54 SP prior to the 29th of March.

I asked the Question about SP Expiring this month, not allowing me to get it, and with the SP expiring i would probably then hit GE in MAY, the reply was your 'tier' works on the past 355 days at which point they review to see if you will make GE.

So now i am just confused! can anyone shed some light on this (those who have ticked over from GE to GE or G to G (or a combo)