Website Problems/Issues thread
 

Hi Everyone,

Paul Harper aka 'Air NZ On Line' from the NZ WebSite Team has joined FT. Rather than questions being asked in different threads eg Air NZ in the News, Paul has asked if we can create a separate thread to sync all the questions into 1.

Does anyone know how to make this a sticky

This thread has now been made a sticky.

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SanDiego1K
Senior Moderator

Thanks SanDiego1K.

I'll start. Why is there limited or no ability to access your accounts for those who don't have flash installed?

Also, it would be nice to be able to cancel bookings via myairnz - currently you have to ring up which isn't a major inconvenience but would be nice to have the online option..

USA PE specials.
 

Excellent timing.

Yesterday (05/07) they had PE specials to LAX and SFO for $3125 or there abouts sale ending 15/07 and for travel in July-Aug. But when you searched for the flights the prices were all $3700 or more. Now today the special has completly gone.

What happened?

Excellent question. I can't use the Air New Zealand website to book on my work computer, and if I want to book flights while at work I have to use the houseoftravel website.

My pet peeve is how any changes made to a booking through the Air NZ call centre locks me out from seeing that booking on myAirNZ after the change has been made.

Quite often I book return domestic or Tasman flights ex-AKL on the same booking reference but need to cancel the outbound (i.e. I only fly the second leg into AKL). But cancelling the first leg (and getting a refund for that first leg) somehow causes myAirNZ just not to display the second leg at all. I'm a seat shifter so like having the ability to change my seat a few hours before heading to the airport if I see a better seat having freed up. Surely there must be some way of keeping all bookings visible on myAirNZ even though changes have been made via call centre?

Thanks Paul :)

Paul, welcome to FT and thank you for participating. Air NZ has a lot right with it, however I have a couple of gripes about the Canadian version of the site.

Gripe1. The choice of cities to book from online is very limited. To book from another city, one has to call your call centre, explain the inability to book online and justify not having to pay the call centre fee. I have had to escalate this issue to a supervisor several times. This is annoying for the customer as well as a waster of resources for you.

Gripe 2. A maximimum number of four can be booked on NZ.com when the booking includes a connection on Air Canada.

I'd like to see some type of Status Points calendar on myairnz to show when they are going to drop off. Sometimes it's time consuming to find past travel details and then work out the date the points are going to disappear and how many will drop off.

How about allowing Airpoints members to book Star partner flights online using Airpoints? Currently the fee of $100 per booking by calling your contact centre is ridiculous and there is no way to avoid this.

Hi, we do make basic account info and functionality available for Airpoints members without Flash installed with your browser. When you login to myairnz, without Flash you'll see a page entitled 'Get Flash Player' - at the bottom of this page you'll see the sentence "You can view an accessible menu of links."

Follow this link and you'll see the info and services available to you.

Cheers

Hi there,

Only some bookings can be cancelled online, those which have solely fully refundable fare types in them (i.e. Flexi Plus, Fully Flexi, Global Flexi). So if your booking is able to be cancelled online you will see a 'cancel' button alongside it on the 'My Flight Bookings' page of myairnz.

If your booking has another fare type in there (e.g. a Smart Saver) or is partially flown then you can't cancel online and will have to phone up like you say.

Cheers

Hi hudsy,

These companion fare deals dropped off our list of Blackboard Deals for a few hours, but have now been re-published:
Premium Economy companion fare to LAX
Premium Economy companion fare to SFO
Remember, you need to search for 2 x pax within the stated travel date. Base fare to look out for is $3,000 return to get the stated deal. Use the flexible date search to most efficiently scan for dates when the deal is still available.

Happy shopping.

Hi Shazzadude,

That's a shame having to pay booking fees like that. Sounds like the Air NZ site is blocked as a result of web access policy at your work? I guess the only way around that is to ask for access to be opened up. As an aside, you don't need to have Flash installed to browse the main part of the site or make a booking, including paying with Airpoints Dollars.

Cheers

Really appreciate your responses and effort to come here! It's just another example of what makes you not just a great airline, but a great business also. Businesses in general could learn so much from the initiatives you adopt such as this to get in touch with your customers wants/needs - role models for other businesses some might say.

Thanks, great to know the feedback is appreciated. Still researching some answers so will reply to the latest posts when info is to hand :-)

Hi taupo,

We offer bookings from 28 origin cities in Canada... the latest list of origin cities is here. If there's a city you frequently book from that's not listed please let me know - I'll be more than happy to see if it can be added.

You're 100% correct the max number of pax for an interline booking made online is four - we do this to help ensure availability of the fares we quote. While this remains the case, if you're booking for 5 or more something you can do is make two separate bookings.

Cheers

Thanks. The computers where I had the problem in the past (including NZ lounge computers!) stalled without logging in properly. More recently the computers I've used have had flash and thus worked OK. Good to hear the problem has been fixed.

I'm not sure if it is the same issue as taupo but many times I go to book a fare online at airnz.co.nz only to find the destination is not available (despite being valid for an NZ fare) and quite often end up booking with another airline instead because it is easier.

hi Air NZ Online

i fly to TPE (Taipei, Taiwan) often and always annoy me to pay for the service fee. any chance that can be added to online booking?

there are (lots of) direct flight between China and Taiwan now, any chance for AKL-CHINA-TPE. particularly PVG maybe PEK.

why not make online booking eligible to earn flybuys points?

thanks^

Hi, while we offer around 80 international destinations for booking on airnz.co.nz, it doesn't always make sense to offer some destinations. For example when we can't reach a destination with feasible connections to/from Air NZ services we would choose to not offer that destination online. Other airlines may sometimes offer these destinations where their timings and connections are better.

I'm referring to destinations which have Air NZ fares.

Hi zqsn5678,

Thanks for the comment - we'll look into it. As you say, there could be some good connections to/from TPE over China, and perhaps NRT. Hopefully most days of the week!

Cheers

A classic for me is Bangkok, where even though Air NZ has a fare , the flights can't be booked online, thus requiring use of a travel agent.

The routing is either via HKG on NZ AKL-HKG then TG/NZ codeshare for HKG-BKK; or AKL-BKK direct codeshared with TG.

I had no problem being advised of the reciprocal NZ fare ex-BKK via HKG by the Tourism NZ office when I was working in Bangkok!

I appreciate that the direct flight codeshare option is perhaps better suited to distribution to Travel Agents via GDS, but do think that where a fare is predominately on NZ then there is significant advantage to Air NZ in making these routings available online.

Just a view...

On a similar vein, for flights between AKL and VLI. The Wed and Sat flights are code share NZ/NF on NF metal, the Sun flight is code share NZ/NF on NZ metal. You can book an NF seat on the NF website for all three flights, but why oh why can you ONLY book for the Sunday flight on the NZ website? It means that there are two perfectly good flights with NZ flight numbers that you can't book on the NZ website. Funny kind of way to market your flights....

I don't see why it's an issue to offer codeshare flights. I think if Air NZ has a fare for the route, it may as well be bookable online. As long as it's made clear that it is a codeshare (so no one gets a surprise when they expect NZ and get say TG instead). Certainly would avoid fees and extra workload of calling.

Iad-akl-syd-iad
 

Hi Paul. You're just the person I was looking for. My husband and I are going to NZ for our honeymoon in end Oct/early November, flying IAD to AKL and stopping over in SYD on our return. We're happy that our holiday is within the time period of your sale fare, but we were very disappointed to learn that we would not earn any points except on the IAD-LAX leg.
That sucks big time. It's such a long journey and not to earn any points seems such a lot to forgo. Any suggestions? We can only afford to fly economy.
Thanks,
Vineeta

I would imagine he will tell you something along the lines of join air new zealand airpoints:p

Points on Air New Zealand
 

We're already members of the Star Alliance through United, and participate in all the other FF programs of domestic airlines. But, I'm not sure it makes sense for us to join Air New Zealand airpoints for a one-time trip to New Zealand. Nor do we expect to do much travel in Asia.

or buy up to a higher mileage-earning fare.

Discount fares vs. FF points
 

True, we could do that, but that would make the holiday that much more expensive. It looks like we may be able to travel on Qantas for a similar fare, and get points, as well as more baggage allowance (2 bags of up to 50 lbs each) opposed to just one bag of 50 lbs on Air NZ. The only catch is there's a 7 hour layover at LAX on the way back.
Vineeta

Since I don't know exactly what dates you're travelling, the results I got may not be 100% applicable for you, but it still shows that points earning fares do not have to be that much more expensive.

I used the following dates: IAD-AKL October 22, AKL-SYD November 5, SYD-IAD November 16.

IAD-AKL-SYD-IAD on Qantas ($1700):
IAD-AKL-SYD booked in Qantas N fare class, no miles for AA or BA FF accounts for LAX-AKL-SYD operated by QF, IAD-LAX on AA should earn 100% AA miles.
SYD-IAD Qantas O fare class, 50% miles on AA & 25% on BA for SYD-LAX on QF, LAX-IAD should earn 100% miles on AA.

IAD-AKL-SYD-IAD on NZ ($1800):
All flights booked in NZ L fare class. No miles on UA for the LAX-AKL-SYD NZ operated flights, but should UA earn miles for the IAD-LAX and SYD-SFO-IAD flights operated by UA.

IAD-AKL-SYD-IAD on NZ ($2000):
IAD-AKL-SYD in NZ W fare class, 100% miles on UA MP for IAD-LAX on UA and LAX-AKL-SYD on NZ)
SYD-IAD booked in NZ L fare class, but should earn 100% miles for UA members since the flights are operated by UA SYD-SFO-IAD.

So it looks like you could earn 100% miles on all flights by paying a little extra when flying NZ, and even if booking in NZ L class for all flights you can still earn miles on most flights. The Qantas flights, on the other hand, earn no miles or partial miles.

Just looked at the companion fares to LAX and yes use the fares over a week as there is abig difference between some days but can be done as base fare of $1500 pp ew ex CHC.
Silly me thought what can I get from the provinces - well add another $457.50 pp ew and you can fly from the provinces (SI only). Appears to be a major fault when cost of getting to CHC is 1/3 the cost of CHC to LAX - may need looking at.

Good work. From her post in another thread:

"We're hoping to fly out from IAD to AKL on or around Nov. 3, and spend one-day, one-night in Sydney on our way back, returning around Nov. 28."

Hi Vineeta,

I see other followers of this forum have offered good advice on how you could earn UA or US miles on your trip - this is a very helpful bunch!

That's not such a bad idea. While you may not have any need to use the Airpoints for more Air NZ flights in the next few years, you may be able to earn enough to redeem on a UA, US or CO flight instead. If you want to join Airpoints, send me an email and I can give you a promo code to waive the regular NZD $50 per person joining fee.

Whatever you decide to do, best wishes for your upcoming wedding and have a sensational honeymoon down under! And we'd love to see you travel with Air New Zealand.

Hi there,

Thanks for the feedback. This is a known problem where partially refunded bookings do not subsequently appear (as they should) in myairnz. My IT colleagues are putting this under the microscope with a view to getting this fixed. We don't have any timeframes yet, but it's definitely on our radar.

Cheers

Hi Thai-Kiwi,

Thanks - we'll also look to add BKK as a destination you can book on airnz.co.nz. We'll look at all routing options - via HKG will be most likely.

Cheers

Hi Paul,

Is there any reason why you couldn't open up the booking engine to allow you to enter any airport code and have the system find the best route to get there on NZ and partner airlines?

Hi, the reason only the Air NZ operated flights (on Sundays and Tuesdays) are sold on airnz.co.nz is because we are not yet able to issue an electronic ticket with Air Vanuatu (NF) operated sectors. Every itinerary we sell on airnz.co.nz is ticketed and emailed instantly, so online we are unable to offer sectors on other airlines (codeshare or not) if interline ET capability is yet to be put in place.

Air NZ in fact has interline ET capability with the large majority of airlines of interest to our customers. For example if you search AKL NOU online, you'll see Air NZ operated flights available 2 days of the week and Air Calin operated flights another two days of the week.

Hi zkcow,

Many destinations involving codeshare flights are available for booking on airnz.co.nz, including cities in North America, Europe and South Africa. As you have probably gleaned from my earlier replies in this thread, there are some exceptions so there is not quite 100% coverage of all codeshare flights on our website.

FYI in addition to featuring codeshare partners online, we also sell tickets to some other destinations with interline partners, i.e. when all flight numbers have the operating airline code.

Cheers