Clarification of stopovers/transfers on *A Reward
 

I'm a little confused as to the situation regarding transfers on a Star Alliance reward.

Essentially what I want to do is fly on NZ from SYD to one of the pacific islands via AKL.

The relevant rules are as follows:
_________
Stopovers
-No stopovers are allowed for awards <= 50.000 (E), 75.000 (B) and 100.000 (F) miles
·1 stopover on entire journey if award is 70.000–120.000 (E), 105.000-180.000 (B) and 140.000-240.000 (F) miles

-Stopover counts as connecting flight
_________

Then it goes on to say...

__________
Connecting Flights
·1 transfer in each direction allowed for awards of 25.000–30.000(E), 35.000-45.000 (B) and 50.000-60.000 (F) miles
__________

Is it just me or do the rules seem to be contradicting themselves? You are allowed one transfer in each direction, this transfer counts as a stopover and you are not permitted a stopover.

(This is based on the applicable reward fare for an intra Australia/Pacific award)

Is someone in the know and if so could they clarify this please?

Best Regards

Bradley

A stopover is always a connecting flight, but a connecting flight is not always a stopover.

It's a stopover if you stay at the transfer point for more than 24 hours. (The exception being that you can stay for more than 24 hours and not count as a stopover, as long as you're taking the next available flight to your destination.)*

For your example, yes you can use the NZ award to fly SYD-AKL-Pacfic Island - as long as you don't stay in Auckland for more than a day.

* To explain the exception in parentheses above: NZ flies AKL-PPT on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. If you flew from SYD-AKL on a Wednesday, and were booked on the next connecting flight to PPT (on Friday), it would not be a stopover, even though you would be in AKL for 2 days, because you are on the next flight. Convincing a reservation system/person to book it may be an issue though.

In any case if you don't want to stopover in AKL, that's a moot point - you can certainly transfer there in both directions on your 30,000 mile award.

Conrad