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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 1:41 pm
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NZ availability!

I keep reading on here how hard it is to book flights on Air New Zealand.

I just booked, for a friend, a coach ticket PHL-SFO-AKL, AKL-SYD, SYD-SFO-PHL, on my first choice dates (to align with my own travel on AKl-SYD, SYD-SFO). ^^

The hardest part of the entire trip to book was PHL-SFO. He's stuck with an all day lover in SFO.

She told me that there was "plenty" of availability on SFO-AKL, for most of August.
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 1:49 pm
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Coach is relatively easy on *A. The whining about lack of award availability on NZ and other *A carriers is usually in regards to first or business class.
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 1:50 pm
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Originally Posted by snic
Coach is relatively easy on *A. The whining about lack of award availability on NZ and other *A carriers is usually in regards to first or business class.
The woman I talked to mentioned that C was available on the NZ flight as well, but it was not on any of the other flights (including domestic F) or the return UA flight from SYD.
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 1:54 pm
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Originally Posted by eap
The hardest part of the entire trip to book was PHL-SFO. He's stuck with an all day lover in SFO.
I'm not sure being stuck with an all-day lover is the worst thing.
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 2:01 pm
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Originally Posted by snic
Coach is relatively easy on *A. The whining about lack of award availability on NZ and other *A carriers is usually in regards to first or business class.
It also depends on the time of year. August is not exactly peak season for NZ. If he had tried Jan it would've been quite difficult in Y.
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 7:32 pm
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Hi eap.

I learnt pretty quickly on here that most people who use awards fly business (C) or first (F). Not many of us hard-core coach/economy flyers left!

I have found availability to the US from Australia to be quite easy on United and Air NZ, but then it gets real tricky to connect to your destination city. It can be a real mixed bag depending on where you want to go.
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 7:40 pm
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Originally Posted by UnitedSkies
I'm not sure being stuck with an all-day lover is the worst thing.
Oh my! In with a post before being moved to OMNI.

I too have been able to find decent NZ availability in C ... and noticed plenty of Y. I'm booked to CNS and ZQN in NZ C (where offered) in Sep and Oct respectively.

Last edited by im-headed-west; Aug 1, 2008 at 7:48 pm
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 8:18 pm
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Originally Posted by im-headed-west
I'm booked to CNS and ZQN in NZ C (where offered) in Sep and Oct respectively.
Wow, I'm impressed! When did you book, if you don't mind me asking?
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 8:32 pm
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Originally Posted by lucky9876coins
Wow, I'm impressed! When did you book, if you don't mind me asking?
Same here! This inventory has all but disappeared. Even with BD miles I haven't found much NZ TPac C availability, so I know its not a *net blocking thing.
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 8:34 pm
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Originally Posted by lucky9876coins
Wow, I'm impressed! When did you book, if you don't mind me asking?
Both of these were booked within the last few weeks ... I was pretty happy with the availability. Didn't get all segments on exactly the day I wanted, but that's not unusual for most awards.

For example, though availability may have vanished since, the entire first full week of Oct had atleast one NZ C seat from AKL-LAX/SFO every day of the week ... some days had availability on multiple flights according to ANA.

edited to add: just checked, according to ANA:
Oct 6-17, AKL-LAX/SFO, atleast 1 NZ C all days except 11,12,14
some days had multiple flights

Last edited by im-headed-west; Aug 1, 2008 at 8:49 pm
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 10:17 pm
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On July 6, I booked a RT from SFO-AKL in NZ C for August 28-September 8. At the time, there was plenty of availability on LAX-AKL in C, not so much from SFO-AKL in C. I have heard about the legendary difficulty of getting seats on NZ C, so I jumped on those SFO flights!
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Old Aug 1, 2008 | 10:29 pm
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Originally Posted by UnitedSkies
I'm not sure being stuck with an all-day lover is the worst thing.
In SFO, what you get might be a surprise!
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