Venus flyer traps: Loyalty battle heats up

"This particular dogfight is aimed at capturing the most valuable travellers." David Flynn, Executive Traveller

Air New Zealand is trying to lure highvalue flyers from Qantas and Virgin Australia with privileges from the upper level of its loyalty scheme.

In a sign of intensifying competition, Gold or higher status members in the Australian airlines are being targeted to try Air NZ’S Airpoints Gold status as the two-way transtasman bubble travel is about to start.

In November, Qantas sweetened its loyalty scheme for flyers from rival airline programmes, and Air New Zealand Airpoints members resident in Australia were targeted to switch over.

David Flynn, of Australia-based Executive Traveller, said this was similar to Qantas’ own Fast Track offer, and another shot fired in the airline war across the Tasman. “This particular dogfight is aimed at capturing the most valuable travellers — the frequent flyers who sometimes spend more time in airport lounges than their own lounge rooms — which means they’re big spenders, especially on full-priced flexible fares.”

Qualifying customers will get to try Air New Zealand’s Airpoints Gold tier with lounge access, complementary frequent flyer seating, priority check-in and boarding, priority baggage, additional carry-on and checked baggage allowance and more.

Air NZ loyalty general manager Kate O’brien said it had been a hard year of being disconnected from Australians and now was the time to “roll out the gold carpet” to welcome them.

“We can’t wait to fly customers across the Tasman, so we’re encouraging gold status or higher customers of qualifying airlines to try Air New Zealand,” she said. “There is pent-up demand for transtasman travel and it’s the perfect time for customers to get a taste of our world-class customer experience and reap the benefits of our Airpoints programme. We have lounges across Aotearoa and Australia that our Gold Airpoints members can relax in before a flight.”

After the initial four-month period, accounts will be reviewed to see if those trialling Air NZ have earned 100 status points through travel. the flight information or flicker board there was locked in time for more than a year. It had stopped on March 23 last year, the day Qantas grounded its international flights.

But the airline was quickly building up its operations and the 30 aircraft that were parked up on the airport’s east-west runway last year were all back in the air.

Qantas group domestic capacity is increasing beyond previous estimates to reach 90 per cent of pre-covid levels later in the financial year and Jetstar would exceed 100 per cent due to strong leisure demand.

All Qantas and Jetstar domestic crew are now back at work.