Air NZ, where’s our money?
We’ve seen the prime minister’s Covid-19 level 1 ‘‘golden rules’’, which include much hand washing, and sneezing into your elbow. Presumably no-one leaves the toilet (even the men’s ) without washing their hands anymore, and sneezing into our elbows has been programmed into muscle memory. Level 1 is looking very much like normal life, but with better hygiene habits.
We’re good to go, it seems. This will be a massive relief to businesses all around the country, which are desperate to get punters through the doors and spending again – at least those who have the jobs and the dollars to spend.
One of the biggest cries we’ve heard throughout lockdown and levels 2 and 3 is from the hospitality and tourism industries. There’s some enticing advertising going on that reminds us just how beautiful and accessible our own country is.
And they’re right. I don’t need that trip to Sydney I was intending to take last month, or even the once-in-a-lifetime six weeks in Spain I’d spent more than a year saving for. That can, and indeed, will have to wait. In the meantime, there’s the long-dreamed of trip around the South Island to do.
We started the booking process about a month ago and managed to get in on some quite sweet accommodation deals, before the announcement that domestic travel would be allowed in level 2 set the sector’s undies on fire and sent prices up the chimney.
The Queenstown apartment we spent $1200 on, was within a week being advertised at close to $3k for the same number of nights. Phew, we said, nailed that. Just the flights to book now, using the credits Air New Zealand promised when our Sydney flight was cancelled.
As any sensible adult already knows, that kind of hubris is rarely rewarded for long.
If we’d known at that moment about experiences like the one Alexa Bell had when she tried to use her Air New Zealand credits, we might not have jumped into the process with such naivete.
Bell had thousands of dollars tied up in unusable international flights, but saw a silver lining – she would take her family of nine to Queenstown instead. She was rightly horrified when told she was only allowed to rebook for herself. No transfer of the credit to other passengers, even family, was allowed.*
She then shelled out about $400 per couple to make the dream family holiday happen.
Little did we know then, though. Here’s how my partner’s conversation with Air New Zealand went (I have paraphrased for brevity).
Hello, I have credits from a cancelled ‘‘Works’’ flight to Sydney, I’d like to book for Queenstown on (x) date please.
‘‘Certainly ma’am. Of the $220 you spent per traveller, $89 is available for you to use for Queenstown.’’
Pardon? But the flight cost me $220?
‘‘Yes, but only $89 of that is the actual ticket. You can’t have the ‘Works’ part of that back because we don’t offer ‘Works’ on domestic flights.’’
But I paid. ‘‘Yes ma’am. You could use part of it to make your ticket a fully flexi ticket?’’ I don’t need a fully flexi ticket, I know when I want to fly. What about the rest of the money? ‘‘That was for international taxes and levies.’’ I’m not flying internationally, so can I have that back please?
"We can send you a form to fill out to apply to have that refunded.’’
Great, can you send that now?
‘‘No, you have to wait until after you fly to Queenstown.’’
Why not now?
‘‘Because it might be needed just in case there are local taxes and/or levies to pay.’’
Are there taxes and/or levies on domestic flights?
‘‘No ... ’’
Where is my money?
This all sounded fishy, so my partner politely asked the customer service operator to go and carefully check that with his boss, while I sat with eyebrows raised on the other side of the table. Two or three minutes later he was back on the line, confirming what he’d told us was correct.
We gave up and booked new flights and I know we are lucky we could afford to do so. Others are not so fortunate and need the money Air New Zealand is holding in ‘‘credits’’ to just, I dunno, get by in the Covid age.
My experience and Alexa Bell’s experience appear to fly in the face of the advice from Air New Zealand officials like Cam Wallace, who enraged a heap of people with his interview on RNZ on Tuesday. Wallace said the airline could not afford to fully refund passengers without risking dipping into its $900 million Government line of credit, and potentially risking jobs as a result.
I have some sympathy for that. What I cannot swallow is his claim, later in the same interview, that the airline was doing all it could to be fair.
‘‘We are trying to do that by providing flexibility like we’ve never provided before for our customers,’’ Wallace told Checkpoint’s Lisa Owen. ‘‘And that is the length of time they can use the credits, the places they can use the credits, and they will be able to retain the value of the credits. We’ve tried to be fair.’’
Have they? I asked Air New Zealand this week whether they knew where the remaining $140 or so in ‘‘international taxes and/or levies’’ from our Sydney tickets is. I know it has definitely not already been spent; airlines do not pay airports and border costs and the like, until the point of departure.
A few hours later, a spokesperson from Air NZ told me ‘‘a mistake’’ had been made, and we should have been refunded the taxes. She also told me credit terms and conditions had been updated ‘‘in the past month’’ to allow ‘‘Works’’ charges to now be refunded as part of the ticket price. She would not tell me the date that part of the policy was updated.
Like so many others I’m left confused and disillusioned, so I went to an expert for help; Stuff travel reporter Brook Sabin. Turns out he shares my concern.
The airline is renowned for innovative thinking, he said, and should have had a solution worked out quickly.
‘‘Something simple, such as two options: one, a transfer of your fare into Airpoints dollars, with a 20 per cent bonus to incentivise people to take this option. So, if I’d paid $1000 for a ticket, I could have the option to have $1200 Airpoints dollars.
‘‘Or two, a refund. I just can’t understand why a company that is a world-leader in technology hasn’t come up with a simple solution that incentivises people to keep their cash with the airline, by choice.’’
As for being refused our taxes back on request, for a trip we haven’t taken? ‘‘That’s outrageous. If a government agency like Customs or Auckland Airport is refusing to give the money back to Air NZ, that’s shameful. If Air New Zealand is keeping the taxes, despite not having to pay them, that’s scandalous.’’
(Well, I already know Auckland Airport doesn’t have it, see above.)
The airline’s spokesperson said she did not know how many people had asked for, and been denied their taxes back or how much in dollar terms the company was holding from those cancelled flights, and could not access that information before publication of this column.
So here we are, as a team of five million, wanting to do what we can to carry local businesses back to profitability on our shoulders. Wanting to do what we’re being asked to do, which is use our dollars for domestic travel, and in a lot of cases having no choice but to do so with Air New Zealand.
‘‘We want people to be proud of Air New Zealand in the future,’’ Wallace claimed.
But if Air New Zealand still wants our love, right now it’s got a way to go to really earn it. *Air New Zealand confirmed they had changed their policies on Friday, June 5 to allow credits to be used for passengers other than the original customer.
If Air New Zealand is keeping the taxes, despite not having to pay them, that’s scandalous.