In the last few days I booked an Air NZ flight using some of my airpoints and paying for the rest on my credit card...
To my amazement I found it cost me $46.40 Airpoint dollars to do this. There was no pop up box coming up when I did the flight booking where you can opt in or out, just the deduction from my airpoints!
So what does the Air NZ website day about it??? You can read about flexipay at https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/airpoints-flexipay or have a look at the picture...
It's only when you go hunting to find terms and conditions that you find the bit about cost...
https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/airpoints-flexipay-terms-and-conditions
If you are like me just doing a booking as a regular routine it is easy to miss if there are any extra hidden costs. The booking system didn't stop me and say you will be charged extra for this.
The better option for me would have been to pay for one flight with airpoints and the other with my credit card.
Of course it is not the only way to get creamed - the fee per sector for using a credit card is another hidden cost as well!
So be warned - look for hidden costs while booking!
And while I am in whinge mode I accept paying the extra costs when I change a booking.
But what about when it is on the other foot. I have had two recent schedule changes which have necessitated phoning the call centre. The first occasion I tried on three occasions and was told about heavy call demand. The last time I waited after 10.00pm for over half an hour for a twenty five minute change to my flight time. No credit to my airpoints for Air NZ's changing the flight!
The second time it was only a 12 minute wait for an operator but it was the same message... you just don't know how long you have to wait.
Surely Air NZ schedule changes can be sorted on line!
Okay... whinging over and out
It must feel good to have a business where you can screw your customers and there's nothing at all they can do about it. Gotta make those multi million $$ profits somehow!
ReplyDeleteAs a employee of Airnz I bring my family up on income it provides me.
DeleteYour response to Steve's post is a little off the mark, perhaps your efforts could be directed to the correct channels to provide the company feedback to fix.
From my personal experience, any feedback to AirNZ is pretty much ignored.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to get through the heavily-barred portals is media publicity.