booking Air New Zealand reward flights - tips?

have been trying to book a Business/ UC rewards flight on Air NZ - a companion airline - for January next year, (LAX to AKL) and not getting anywhere with the normal procedure: ring Virgin FC, give dates, wait a day, get rejected ('unconfirmed')... try other dates, wait day, get same result... repeat ad infinitum, etc.

HOWEVER, when I ring air NZ direct, and check availability for their own reward seats on the same dates, there is multiple availability. Any idea whats going on besides FC members being lower on the rung than Air NZ's own members? any ideas how to break this logjam and/or when those reward seats might get freed up to partners rather than reserved for their own f. flyers?

thanks.

oh - cancel this post! - I just got lucky on 4th attempt to book. found a very helpful person at the Virgin who put me on hold while she repeatedly tried, and finally succeeded on my original dates reject 3 times before in last 5 days! most odd, but: yay!

the second nice surprise was the fees + taxes I had to pay - a total of $43.00 for UC miles LAX to AKL. not a mistake apparently!

[Nottingham Nick]

Result - well done.

The moral with VS is often - if at first you don't succeed - try talking to another agent!! [8D][:I]

Nick

quote:Originally posted by Nottingham Nick
Result - well done.

The moral with VS is often - if at first you don't succeed - try talking to another agent!! [8D][:I]

Nick


Sadly, that is SO true Nick. I've resorted to exactly that method countless times. It's as if the staff at the FC just don't actually have all the required knowledge to do their job properly[:?].

actually I found everyone pretty helpful - it was just this one lady who went above and beyond.

whatever she did was good for them too - I would have made dozens more calls, wasting lots of their time besides mine, and now the whole issue is settled and done! so her going the extra mile made all the difference for everyone.