You fly Business Class on LH and TG to AKL and transfer to NZ (all Star Alliance carriers) at AKL onto a domestic service that only offers Economy and Air New Zealand charges you excess baggage on anything over 20kg.
I couldn't believe it either (In fact, I was so pi$$ed off I blogged it - pprune manges the hyperlink - google "you must be from away catch 22 reloaded") so I followed up to point out the sheer lack of logic, given that when you fly from a domestic leg onto an international leg via North America they'll grant you the full allowance.
It turns out (so saith the Domestic Airport Manager) that if THE SYSTEM doesn't recognise the leg as part of a continuous journey (which it won't in my case, because it's an ID ticket with separate booking/listing PNRs) , THE SYSTEM will charge me excess baggage.
The fact that I have a continuous
ticket appears to be irrelevant. THE SYSTEM can't see the physical ticket and THE SYSTEM won't listen to the check-in people, even if they'd care to tell THE SYSTEM.
And this despite the fact that their website declares:
For all flights:
Please note that if part of your itinerary involves travel under the piece system, then the piece system will apply to your whole Air New Zealand journey
Sometimes I seriously wonder whether the inmates really are running the asylum....