Interesting new clause

[PAXboy]

Paultheparaglider

I'm guessing that what ANZ are doing is charging you the fuel surcharge if you no show

Possible but the surchage is incorporated into the ticket price before you pay.

I appreciate the suggestions that have emerged, when I had made a different point. In short: I have a Virgin Flying Club that I can either use towards an upgrade on ANZ to get out to Auckland (or pay all in cash) or I can use the VFC miles on Virgin Australia as I make regional flights during the trip. I'm adding up all the options and it will come down to money.

As to missing the flight on the day? I may well have shackled myself to the check in the day before so as not to miss it! However, as a line in the sand, this change in terms of carriage is significant.

[RevMan2]

This is the commercial logic. I think.

You have a booking on a non-refundable ticket.
You no-show.
You can't get your money back, but you can use the ticket at a later date.
They'll charge you a rebooking fee and if there's no difference between the old and the new ticket prices, you're flying at a later date with no significant cost increase.

They have guaranteed you a seat on your original flight, turning down reservation requests from other passengers who might have been willing to pay more for your seat.
You don't turn up for the flight, Air NZ can't sell the seat so not only have they achieved no revenue from that seat on that flight, they also achieved no opportunity revenue from the unfilled demand from other passengers competing for that seat.
For this inconvenience they charge you £150.
They COULD of course overbook massively to compensate for your unreliability, but if the RM algorithms get things horribly wrong, the airline ends up paying DBC.

So isn't it more logical to NOT overbook the non-refundable tickets, knowing that they've got the revenue anyway and just charge you for the inconvenience?

Smart move by Air NZ and undoubtedly coming to an airport near you...

[PAXboy]

Yes, RevMan2, I agree but, as I read it:

You can't get your money back, but you can use the ticket at a later date.

I'll look again at booking time but I saw: Lose the money + Lose the ticket = Tough luck.

I sit to be corrected.

[RevMan2]

Air NZ booking engine

£150 penalty fee per adult in the event of a no-show (child and infant discounts apply) and ticket remains non-refundable

You still have a ticket, you can use it at a later date, but you pay a penalty of £150 for messing them around

The thing to do is not to no-show.....

[PAXboy]

Thanks RevMan2, a slightly different complexion but they must know how many how much money they are going to make from this!

[RevMan2]

A mint!
No-shows and ticket class are eminently quantifiable, they'll be able to tailor the buckets on future flights to ensure that no seats at the original price are available, so not only have they got compensation for the foregone marginal contribution, they've also locked the passenger into a higher revenue band. And at some stage the validity of the ticket expires. All that money for doing nothing PLUS £150 on top!

And now you know who's responsible for the delays on the Piccadilly Line.

I did something similar in the cargo world a long time ago - got shippers to share the risk of no-showing with shipments larger than 20% of capacity by formulating something like a split-charter agreement: cancel up to 2 weeks in advance at no penalty, up to a week 50%, within a week 100%.

Phoney bookings disappeared

[PAXboy]

Interesting RM2. This simple clause could well be about switching the no show and overbooking/DNB situation through 180 degrees,

If this IS what we are discussing, then there is no doubt that it will spread to every legacy carrier on the globe.

[RevMan2]

It's already there for LCCs....

[PAXboy]

Indeed, that was my thought! I should have been specific in that it is a way for the legacy carriers to catch up with the LCCs in one area of revenue generation. Of course, with the LCCs (for the most part) you lose the ticket too. Some will rebook you if you are few minutes late but that is at discretion/PR value.

[Hipennine]

PAXboy, exactly what ticketing class (not cabin class) was quoted for the fare ? There may be different conditions depending on the ticketing class being offered, with different flexibilities on re-booking, and the notice required to re-book. Different carriers have different rules for this, and sometimes the online booking systems will only offer the least flexible, especially if you search on price, rather than flight time.

By contrast, I booked some return flights on BMI yesterday and was presented by a mind-boggling matrix of Y and J fares of different flexibility, some of which were only available in one direction, some non-refundable, and some allowed re-booking subject to a re-booking fee.

[PAXboy]

Short answer = I don't know. I need to travel in october 2012 (wish it were August to get awy from the dreaded sports nonsense here) and so I am just checking routes and prices in principle, before booking when the time slot opens.

There is no doubt that the booking class is a very powerful money generating tool.

[Hipennine]

Try booking through Opodo. Quite often this will give you a whole range of fares for the same flight (all through the same airline, not code-shares), even if the airline's own website doesn't, and it isn't until you get deeply into the flexibility allowances by looking at the individual ticket prices that the differences become apparent (it is a long laborious process to do this though !).