The Air New Zealand Airpoints program works differently to most – but not in a good way. If you’d like to book award travel on Star Alliance,
we would recommend using a better frequent flyer program such as
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.
With this program, 1 Airpoints Dollar = $1. Dynamic pricing is used when redeeming Airpoints for Air New Zealand flights. This means that you can redeem your Airpoints Dollars for any available seat on Air New Zealand. But seats on more expensive flights require more Dollars. In particular, long-haul Business class awards are extremely expensive.
Frustratingly, Air New Zealand also won’t let you redeem your Airpoints Dollars unless you have enough to cover the entire cost of the airfare. You can’t part-pay for a flight using Airpoints. At the same time, you must be any taxes on award bookings using money – the airline won’t let you use Airpoints to cover those. <snip>