International Saver (I) Business Award Availability for 2022?

[kangarooflyer88]

Hello,

I'm planning to travel to Canada sometime in 2022 once the international borders reopen. Presently, I've got a J award booking with Aeroplan to bring me back there but thanks to you know what, the flight schedules keep changing and my rebooking options seem somewhat limited (either push the departure dates back 30 days at a time, or find an itinerary identical to the one I found earlier which has I fare availability). The original itinerary was/is: SYD to YSJ (via YVR, YUL), YSJ to YYZ then YYZ to SYD (via HND/NRT) all in J which cost 160,000 Aeroplan points which were great at the time. Since then, Aeroplan has changed to now use dynamic award pricing based on distance flown meaning that same itinerary will cost me close to 700,000 points (ouch!).

The sweet spot it seems would be to book with * partners, which does not use dynamic pricing but again is based on distance flown meaning a more direct routing will incur fewer points. Hence, booking with a partner will likely get me an itinerary I want for roughly the same amount of points. I saw recently that NZ has filed international schedules for such far flung destinations as LAX, YVR and HNL. However, when I check for award availability from AKL to YVR I see no results for NZ anytime in 2022. At best, I'll get NZ to NRT or maybe PVG then a connecting flight onwards to YVR. I'm curious whether NZ will list J availability to YVR or HNL for 2022 and if so when I could roughly expect that to appear on StarNet?

As an aside, I'm aware that UA is another potential partner that could get me back to Canada direct from Australia when the borders reopen. However, all of the availability is in Y. I haven't sat on these many points for so long to redeem a middle seat on a dated UA bird! Perhaps Polaris I availability will open up soon enough, but I have my doubts.

As an aside, aside I'm fixated on any specific routing, point of departure or arrival airport so long as it gets me to the general direction. For instance, I would be more than happy to do something like AKL > HNL for a week then HNL > YYZ for 2 weeks then say YYZ > AKL or even AKL > SFO for a week then SFO > YYZ for a few weeks... you get the drift. Ditto for departure airports, although I'm based in SYD, I'd be more than happy to reposition myself for a decent business saver award, especially if it nets me Qantas Frequent Flyer points

Your Sleepless Traveller,

KangarooFlyer88

 

[henrus]

Air New Zealand award space was rare during pre-covid times. Normally flights that we could even consider leisure routes like AKL-HNL were very premium heavy which meant there never was a great need to release award space. Typically they'd release a scattering (either 1 or 0 seats) at 365 days (which hasn't been happening since COVID) and then they'd release a few more very close (less than 7 days) to departure if the load was light. During non peak times they'd sometimes release 1-2 seats per flight to the US but everything else just vanishes instantly.

Now I don't have a crystal ball but my best guess is that when travel reopens people will be willing to pay for cash fares making it even harder for points redemptions. As for the NZ routes which have recently been loaded... the NZ govt is subsidising freight routes hence the reintroduction of things like NZ operated CHC-SIN, there is no chance they'll be open to the masses in Nov/Dec this year but the routes will still exist for the freight and the occasional self-loading freight.

 

[Mattg]

What you're seeing is very normal (for pre-covid times, anyway). You can never really rely on NZ releasing business award space to partner airlines, although it does happen sporadically.

Do you have an Expert Flyer account? You could put an award seat alert on a few NZ AKL-YVR flights over a scattering of dates. If NZ was to release seats, they usually release it in batches with multiple dates becoming available at the same time - so Expert Flyer might ping you.