Air New Zealand Plans Two-Tier Flagship Koru Lounge Auckland, With Elite Area

What's interesting is that NZ is taking opposite of the usual approach, giving the better lounge to J customers rather than elite customers. I don't follow the logic. Then reason why for example LHG gives the SEN lounge access to elites is to give status some value even when flying in business (although one could argue that the difference between the J and SEN lounges is minimal these days) and also to collect the lounge "upgrade" fee through *A system.

With the NZ proposal, individual purchase matters more than long term business. That's weird.

There is no usual approach.
LH does one thing, AC NH SQ TK UA does the opposite. Or maybe there is.

Because J customer pays their bill not cheapo frequent flyer.

If you're Gold and in J, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're not in J. Your might be loyal but you're not their best customer.

Looks very nice.

For the part of the world NZ operates in, this is the usual approach. Business + highest elite level = best lounge, 2nd highest elite level (in this case equivalent of *Gold) gets the standard lounge. Exact same set up as QF over the ditch.

Let’s face it, Star Alliance gold is as common as muck. It’s hardly surprising that airlines offer them the bare minimum that they’re contractually obliged to, and reward their own biggest-spending customers with exclusive facilities. SQ does this very well at Changi, and personally I’d like Qantas to do it at MEL and SYD too with non-QF OW emeralds.

That's not the case, LH/LO and until recently SK [used to] reserve their best lounges for *G flyers. I believe that Turkish have very similar offerings and only split people for crowd control purposes. Lots of the lower-tier lounges (e.g. SQ or LH business at LHR) are absolutely fine and their main difference is that they're more crowded/less exclusive than the top offering (in that example, the SEN lounge and the part of the Singapore one reserved for F pax and possibly top SQ elites).

Having some kind of distinction between lounges is fine, indeed you can tailor the spaces to the type of traveller you're expecting (frequent flyer lounges having more space for working or catching a bit of sleep, business class lounges with more elaborate dining and a bit more sense of occasion).

What I find problematic is having multiple tiers of lounge for people flying in the same class of service. If I buy a UA business class ticket, accessing one lounge or another will depend on whether I'm departing on/connecting from a codeshare, whether my destination falls into their definition of 'international' or whatever (which, depending on how they're feeling that year, might exclude PTY but include LAX etc). I can do without that nonsense - if you want to have separate lounges, please make sure that passengers don't need a full IATA certification and/or PhD in postmodern geography in order to know where to go.

"I believe that Turkish have very similar offerings.."
When I see someone employ that wishy-washy phrase 'I believe..' I know right away that person doesn't know what they're talking about and haven't done their research, but they're hoping the listener will still believe them anyway...Slack!

Amex should do the same with the Centurion Lounges. The current lounges are for everyone. And, the proposed "sidecar" lounges are not restricted in terms of time but in terms of meeting a spending threshold on the Platinum Card. Say, $25k per calendar year.

I'm sure you'll be shocked to discover that I haven't done ANY research on this.

My belief is the product of having visited the two lounges at different times, and I didn't even have a clipboard on me to check the vintages on the wine labels!

Autocorrect or autocomplete error, I suspect:
United is hardly along with that... guessing you mean "alone"?

I think LHG probably does this only because they don't have a middle tier that would match more appropriately to *G. If they introduced something like Very Frequent Traveler™ that got access to the business lounge and business class check-in, they'd probably peg *G to that instead.

Nah why just the $25k spend.
Way too low.

You want to weed out the cheap loaders and keep the premium spenders, go with $250k.

Or is it 25k because you think your $25k is already a DYKWIA big spender?

Even free guest comes with $75k spend.

@MissingScurrah

Are you for real?
"For the part of the world...."

If you're pulling "draw your own geography world" you might as well pull the race and religion card too.

But you actually lost me when you call "2nd highest elite level (in this case equivalent of *Gold)"

So what's higher than *G ?
Or is today "name your own airline alliance" day?

@Eskimo: Air New Zealand’s Airpoints programme has the following tiers:

- Gold Elite
- Gold
- Silver
- member

Both Gold and Gold Elite are Star Alliance Gold. But yes, for Air New Zealand, Airpoints Gold is the second-highest tier, and MissingScurrah is quite right that Air New Zealand’s second-highest level is a Star Alliance Gold level.

V/F

I would hope business class passengers on Star Alliance partners would have access to the new lounge. Air New Zealand business class passengers have access to United's Polaris lounges in LAX, SFO, and IAH, and to Singapore's nicer business lounge (rather than the junkier lounge for Star Golds) in Singapore.

QF AKL has had 2 lounges for years. When you go to the check-in desk, if you're OneWorld Emerald, you get access to the F lounge on the left, else the business lounge on the right. NZ maybe has heard about this from frequent travelers.

Pictures are reminiscent of their old first class lounge at LAX.

Quite presumptuous of you to make assumptions as you have about the OP.