simonsi

Had a strange situation when we booked our flights, as our #2 daughter had JUST turned 12 she needed an adult ticket (so we needed 3 adult and 2 child seats). By splitting the booking into 2 so that no more than 2 adult seats were on either booking ANZ via the website offered us flights via Virgin to Tokyo then ANZ to Auckland at a saving of GBP1,400 (30%), over the all-ANZ routes via LA or HK.

This didn´t seem to be a special offer, nor was it available via the ANZ booking telephone line (we tried). VA charge GBP914 for the LHR-Tokyo leg on its own so to get a price of GBP586 for the full LHR-AKL route is pretty good. I suspect the 2 adult limitation is there to give VA some control over how many of their seats are sold at what must be a huge discount over their price.

Adjusting the number of adults between 2 and 3 either showed this rate for most flights in a week or none so it didn´t seem tied into actual seat availability on the VA flight.

Worth carefully shopping around if you find yourself in a similar 2+ adult situation...