For many years two of us happily travelled from Wellington to Melbourne with Air NZ with two Works Deluxe seats.
This provided an empty seat between each of us and also provided meals etc- essentially each of us paid 50% of the empty seat cost. It was a great way to fly with room.
In 2018 that cost - when booked online- $1486 including $24 ($12 per seat) for Credit Card fee
Air New Zealand in its infinite marketing wisdom decided to make the fares easier with more choice and last year (or maybe this year) removed that fare option.
I decided today to replicate that experience by purchasing three tickets for a flight in February 2025- two being The Works and one being Seat.
However you can't do this online I was told by the chat as the online system requires a passenger name per seat.
This means you incur a service fee PER SEAT of $35 namely $105 for using the call centre.
Also the credit card fee is now $14.20 per seat namely $42.60
Total cost seven year later $2,253.13
An increase for exactly the same flight conditions ( empty seat between and meals) of $767.13 more than 50%
Any comments