Tried booking the Emirates NZ deal at 11:30pm on the monday night. Entered the credit card details and the system just hung. On using another computer the emirates booking system was down - no response. Other airlines and web pages loaded fine.
Unsure if the card had been accepted I did not retry - and given the site was not working I had no choice. About 12:15 the site came back up, so since I was flying SYD to AKL, and CHC (Christchurch) back to SYD, I thought to test everything I would book the CHC leg, which I did at $NZ161.50.
I then found that after entering CC details and submitting there is a further verification step (as this was what was required with CHC -> SYD leg, so I felt confident to rebook the SYD to AKL segment. Yep it was still available BUT gone from $A180 to $A400. As it was now Tuesday AM it had increased. (Note while all info said this was ending at 12pm nothing indicated it was AESDT. Pity those in Perth etc.)
Ok so then I called emirates first thing Tuesady to discuss. No luck their phones kept dropping out after saying that had extra load - sorry etc. Couldn't get thru to 3pm.
Then got thru to a clerk and explained above - said I had screen shots etc of web page failure and error messages but the clerk said they still cant sell at the cheaper price, I then said can you cancel the second leg? - nope its not refundable.
Can I talk to supervisor -went away came back - sorry they are busy, no you are not to wait- send email and we'll look into it - bye.
So while errors can occur and its sometimes tough luck - boy the customer service sucks. With over 30 years regular OS flying I can honestly say I have never in the few times I needed to, ever been refused access to a supervisor and that includes a few cruddy airlines. Have flown Emirates before (6 years ago found they were efficient and courteous) BUT now I think they have just deteriorated and living on past reputations, so heaven help you if you need any assistance with a problem.
Personally not all is lost - I have discovered that they have cheaper fares for return from NZ by booking this separately rather than RT from Oz (I did this because it was too hard to work out how to make one booking with their system returning from a different airport. ($NZ161.50 for CHC to SYD). And I can book AirNZ to AKL for $A30 more than the Emirates original bargain - so net "loss" will be about the same give or take $10.
However if I didn't have this backup plan I would be out the airfare (X2 inc my partners fare as well) Not a happy Alladin.
As for the email? - Its now more than 30 hours vs the 24 Hrs response my clerk advised would be the response time - I'll keep you informed. Maybe the Genie might get out and help.
Meantime be warned.
Thanks for the report on Emirates ozpete and good luck.