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We were originally supposed to be in Sydney today.

Instead, we’ve got a night at the Heartland Hotel at Auckland AirPort.

Plans changed a week or so ago, when we got notification that the 9:00 a.m. February 13th Air New Zealand business class flight we’d booked from Auckland to Sydney as a leg of our Round-The-World ticket had been cancelled, and the offered replacement was a downgrade to an economy seat on a 7:00 a.m. flight.

Nope. Not if we had a choice at least, which the email seemed to indicate we did not. It offered “accept” or “cancel flight” as the only two options.

Trying to resolve the issue using the suggested Customer Service Portal didn’t work, due to “technical difficulties” which we suspect were related to our single booking reference including 13 different international flights.

So…back to the phone number I’d kept archived for the dedicated Lufthansa Business Class line (Lufthansa being the corporate entity that handles the Star Alliance group’s Round-The-World bookings).

It took about 20 minutes, with a real person, to get us reassigned onto a business class seat on a 9:00 a.m. flight on February 14th, one day later than our original plan.

That meant needing to modify or cancel our Sydney hotel (luckily within the change period) to shorten our stay by one night, AND either extend our Auckland hotel stay or book one night at an airport hotel.

Since our flight to Sydney necessitated us being at the airport by 07:00 a.m, we chose to book a night at an airport hotel with shuttle, rather than Uber in from the city centre.

In the case of our Sydney accommodation, shortening our stay from 3 nights to 2 would actually have made that stay $33 more expensive (and we’d still be left needing an extra hotel night in Auckland) so we cancelled our Adina Apartment Hotel with its mini kitchen and re-booked at the Citadines Connect Sydney Airport with included grab & go breakfast.

All done. Net cost difference on the two changes: $30CAD.

Our night at the Heartland Airport Hotel ended up being a lovely bonus. We’d booked a “superior studio king” at $169NZD ($139CAD/$102USD) for the night – well below even the most basic airport hotel in Vancouver or Toronto. The room was pictured on Expedia like this:

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When we arrived, because we’re Expedia Platinum VIP members, we’d been upgraded to a one-bedroom apartment, with the best equipped kitchen we’ve seen to date. It’s almost a shame we’re only here overnight, although as a long-stay location being at the airport would not be ideal.

We were quite early for check-in, but the barista in the lobby bar made excellent flat whites.

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Once our room was available, our upgraded accommodation (our actual pics, not the website) looked like this:

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For a quick lunch we walked to the nearby Sierra Café where I got one last fix of my New Zealand food obsession (other than ice cream): meat pie. This time it was steak and Guinness in a wonderful flaky homemade crust. I also had another Bundaberg ginger beer, which is actually made in Australia so will undoubtedly continue to feature in our lunches.

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Our VIP status got us 20% off our food at the in-house restaurant, which was an especially appreciated bonus because later in the afternoon the skies opened and it absolutely poured with rain. We chose to stay dry and have a late dinner in the hotel.

What a lovely surprise! Despite a minimalist decor that looked like a standard hotel breakfast room, the food was wonderful, the wait staff friendly and knowledgeable, and the wine list well curated. There were several not-so-small “small plates”, and a small but well done selection of dinner options. Ted chose the burger, which he pronounced one of the best he’s had in ages, and I had a lamb flatbread on which the neat was melt-in-your-mouth tender and the vegetables perfectly crisp.

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We topped dinner off with two amazing desserts: malva pudding (served with crème anglaise, vanilla ice-cream, and tuile) and raspberry and lemon posset (with orange almond bites, freeze-dried mandarin, and lemon sorbet)

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It turned out to be a lovely pivot.

As Ted commented, “it’s all about flexibility” – and having blank labels to stick to pages in my itinerary book when inked-in plans need to be re-written.