Sales + Upgrades

First time post - please let me know if this should be posted elsewhere.

We first flew return to New York with AirNZ in 2016. Melbourne > Auckland > Houston > New York

We were very lucky in that we had pre booked our seats that we listed as skycouch seats, but did not opt to upgrade. When we boarded the Auckland>Houston leg, we found that the seat was a skycouch and we had no body in the third seat, the air hostess was kind enough to provide us with the required seat belt and we enjoyed our flight.

I was wondering if this was a complete fluke or this does happen from time to time ?

We are now headed back with AirNZ flying to New York again, October this year. We booked our flights but missed out on the sale by 1 day due to our flying dates not being flexible due to getting married. I was wondering if anyone has had any luck being able to upgrade their tickets complimentary of AirNZ ?

Often they'll move people around to provide Gold Elites with the entire row but even Air NZ Gold and Silver status holders have had luck getting seats blocked so they can enjoy the sky couch row.

It's certinly not something you can count upon but if you've selected your seats in a Skycouch row then you've got a better chance then someone who hasn't.