Covid 19 Delta outbreak: 31,000 people vie for MIQ spots, next release on Tuesday

The tens of thousands of Kiwis who missed out on a spot in Managed Isolation and Quarantine facilities last night will have another chance to get their foot in the door next Tuesday.

More than 31,300 people tried their luck in securing a spot in MIQ when 3800 spots were made available last night in the second run of the new virtual lobby system.

All the rooms were snapped up in just over two hours with December slots gone within 48 minutes.

But, joint head of MIQ Megan Main said more rooms would be available to be booked next Tuesday although the time and number of spaces was yet to be confirmed.

"I know that, again, thousands of people missed out on vouchers in tonight's release. We understand this is a difficult and frustrating time for many who want to travel; whether that be for business or to return home," she said.

"I want to reassure people that there are still several thousand vouchers still to be released through to the end of the year. They will get other chances through regular lobby releases."

At 6pm yesterday, those signed into the lobby were moved into a randomised queue and those at the front were able to start booking.

By 8.10pm, 6231 people from 125 countries had made bookings across 3718 rooms.

Those who secured a voucher then had 48 hours to confirm and enter flight details.

Any cancelled bookings would be re-released in the next virtual lobby rather than automatically being re-released into the system when they came up as was the case with the old booking system.

Last week more than 5300 people also secured MIQ vouchers via the first virtual lobby.

Main acknowledged the new system did not solve the issue of supply and demand but said she believed it "improved user experience". The old system required people to be logged in all the time, constantly refreshing the page in the hope they would be the first to snap up any newly released rooms.

Last night there were 1434 rooms available for October, 1600 in November and 684 for December.

By far the largest number of people who secured rooms were travelling from Australia (1629), with Great Britain next at 791 passengers and India third with 647 passengers.

Top countries of departure (by passenger numbers)
• Australia — 1629 passengers
• Great Britain — 791 passengers
• India — 647 passengers
• USA — 495 passengers
• China — 263 passengers
• Singapore — 212 passengers
• Argentina — 203 passengers
• Canada — 179 passengers
• Philippines — 130 passengers
• Hong Kong — 113 passengers
• Germany — 93 passengers
• Korea — 93 passengers