Beware of ez air

Booked EZair after I saw a flight that looked good with timing.

After final payment, I got a notice from my travel agent that I'm not arriving at 8pm but 2Am and our first event on our cruisetour would depart at 8:00am. We wouldn't even get to the Princess lodge in Fairbanks till after 3am! And they call that day 1 of our cruisetour.

 

So we opt to go in a day early, but the Princess lodge won't accommodate us so we must stay at a regular hotel one night then cab it to the Princess lodge. I'm actually happy with this plan as I can explore Fairbanks, although I'm not happy with how it all came about. Now comes the second part of this mess.

 

I review the new itinerary I see that my return flight has been swapped too!!!

Gone is our post cruise flight of 10:30 am to one that doesn't depart till 8:00 pm and puts us home the whole next day at 8:00 AM!

 

I decided to call the airline myself give the flight numbers and find out that the original return flight still exists and she says there are "Plenty" of seats available.

 

Now awaiting assistance from my travel agent. I regret doing EZ air for sure. Maybe this is how it works in the description, I don't know. I do know that most people don't want to do a deep study into this process and think this might be the easier/safer way to go. That's not the case for us at least. I don't care for the name, EZ air either, it gives customers the notion that it is an 'easier" option.

 

Feeling slightly better having just vented.....

I am not getting a very good feeling about EZ Air from this scenario at all. This really scares me. I am getting more and more nervous the more stories that surface like this. I am getting the impression that we can be strung along thinking we will be on the flight of our choosing and then in a flash Princess can just ruin your plan at their whim and put you on any old flight they want to. This does not seem like an airline doing. If Princess does not want to allow us to take decent flights, they should not be made available for us to book via EZ Air. They should just show the crappy flights they will allow to be booked and we can choose from them or not. :(

Yes, it sounds like you did everything correct EXCEPT request the form from Princess to fill out to have them purchase tickets early on a flexible fare. It doesn't matter if you made final payment early thinking they were going to purchase your tickets when you made final payment. You MUST fill out the early ticketing form to get them to actually purchase the tickets. Once this is done Princess purchases them. Of course the airlines could still make changes just as if you had purchased directly with them based on the airlines schedules. But once paid for by Princess your ticket becomes non refundable. You can no longer take advantage of price drops. I believe that whomever you talked to at Princess in referring to having to pay extra cash meant that if you didn't want whatever flights they put you into within the amount of money you had paid and wanted to chose other flights it could cost more dollars. This could have been avoided IF you would have filled out the form to be ticketed right away when you made final payment. Princess emailed form to us. We printed off and filled out. Then faxed it back to Princess. Tickets were paid for and issued within a day or so. We did gave changes on the flight after payment that was made by the airline. All it took was a call to the airline to get any issues to our satisfaction because we had fully paid tickets.

 

We booking EZAir it states on one of the pages when you book that it is the passengers responsibility to check any flight changes etc with the airline. Princess does not know the airline changes until they are notified by the airline. It's really everyone's own responsibility to make sure all their ducks are in a row for their vacation. Should the airlines or the cruise line notify us? Sure but it often doesn't happen. Sign up on your airlines website for notifications for changes to your flight. We have always done this with EZAir and have been notified of changes by the airline way before the changes showed on the cruise personalizer.

 

Best of luck OP in getting a satisfactory flight.

This is exactly what we did...and no problems other than minor changes in flight times that were made by the airline. I was irritated that the airline did not contact me about these as they had a home phone, e-mail, and cell number. But I caught it, so no big deal.

Booked EZair after I saw a flight that looked good with timing.

After final payment, I got a notice from my travel agent that I'm not arriving at 8pm but 2Am and our first event on our cruisetour would depart at 8:00am. We wouldn't even get to the Princess lodge in Fairbanks till after 3am! And they call that day 1 of our cruisetour.

 

So we opt to go in a day early, but the Princess lodge won't accommodate us so we must stay at a regular hotel one night then cab it to the Princess lodge. I'm actually happy with this plan as I can explore Fairbanks, although I'm not happy with how it all came about. Now comes the second part of this mess.

 

I review the new itinerary I see that my return flight has been swapped too!!!

Gone is our post cruise flight of 10:30 am to one that doesn't depart till 8:00 pm and puts us home the whole next day at 8:00 AM!

 

I decided to call the airline myself give the flight numbers and find out that the original return flight still exists and she says there are "Plenty" of seats available.

 

Now awaiting assistance from my travel agent. I regret doing EZ air for sure. Maybe this is how it works in the description, I don't know. I do know that most people don't want to do a deep study into this process and think this might be the easier/safer way to go. That's not the case for us at least. I don't care for the name, EZ air either, it gives customers the notion that it is an 'easier" option.

 

Feeling slightly better having just vented.....

I found out that my return flight was infact changed by the airline to slightly ealier to a 9:42 departure time. I am guessing, maybe incorrectly that it was too early with debarkation?

We are looking to spend a night and depart the next morning on an earlier flight that gets us home around midnight. I hope I can get that arranged.

I'm also getting an uneasy feeling about EZair. Using it for the first time for our upcoming October cruise.

It seems communication regarding flight changes is one of the biggest issues and no one wants to take responsibility.

With email this should be an easy thing to do.

I really don't like giving up control and this may be the first and last time I use EZair.

Keeping fingers crossed all goes well.

Wow! Now I'm getting nervous also. I used ez air for the first time for my March cruise. I noticed a few weeks ago when I went in to personalizer a message came up saying:

"Air itinerary you are trying to retrieve may have a schedule change which is not reflected in our system. Please call this number for assistance." I haven't called yet because I thought it was a glitch and I would eventually get in but no such luck. Going to Fl we fly Delta so I checked their site and there is a message saying flight times changed but must be very small change as I see no difference. Coming home we fly AA. I checked their site and my confirmation number comes up zip, no flights booked it says. So guess I'm going to call the provided number this week and see what's up. I think I will also start checking for air on my own. Too bad cause I really had a good price through Princess. I just don't want to stress about flights. :mad:

I used EZ air on a cruise to Australia with no problems at all in Oct of last year. In April of this year I took at TA to London, traveled around Europe for a month using EZ air. On both trips I signed a paper sent by my cruise consultant to purchase the airfare right away. I paid in full, and got the seats on the plane, etc. When I was printing out my boarding pass on the TA cruise, I noticed that the tickets had not been purchased, this was 10 days before the cruise!! I called cruise consultant and she did something and then called back and said everything was okay, they had now purchased the tickets........what? 10 days before a cruise? The next day it showed on my account that the tickets had been purchased the day before. They were really cutting it close because I was flying to Houston in just 9 days and flying back in about 40. I could not believe it. I did have to go back and redo my seats, luckily I wasn't stuck between people I didn't know. I recently had booked a cruise in Asia with EZ to and from for only $328!!!! But, I kept getting all these weird changes to the airfare and then was told by China air that I could not "secure" my seats until the day of travel! No way was I going to seat for 20 hours on a plane in the middle of people, away from my husband. They said that was their contract with Princess.........who knows. I canceled the cruise. It was the main reason I booked, such cheap airfare, but if I cannot get the seats, and the peace of mind knowing my tickets are purchased, it is not worth it to me. I hope it works out, Keep checking with Princess and the airline.

Nope, no Ez air for me. I have read about too many screw ups and inconvenient changes for the travelers to want to trust Princess with my air travel. I like being in control of my own travel.

was told by China air that I could not "secure" my seats until the day of travel!

I think that is the way China Air works no matter how you book your flights. They do have the ability to select seats in advance for a fee.

There are two reasons flights can change:

1) The airline changes the flight times or even cancels a flight. If this is the reason the flight was changed, the airline should be willing to book you on an acceptable itinerary at no charge.

2) Princess has used up their quota of seats on the flights you have or the airline has raised the price to Princess for those flights. In that case, Princess will switch the flights to something available at the same price you had booked. If this is the reason, then you must deal with Princess to resolve the situation.

As others have pointed out, for either reason 1 or 2, communication is poor about the changes.

Thank you all for your input and great information.

After several more hours on the phone and agonizing days I got a Princess rep who assured me there would be no price change and let me speak to the EZ Air dept. because it was taking so long to rectify the problem. There had been a "miscommunication" and I had been dropped from the SYD - LAX flight. She (Nancy) was able to get me back on the flight and get the upgraded seat that I had paid for. What a relief!

Lessons learned:

1. Ask for the form to finalize the EZ Air Flexible flights when I make final payment (I had no idea it existed before this thread)

2. Monitor my flights on the airline's website (which I do & how I found the problem in the first place)

3. Do not trust the Cruise Personalizer information on flights to be correct

4. Be persistent. Don't believe a Princess rep when they say they'll work it out and get back to me. Keep calling till I get someone who will get the issue solved while I am on the phone, no matter how long it takes

Great news, Linda.

I think Princess needs to be more open about the form to have your flights purchased. Like you, I had no idea that it existed until I called Princess and asked why they had not purchased my tickets.

But in your case, bottom line is that you got it straightened out. Have a great cruise!

We are currently using EZ Air for flights to Venice and are having a very satisfactory experience (so far)...

Our one way flexible ticket on Lufthansa was hugely less ($2000 pp less) than purchasing it outright through Lufthansa. We could have found one way tickets with other airlines cheaper than Lufthansa but they were still at least $700 pp more than what we're paying and we would have been totally locked in at the time of purchase. We weren't certain until final payment if we would actually be taking this cruise.

The price of our flexible tickets dropped three times (and went up countless times so check frequently) and I called Princess to be repriced with each drop. Lately they have been about $300 pp more than what we've paid.

We made final payment and paid for our flexible EZ Air ticket last week. That evening I received an email with the airline reservation number. The next day I went online and saw that we already had e-ticket numbers and was able to purchase our seat assignments (I knew these would be an extra cost regardless of whether I booked through Princess or not, $92 total for two people for two flights in extremely good seats).

I never had to tell Princess to purchase the tickets. Perhaps they haven't done that yet as I have until 45 days prior to the flight to make changes (my seat selections are non-refundable but the $ are transferable). But Lufthansa has provided me an e-ticket number and the ability to book seats while there were still some good ones left.

I check every morning to make sure everything is still in place, and so far there have been no surprises. To date we are very pleased. I'll post if this changes.

We are currently using EZ Air for flights to Venice and are having a very satisfactory experience (so far)...

 

Our one way flexible ticket on Lufthansa was hugely less ($2000 pp less) than purchasing it outright through Lufthansa. We could have found one way tickets with other airlines cheaper than Lufthansa but they were still at least $700 pp more than what we're paying and we would have been totally locked in at the time of purchase. We weren't certain until final payment if we would actually be taking this cruise.

 

The price of our flexible tickets dropped three times (and went up countless times so check frequently) and I called Princess to be repriced with each drop. Lately they have been about $300 pp more than what we've paid.

 

We made final payment and paid for our flexible EZ Air ticket last week. That evening I received an email with the airline reservation number. The next day I went online and saw that we already had e-ticket numbers and was able to purchase our seat assignments (I knew these would be an extra cost regardless of whether I booked through Princess or not, $92 total for two people for two flights in extremely good seats).

 

I never had to tell Princess to purchase the tickets. Perhaps they haven't done that yet as I have until 45 days prior to the flight to make changes (my seat selections are non-refundable but the $ are transferable). But Lufthansa has provided me an e-ticket number and the ability to book seats while there were still some good ones left.

 

I check every morning to make sure everything is still in place, and so far there have been no surprises. To date we are very pleased. I'll post if this changes.

I can only hope that this is my experience, but I am very nervous.

Does anyone know if will make a difference if I prepay the cruise and submit the form to have the air ticketed. Can Princess yank already shown ticketed reservations? My trip is not until late Feb, so I hate to prepay now, but I would if it gives me peace of mind.

I can only hope that this is my experience, but I am very nervous.

 

Does anyone know if will make a difference if I prepay the cruise and submit the form to have the air ticketed. Can Princess yank already shown ticketed reservations? My trip is not until late Feb, so I hate to prepay now, but I would if it gives me peace of mind.

A few years ago we tried EZAir paying for the cruise and the flight immediately so that we could pick our seats. Then the airline changed the plane, we lost our seats and were unable to pick seats after that change. I called the airline, they told me to call Princess, I called Princess, they told me to call the airline. I was so frustrated because no one would help us. Now we only book flights directly through the airline and no longer deal with a middle man (Princess).

I can only hope that this is my experience, but I am very nervous.

 

Does anyone know if will make a difference if I prepay the cruise and submit the form to have the air ticketed. Can Princess yank already shown ticketed reservations? My trip is not until late Feb, so I hate to prepay now, but I would if it gives me peace of mind.

My understanding (and my experience) is that once Princess has paid the airline for the reservation, you get a ticket number issued. At that point, things are between you and the airline. We've had no problem dealing directly with the airline once we had that e-ticket number issued.

Of course, the airline can still cancel your flight, change times, etc. We've booked directly with Delta and had them cancel our flight and move us to the next day (which would have caused us to miss the cruise!) I was able to call them and move the flight to the original day at an earlier time with different connections...but bottom line, we got there.

If the airline screws around with your flights, they have to give you another flight that will get you to your location at no additional charge.