Pre-Paying Choice Air

I understand that I can pay in advance my Choice Air reservations before making final payment. How does one do this? Is there a form that I have to submit & how do I get that form?

What has been people's experiences either pre-paying or waiting until final payment?

Thanks?

Tom😀

Sorry I met EZ Air.

Tom

I don't know anything about pre-paying the air.

I do know that they normally don't buy the tickets until 45 days before cruising. If you want the tickets sooner, you must pay off the cruise and air (even though final payment may not be due yet) AND complete a form instructing them to buy the tickets. This locks in the price and makes it non-refundable. If there is a price reduction, you can't get it. BUT you have a ticket number and can book upgraded seats or whatever you need.

Essentially, you change a flex rate into the same terms as a fixed fare.

You can prepay anything from air fare to cruise fare to excursions to gratuity and Princess will be glad to take your money. Not sure why you are wanting to prepay however.

To set the process in motion you'll need to complete and send the attached Early “flexible Fares” Air Ticketing Request form to Princess.

Flexible_Early_Ticketing_Request-Princess.pdf

Can anyone explain the difference between flexible and restricted fares, other than price?

Sorry I met EZ Air.

 

Tom

Submit this form..

Flexible_Early_Ticketing_Request-Princess.pdf

Can anyone explain the difference between flexible and restricted fares, other than price?

Flexible fares--Princess does not actually buy the tickets until 45 days before the cruise. They make a reservation for you but don't pay for it. The fine print says that if the price increases, you will not pay more for it but if the price decreases, you can rebook the flight thru EZ Air for the lower price (this is not automatic).

What happens with that unticketed reservation is up to the airline--some will assign you a seat and treat it just like a ticket. Some will assign a seat but not allow you to move it or buy a paid upgrade.

And finally, BE SURE you do ultimately see an e-ticket number at the airline's web site. Princess has been known to fail to purchase the ticket--there have been several reports of failure to purchase the return ticket!

SO, advantages--if there is a price reduction, you can take advantage of it. You can cancel without penalty. The rates are often better than booking directly with the airline.

Restricted fares--Princess purchases the ticket when you've paid. The prices I've seen are higher than going directly thru the airline, but YMMV. The only benefit I can see if that if you have Princess insurance, the flights booked thru them will be covered.

You can book EZ Air and get it ticketed at any point that you have paid the cruise and air in full by completing the request form. By doing that, you lock in the fare and can proceed to deal with the airline to purchase upgraded seats, etc. However, you incur the restrictions of a "restricted fare"--no longer refundable, no price changes. This is what we've ended up doing. Due to a mobility impairment, we need certain seats. At least one airline will not release those seats until the flight is ticketed. My concern is that if I don't get the seat reserved, it might be taken by someone else and then we've got a real problem.

We booked air through Princess for our upcoming Japan cruise. We got a great deal (believe me, I comparison shop like a fiend), our choice of airline, AND once I had confirmation in hand (at the time of booking, nearly a year ago), I was able to log into my airline, choose our seats, and make sure they had our FF numbers applied. They even upgraded us automatically to Comfort+ (neither of us has all that many miles, but we do have the airline CC, so maybe that's why).

The price didn't change for us, but it went way up on both the airline and cruise line sites (as I said, I comparison shop, beast-mode).

Final payment was made at the same time as final payment for the cruise. Easy-peasy.

We booked air through Princess for our upcoming Japan cruise. We got a great deal (believe me, I comparison shop like a fiend), our choice of airline, AND once I had confirmation in hand (at the time of booking, nearly a year ago), I was able to log into my airline, choose our seats, and make sure they had our FF numbers applied. They even upgraded us automatically to Comfort+ (neither of us has all that many miles, but we do have the airline CC, so maybe that's why).

The price didn't change for us, but it went way up on both the airline and cruise line sites (as I said, I comparison shop, beast-mode).

Final payment was made at the same time as final payment for the cruise. Easy-peasy.

We also saved about $300 over the best price I could find anywhere else on our Japan cruise, and as you said, the prices increased both with EZ air and other booking sites including the airline. I could have gotten a little better rate if I had selected AA, but daughter refuses to fly them after a totally horrible situation on her last return from Japan--it wasn't just that they had a totally messed up connection, but that the personnel were very rude about the situation. United earned her undying loyalty when a United agent basically rescued her and got her home 3 days earlier than AA said was possible! Of course, AA got the final dig in when they sent her luggage to Ecuador.

I did the on line stuff thru the airline, adding FF numbers, contact info, etc. but Delta would not allow me to change to the seats we needed until the flight was ticketed.

If you haven't checked, both of our Japan cruises have reasonably active roll calls with good information. Your cruise date might also.

 

If you haven't checked' date=' both of our Japan cruises have reasonably active roll calls with good information. Your cruise date might also.[/quote']

 

 

Our roll call is pretty quiet compared to others I've been involve with. The cruise was showing up as sold out quite some time ago...the whole ship!

oops, double post