Astro Flyer

Wonder if how much government jurisdictions want to pocket might be more of a factor? 🤔

I recently saw this chart which reinforces your statement.

Another reason for me is the double cruise credits & days for those who book bundles. To quote Padgett from the Princess news release, those are his most valued guests who might cruise infrequently with a bundle and not those who loyally cruise on Princess frequently without a bundle…we’re less valued to him. "The Loyalty Accelerator Program gives our most valued guests even more reasons to sail with our industry-leading bundles."

Thankfully for our US to OZ flight they are using the arrival date & not the departure date. Our cruise is on a Monday & we fly on a Tuesday & due to crossing the international dateline do not arrive until Thursday (20 hours via NZ)…4 days before our cruise.

Thanks…good to know.

I took advantage of getting points (recently got offers for 70k or 80k) by getting the SWA chargecard. That makes flights even cheaper than the Costco offer depending upon how many points are needed.

Thanks for sharing your experiences…my problem is likely due to being a US resident & attempting to fly from Australia to NZ. When attempting to input Brisbane as our departure city, we only get these airports which I think are all in the US.

@gottagocit…thanks for sharing your experience as a result of your DW’s sudden passing away. 😟 Booking directly airfares are reasonable in the $200-$300 USD range.

I have a question not about the new limit but instead about EZair flights that are not from our home airport listed in our Princess details. We’re cruising around Australia roundtrip Brisbane & then 2 days later we’re sailing from Auckland to LAX. EZair airfares are currently available however we cannot see a BNE/AKL flight. Has anyone been able to contact EZair to make a reservation from an airport that’s nowhere near their home airport?

With reports of Seabourn & HAL instituting the same 5 day policy, I doubt if it’s a glitch. As I earlier posted, all CCL lines pool their airfare bookings to get the best consolidator deals which leads me to believe they’ll all have the same terms…5 days before or after a cruise, or cruise tour as @azbirdmom posted.

As I recall, in the past it was possible to book one-way outbound flights at 330 days in advance however my recent experience was that could not be made until return flights were available. Thus I had to wait until 300 days prior to my 28 day cruise to book a o/w outbound flight. I don’t know when such a change was made because I have not used EZair since before the pandemic.

I recall past CCL CEO Arnold Donald stating the reason all CCL lines get good air options & pricing is because by combining the buying power of all of their cruise lines together air is a more competitive option. Thus as you discovered with Seabourn, the 5 day limit might apply to all of the CCL lines. On NCLH lines including Oceania & NCL, their air program is not good & flights might not be known up until 30 days in advance. I am not happy with the PCL change, however even now it is much better than on NCLH lines. Like others, I check airfares at least daily…evening of 6/20 there was no 5 day limit for my flight but on the morning of 6/21 discovered that limit after reading this thread created by gottagocit…thanks.

It’s the same 5 day limit for our LAX/AKL/BNE flight in March 2025 which arrives 4 days before our cruise.

I have sailed on Discovery Princess 3 times & each one had the short table…same thing for all of the other Royal-class ships we’ve sailed on.

Have you read the Princess FAQs about dialysis? https://www.princess.com/en-us/faq/pre-cruise

Thanks for providing those times & hopefully it will work for our late afternoon flight from MIA.

Yes…foregoing the elite minibar for a credit would be getting closer to making packages cost-effective for my style of cruising. 🤑 On our recent cruise it took 3 days to get our minibar exchanged…and the same number of days to receive our TA’s gift of chocolate coverage strawberries for sailaway! 🙄

IIRC, all of Royal Caribbean’s cruise lines will also include T&F in their pricing but think for both PCL & RCI it’s only for bookings made in the US.

If they gave package discounts instead, that could make a package cost-effective for my style of cruising at the elite level.

That’s why we purchased an independent policy for our Oceania cruise later this year. In my opinion Oceania does many things well although that doesn’t apply to their insurance nor to their air program which based on my experiences cannot compete with Flexible EZair.

Once our stapled & strong packing tape attached paper ship’s luggage tags were nearly torn off between the porters & our cabin after driving to the port. After that experience we decided that for a few dollars the reusable plastic tag holders are cheap insurance that our bags will arrive at our cabin. 🙂

I prefer the way Oceania includes taxes & fees in their pricing to quickly see the total cost. I’ve seen lower Princess prices where T&F added an additional 50% to the cruise fare. Several years ago I remember Princess showing the total price however after their competition didn’t do the same thing on the surface it made Princess appear to be more expensive so they went back to showing cruise fares and T&F separately. Great question about the Princess insurance…since T&F are fully refundable when canceling, the 9% cost should be based on the cruise fare only. They do not include EZair flights when calculating the 9% cost of the insurance. In 2018 we had our only health related cancellation using their insurance & IIRC our airfare was immediately refunded to our c/c while the cruise fare was an insurance claim.

Wow…and if the double credits & days for purchasing packages becomes their standard the number of days to be invited will continue to increase. Although for me enjoyable days onboard are much more important than being invited to another MTG event…only 1 of my 6 was a lunch.

Based on Padgett’s statement, those of us who cruise frequently on Princess without packages are not as valued as those who sail infrequently with packages. "The Loyalty Accelerator Program gives our most valued guests even more reasons to sail with our industry-leading bundles." He wants to increase the number of elite level passengers while continuing to remove benefits of reaching that level. In 2010 I was invited to my first MTG event with only 160 days but on my recent cruise 500+ days was not enough to be invited…it took about 750 days.

Before eliminating TD, early was about 5:15 to 6:00 and late about 7:30 to 8:15 however there’s no way to predict the new times.