Astro Flyer

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.

Here’s a lesson that we learned about why we do not put the ship’s luggage tags on before a flight. We have only flown in once on the day of a cruise because it was B2B 7 day roundtrip Vancouver to Alaska cruise. We decided to attach our ship’s luggage tags in case they were misdirected so they could catch up with us during our 14 day cruise. Our luggage was not on Vancouver’s luggage carousel so we got concerned & found a Princess representative in the baggage claim area to ask her about them. She said since the ship’s luggage tags were on our suitcases they would have already been picked up and transported to the ship. We had not paid for that service because we were using the SkyTrain to get to the ship. However, neither that rep nor guest services on the ship were able to confirm that our bags had actually been transported to the ship. At sailaway they had not been delivered to our cabin so that created some angst for us but fortunately they did arrive shortly thereafter. We learned our lesson and will never attach our ship’s luggage tags to our bags when flying to a cruise. We will use the tag holders to place the form in post #14 just in case our bags get misplaced when flying to any trip.

Princess needs to be more proactive than reactive.

Dear Valued Princess Guest: We wanted to inform you of a change regarding our main dining reservations. Due to an unanticipated delay in finalizing our app update, the ability to book reservations has been delayed. The new date for reservations is now set for July 1. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and patience. As previously announced, starting with voyages departing September 14, 2024, Princess will designate separate dining rooms aboard every ship in the fleet to three table service options: Traditional dining offering an early and a late seating every evening Reservable dining times Open seating to support walk-ins anytime Once updates are complete, you will be able to use the app ahead of your voyage to opt for traditional seating in a dedicated dining room with the same waiter, same table and same time each night, or flexible dining, allowing you to enjoy dinner at any available time and table size of your choosing in either the Reservable or Open Seating dining rooms. Thank you for your continued support.

The date I read was July 1st. There are few other threads that are also discussing this subject if you want to read more details.

That change was made within the past 2 months…another elite benefit disappears. 🙄 Someone please correct me, however I do not believe that the one day early elite level booking benefit ever applied to platinum members?