CantanaLobo

Airfares in general are higher, not just BOS-FLL. Airlines have pulled seats (reduced supply), airline mergers (less competition), and airlines collectively figuring out they can't sell below cost and make it up in volume (more discipline).

United decided they were releasing too many cheap fares too early. United fares have gone up as a result. I suspect the other carriers are also tinkering with their yield management.

Fares have been unsustainably low. Airlines have started to be profitable, and as near as I can tell, have no real interest in fare wars to the detriment of the airlines.

Agree with CruiserBruce, what do you consider high? What dates? Do you require a non-stop? Do you have any carrier preferences/dislikes? Any particular arrival/departure times? I see Jetblue for $333 PP R/T, but you get back to Boston at 11:04PM. If you want to arrive back at 3:49 PM, it'll cost $528 (I just picked Apr 4 and Apr 12). Do you want cheapest, or are you willing to pay for convenience?

On United, the main advantage of r/t vs 2 one-way awards is that with a r/t, you can get a stopover. For example, come back by way of Hawaii and stay a few days in Oahu. You couldn't do that with a one-way. May not be a big deal for you.

A disadvantage of 2 one-ways is if you have to make a change that involves both tickets (e.g. cancellation), you'll need to pay two fees (presuming you aren't Platinum or higher). That also may not be an issue for you. Some travel insurance will cover redeposit fees.

If you want a good source for redeeming awards or getting miles, look at the United forums on Flyertalk. Be forewarned, some of the threads on there make the smoking/dress code threads on CC seem genteel.

I have no idea if you are right or wrong but do have a question. Based on what you have posted, if the ship was at full capacity what would the 1,319 crew members do who don't fit on the lifeboats?

The crew gets to slum on the liferafts. Those oil drum shaped containers near the lifeboats contain inflatable liferafts.

Worth it?? only you can answer that.

I agree. Two hours, not worth it to me. Four hours I'll entertain buying it. I'll calculate the cost per hour and decide if 3-4 inches more pitch is worth it.

We're coming back from Toronto on our next cruise. Three and half hours on one of those delightful United RJs. Sprung for E+ for $45. If it was a grownup airplane, I probably wouldn't have gotten it.

Another factor is if it's an overnight. Likelier to pay for more room hoping it helps sleeping.

Only been in Princess and Celebrity suites, but I've read the NCL Haven has the best suites on the mass-market cruise lines. We've got to give them a try one of these years.

Is this a gimmick wherein the cruise line jacked up prices for a short time so they could then sell this "bargain" or am I missing somethig?;)

Not missing a thing. There there's the perennial two-for-one "sale" gimmick on Oceania...

The $5/5 alerts site seems to do a far more reliable job. (Can't name them, but it's easy enough to find.)

One thing that site doesn't do is alert if they add a promotion without changing the price. Just use the alert as a signal to go check. I still periodically look at the cruise line site to see what they're currently offering for any cruise we have booked. Alerts are just one tool in the arsenal.

Buildings are 'anchored' firmly to the ground. Those movable weights on the top of building are meant to counter the effect of earthquakes. Ships are not anchored to the ground and aren't bothered by earthquakes (except for any resultant tsunamis). However ships can roll over, and are more likely if they are too top heavy.

Think of standing in a canoe as an example of having too much weight too high up. Yes you can do it but you're pushing your luck. Ships are designed to not have a problem with the pools where they are, but conceivably too much weight on top could lead to instability.

Global Services on UA has nothing to do with cabin class. It's just the top tier of the FF program.

I know that, sorry my remark was oblique. It seems that when United can't think of anything creative, they stick "Global" in it. If your not a United cognoscenti you might think Global Services has something to do with a worldwide provider of janitors or something.

Cheap refundable business class is a contradiction in terms. You'll need to choose between cheap business or refundable.

Look at the credit card associated with your preferred airline(s). There are usually sign-up bonus miles and fee-waived for the first year. Cancel when the annual fee comes due. E.G. at one point, the Chase United Mileage Plus card was offering 50,000 miles as a signup bonus. That's enough for one saver R/T in domestic first. If you each sign up for a card, you should have enough miles for two. The Southwest card also has signup bonuses.

On United at least, upgrades require a copay in addition to your miles if you don't get a top-tier (Y or B class) economy ticket. For a cheap domestic economy ticket (class S, T, K, L, G, or N), you'll need 20,000 miles + $75 one-way. That's on top of the economy ticket. I don't feel the upgrade path is worth it to me. YMMV.

So for a change, Delta borrowed an idea - confusing cabin class names - from United. Global First/Business First/First/Business/Economy Plus/Economy. Then there's Global Services which you can get if you fly enough, even in economy.

I wouldn't worry. This is just marketing obfuscating things to justify their continued employment.

If I wanted to open a retail space on a cruise ship, I would sell baseball caps, wife-beater t-shirts, cargo shorts, and Croc shoes to the masses who have no taste - and no money. It's really quite sad, but that's where we find ourselves today.

Now I've got this picture of the next new build - "Walmart of the Seas" or perhaps "FamilyDollardam" :)

Onboard casino is one of the least profitable concessions with high cost (many employees, plenty equipment, large space required) and generally low profits.

Bruce,

That's interesting. Although thinking about it, I'd be surprised if a cruise ship could attract the kind of high-rollers that make the Las Vegas casinos real money.

My first thought is: Why don't they get rid of the casinos and put in something more profitable? Is it because they can't come up with something? Or are they afraid of alienating customers that expect a casino on a ship and will sail elsewhere if one isn't present? Or something else?

We took the TGV from Avignon to CDG for €45.00 pp. It took about three hours. We booked the tickets on Capitaine Train. We printed off the PDF tickets and used them without a problem. The Capitaine Train site has the same availability as SNCF including fares not available on the Rail Europe site. The man in seat 61 has a lot of info about European train travel.

The main difference between first and second is three across (2+1) vs four across (2+2). Not sure I'd pay too much more for it.

I usually book when I find an acceptable routing at a price that's not too dear.

Airlines aren't completely stupid. If everyone started buying 75-57 days out, they'd raise prices then.

February to Florida, and planes are fuller then ever - I'd book sooner rather than later.

... I don't believe evacuations from a ship by US coast guard are free, do believe folks that need this receive a bill for the service which can be $10,000 or more. This is based on hearsay and local news reports in California....

My understanding is that the Coast Guard is forbidden by law from charging for rescues. However, that just gets you to land. After that, it's your dime.

I can't find a specific USCG web page that says this. I did find this

... Don't rely on "the kindness of strangers" to move for you so you can have 2 seats together...

A cash offer might work :). But few will want to swap with you at any price if you end up with a middle back by the lav.

A good customer service person would keep their cool even if they were frustrated.

Gotta agree with this. A good CSR can say 'No' without annoying the customer.

When I called about the price drop, I got my two choices and made a decision. CSRs are at the bottom rung. I think the only way I *might* have gotten some other choice would be to escalate to a supervisor, but that is a low probability likelihood. Not worth my time - I place a value on Explore4 that's a lot less then HAL wishes someone would pay for it.

My take - HAL is selling two products. One is a cruise + Explore4 for $3,149 PP. The other product is just a cruise for $2,999. I get to pick one of those two products.

I might wish they had a third product consisting of cruise + Explore4 for $2,999, but they're not selling that. I'm not going to cancel a cruise because they don't.

None of the plans posted above really help OP. The Vancouver to Seattle cruise is an Alaska itinerary; they need to miss the entire cruise. So they have a week to kill racking up hotel bills and food costs or they incur airline change fees.

 

Seems to me that the cruise line owes them more than is being offered.

By getting off in Victoria, it becomes a Vancouver to Victoria cruise for that leg - the B2B becomes Hawaii to Victoria. No PVSA involvement.

It all depends on the conditions of the ticket you buy. If you buy a non-refundable but cancelable ticket, you'll have to pay a fee that depends on the specific ticket. I've seen United having some with a $450 'administrative' fee. Ouch.

If you want to go on a foreign carrier, one thing to look at is a codeshare flight. For example, you could buy a Delta ticket, but the plane has 'Air France' on the side. If you cancel, you'll be able to use the money on Delta. When searching, you'll see something like "DL 1234 Operated by Air France"" (or "UA 1234 operated by Lufthansa" or whatever)

One thing to note - some carriers (like United) require 'new money' for the fee. I believe others let you subtract the fee from the fare paid for the cancelled tickets. Just something to pay attention to in the 'fine print' aka fare rules.

The price on Delta roundtrip from Syracuse to JFK and back is only $84 each ROUNDTRIP!!!! If, we combine that flight with the JFK to Barcelona and back portion.

(My DW is not a fan of props either.)

Are you talking about two round trip tickets - SYR-JFK as one round trip, and JFK-BCN as the other?

I would not do this. If SYR-JFK is late/cancelled and you miss the JFK-BCN segment, reaccommodation becomes problematic, even on the same airline. To minimize risk, it is better to have 1 round trip ticket, with explicit connections like SYR-JFK-BCN. That also helps if schedule changes result in an illegal connection.

In the world of airline pricing, 2 round trips SYR-JFK and JFK-BCN might be cheaper than one round trip SYR-BCN, even though they use the same exact aircraft. There are protections you get if it is one ticket vs two, and you're paying for the protection. You need to decide if it's worth it.

If leaving from Syracuse doing Syracuse->Newark->Barcelona on United, it looks like the Syracuse->Newark leg uses a Dash 8 (turboprop). SeatGuru says these have no recline. Only an hour and 15 minutes, so that may or may not be an issue with your back.

With regards to air ticket restrictions, you need to look in the fare rules for a notation like NONEND or worse, NONRER, or some variant like NON-END or NON-REROUTABLE. There are probably other indicators, but those are a couple to be wary of. Neither of those notations is good when things go pear-shaped. If nothing goes wrong, they won't matter.

Per trip. Random if you get it. You can even have one person on a PNR get TSA Pre and not the other. As the TSA pre site says "no individual will be guaranteed TSA Pre✓™ screening."

Last cruise I wore Vibram FiveFingers around the ship a lot. Comfortable. A couple of people actually noticed on the elevator and asked me about them.

I did wear real shoes on formal nights :)