Celebrity-Choice AIR When to book?

Doing a TA in April 2019--

When is the best time to book a Celebrity Air/Choice Air ticket--one way?

Right now a flight via airline or kayak is more than Celebrity/Choice Air.

There is a choice of non refundable and refundable air tickets.

Haven't bought trip protection yet (only have $100 pp down on the stateroom)

Advice?

This is our first TA and first flight through Celebrity. Don't want to much this up

TYIA

As with any airline ticket these days, buy it when you think it's a good deal....and you may or may not be right. There's no magic time although I read a article somewhere that said that Tuesday afternoons are the best time to find good fares (I don't believe it). There is no magic to buying your air ticket from celebrity...in fact there are some downsides, depending on your situation. For example, if you cancel your cruise, Choice Air will cancel your air reservation....automatically....you have no choice. That caught us once when we wanted to change cruises a few days...keep the air we booked and take a different cruise....couldn't do it. But there are upsides too...the most noted being one way fares to Europe on major carriers that aren't offered by the carriers themselves. We've done that multiple times.

Travel insurance is tricky. You are offered travel insurance when you book your trip....almost always for the full cost of the trip. The insurance actually covers no $ benefit at that point....other than waiving the pre-existing condition exclusion which most people don't actually have (that's a whole different discussion...see the insurance section of cruise critic). When you book an air ticket, the insurance will cover the non-refundable portion of your ticket....but...maybe I should capitalize that....if you buy a $500 ticket and $200 is non-refundable but $300 is usable on another flight on the same airline within 12 months, you will get $200. It doesn't matter if it's Air Fiji and you aren't going to Fiji...you will get $200, not $500 back. Irrespective, it's good to get travel insurance for it's medical coverage and covering costs of evacuation from the ship, if needed. Again, a whole lot to say on that topic....note: what celebrity offers may not provide enough coverage depending on where you are travelling...don't just assume they are providing what you need. Before you buy check insuremytrip and other online travel insurance sites to see what the differences are in policies...and then make an informed decision.

We might be on your TA :) In any case, enjoy your cruise.

Only way I would purchase airfare through a third party (i.e. such as Choice Air) was if there was substantial savings. I strongly prefer to book airfare directly with the airlines. Prefer having published fares (when purchasing discounted tickets through 3rd parties the tickets often come with restrictions that can make things messy if one's flight is cancelled or there is a missed connection or one's flight needs to be changed). and prefer not potentially having to deal with a third part to be accommodated if something goes wrong (I'd rather deal directly with the airlines). Regardless of who I book with, I build in ample wiggle room for making the ship (and for connections if I am unable to procure a non-stop flight) so that my risk is minimized. As for predicting when airfare will be lowest (or even if it will go up or down) it is impossible to predict; all a matter of supply and demand.

For example, if you cancel your cruise, Choice Air will cancel your air reservation....automatically....you have no choice. That caught us once when we wanted to change cruises a few days...keep the air we booked and take a different cruise....couldn't do it.

GHStudio: thank you for setting this out. My single experience with Choice Air has been great so far (we leave on our cruise trip in October, and we got an outstanding business class fare). But I wondered what happens if you cancel the cruise. Could I still take the trip and take advantage of the great airfare? In this case there are 3 components to our trip: Celebrity cruise, followed by some days on our own, followed by our first river cruise. I don't plan on cancelling the Celebrity cruise, but what if I did? You seem to have had the first-hand experience that they will cancel the air tickets, and there is no way around it. Good to know.

Tom & Judy

We have a trip booked with Choice air leaving Sept. 29, round trip to Rome. I played with the Choice Air site for

months, even a year ahead pretending that we were leaving that September.

My advice is when you are on the site doing "Quick Flight Search Only" to see what is available,

you do the pull down to one particular airline. If I left it wide open to see choices, it offered airlines

and fares WAY higher than when I pulled (in my case -Delta) down on the list and chose only that airline.

Even today when I checked our flights without choosing an airline, if offered round trips at $1032 for first ones up, and then when I just chose Delta only on the list, it was $632. This is for Economy so I have no idea if the other fares would

be like this or not.

We did book fairly early, and the only advantage to that in my case was to have a better choice of flights, as ours did sell out.

Good luck on your decision!

We have a trip booked with Choice air leaving Sept. 29, round trip to Rome. I played with the Choice Air site for

months, even a year ahead pretending that we were leaving that September.

 

My advice is when you are on the site doing "Quick Flight Search Only" to see what is available,

you do the pull down to one particular airline. If I left it wide open to see choices, it offered airlines

and fares WAY higher than when I pulled (in my case -Delta) down on the list and chose only that airline.

 

Even today when I checked our flights without choosing an airline, if offered round trips at $1032 for first ones up, and then when I just chose Delta only on the list, it was $632. This is for Economy so I have no idea if the other fares would

be like this or not.

 

We did book fairly early, and the only advantage to that in my case was to have a better choice of flights, as ours did sell out.

 

Good luck on your decision!

Very sound advice. I would add also include any carriers that code share with your preferred carrier. For Delta, these include Air France and KLM. In our case I was able to get a one way business class ticket on a KLM code share for $500 less per person than on a Delta ticket for flights being flown by Delta which is our preferred carrier.

Spend time checking fares for several days or weeks to get a sense of pricing. I knew the flights I wanted and followed them for several weeks with the routes I wanted starting at $2000pp. I finally booked at $1015pp. 😎

Good luck!

I’ve always heard the best time to book international flights is 6 months out, not sure how true that is but I’ve always been able to find decent fares then.

I’ve always heard the best time to book international flights is 6 months out, not sure how true that is but I’ve always been able to find decent fares then.

I always look at the 11 month window. I found a one-way from Myrtle Beach thru ATL to BCN for $191.00 on Delta. It was a shocker, and I jumped on it. Cost an additional $99 thru Delta to upgrade to Comfort Economy, or whatever they call it. :)

I’ve always heard the best time to book international flights is 6 months out, not sure how true that is but I’ve always been able to find decent fares then.

I always look at the 11 month window. I found a one-way from Myrtle Beach thru ATL to BCN for $191.00 on Delta. It was a shocker, and I jumped on it. Cost an additional $99 thru Delta to upgrade to Comfort Economy, or whatever they call it. :)

There is no set time that will always turn out to be the best time (with "best" meaning cheapest.) Think about it: If 6 months out, or 11 months out (any other set time) was really always the cheapest, pretty soon everyone would book at exactly 6 months (or whatever time) out. Airlines would see demand jump massively at the T-6 month mark and guess what would happen in response to that huge increase in demand? The price would go up and suddenly that would be the most expensive time to book.

People will always have their own individual anecdotes about when they got a good deal, but it in no way means that that time frame is proven to always be the cheapest.

I read somewhere that 99 days out is statistically the best time to buy International Flights. We buy international tickets several times per year (mostly NOT for cruises). I generally start looking about 6 months out to get an idea of the flight times I want, prices, etc. I suggest keeping an eye on how many seats have sold on the flight you want... if it's quite full - don't hesitate to buy when it looks like a good price. If it's pretty empty - WAIT! We had to buy 4 tickets to Amsterdam for a cruise next week... and prices were going up in $50 increments every few days (this was 4-5 months out) and I got nervous that I had waited too long. But the flight was only 20% full, and prices started to drop back after a few nervous weeks. (Prices direct with airline were hovering between $1550-$1750pp.) I checked with Choice Air right at 100 days out and bought tickets on my desired airline/days/times for $1325. (When airline was still at $1570.) So x4 that was quite a good savings! I will say it was "deeply discounted fare"... so I won't get the full amount of frequent flier miles and probably won't get upgraded to "delta comfort+" even with my husband's status. But saving $1000 seemed worth it. Choice Air does check the codeshare savings... we knew exactly the fights we wanted (on Delta), and we got those flights, but the outbound was booked via Delta, and the return via KLM (though still a Delta operated flight.) Good luck!

I booked our airfare in May for our Oct Western Mediterranean cruise. I try and book early to get a better seat selection. I started looking about 6 months out. My go to airlines are British, Delta and Virgin. The cost of airfare for 2 people flying business class varied between $11,000 to $14,000. I booked with Choice Air arriving 2 days early flying Delta to Barcelona. Flying home on Virgin from London 10 days after the cruise. Cost of our flights were $5100 for 2 people.

We have a trip booked with Choice air leaving Sept. 29, round trip to Rome. I played with the Choice Air site for

months, even a year ahead pretending that we were leaving that September.

 

My advice is when you are on the site doing "Quick Flight Search Only" to see what is available,

you do the pull down to one particular airline. If I left it wide open to see choices, it offered airlines

and fares WAY higher than when I pulled (in my case -Delta) down on the list and chose only that airline.

 

Even today when I checked our flights without choosing an airline, if offered round trips at $1032 for first ones up, and then when I just chose Delta only on the list, it was $632. This is for Economy so I have no idea if the other fares would

be like this or not.

 

We did book fairly early, and the only advantage to that in my case was to have a better choice of flights, as ours did sell out.

 

Good luck on your decision!

I did the same for our 9/2019 Iberian. Charlotte to Amsterdam, Barcelona to Charlotte - set up as multi-city. CA was about 30% cheaper including non-stops. Heaven knows what it'll be when we do it for real.

I'd book it now if you like the price. Choice Air often is buying a bulk set of tickets front he departure airport and they're gone when they're gone. One way tickets are often hard to find deals on.

My anecdote - back in 2013 I hesitated to buy the one way airfare early at $1200/pp from Choice Air after an Infinity cruise. No joke economy jumped to $2400 for the same flight when we got closer. I ended up getting FC for $3000 because I was never paying so much for an economy ticket.