Custom Air vs "Choice Air"

[southerngoose]

Hi!!! I've been on two previous cruises and just booked the third. The first cruise, we were naive and booked "Standard" air. While I believe that the price was less than what we could have gotten by buying it ourselves, I was unhappy with the airlines and schedule and came home wondering if I could ever fly again (long story). The second cruise, hoping to avoid another debacle, I booked it myself and I had a credit from an unflown round trip to Paris. I was going on a transatlantic so I only needed a one way but it cost 2x as much to fly one way than round trip...that's right, it costs MORE to fly once than twice. Ok...so I booked it Barcelona to Houston to Barcelona, then when I arrived in Houston I called Continental and just said "Oh my plans changed, let's cancel the trip to Barcelona. No problems.

 

This time around (2 years after the previous transatlantic) I'm a platinum level cruiser and no credits with Continental. I tried to get a free ticket using my miles on Continental or American but there were no tickets on Continental and the routing was miserable on American.

 

I decide to call the official "Royal Caribbean Vacation Planner" and ask them for a quote for the custom air. I get transferred to "Choice Air". I figure...ahhh, I haven't been watching the CruiseCritic message boards and now they've changed the name of the service. The lady tells me to book my cruise, then check out their website at http://www.rccl.com\choiceair (or something like that) so that I can select my flight, then I can call them back to book it.

 

Thinking that I'm a platinum and I get "free custom air" plus thinking that maybe "custom air" was renamed "ChoiceAir"...I go ahead and book the bargain airfare.

 

After booking the cruise and air, I find in the fine print that "Choice Air" is not "custom air" and that I couldn't get it for "free". I booked the ticket and no extra charge was assessed (unless it was in that bargain fare!).

 

I'm curious...what is the distinction between "Choice Air" and "custom air"? When I spoke to the "ChoiceAir" agent, she said that I should check to see if "standard air" was cheaper or whatever and I said that I would not be using "standard" because I wanted to fly in a day in advance and I wanted to choose my airlines. The agent never said anything like "Oh, by the way, we're not 'custom air' and there will be a fee".

 

At this point, the ticket was so cheap, I wouldn't mind paying a $75 fee. But I am curious why there are so many classes of "air" and why there's no explanation. I felt very deceived because I thought I was asking for "custom air" when I called Royal Caribbean's official phone line.

 

sign me - naive, newly-platinumized cruiser

[cruisenfever]

I'm curious...what is the distinction between "Choice Air" and "custom air"? When I spoke to the "ChoiceAir" agent, she said that I should check to see if "standard air" was cheaper or whatever and I said that I would not be using "standard" because I wanted to fly in a day in advance and I wanted to choose my airlines. The agent never said anything like "Oh, by the way, we're not 'custom air' and there will be a fee".

 

At this point, the ticket was so cheap, I wouldn't mind paying a $75 fee. But I am curious why there are so many classes of "air" and why there's no explanation. I felt very deceived because I thought I was asking for "custom air" when I called Royal Caribbean's official phone line.

 

sign me - naive, newly-platinumized cruiser

Custom air is when you know your airfare allowance and then "you" do the research on the flights that you want and then call the Air/Sea Dept. and book them. Since you are Platinum the air deviation fee of $50 Domestic/$75 International would be waived once. Since your air is part of your cruise package you do not pay for it until you make final payment. If you have to cancel your cruise, nothing lost, nothing gained.

 

Choice air is airfare at a cheaper price and is booking the flights yourself after filling out the information on the Choice Air website and paying for them at the time of booking, plus a fee. They are now non-refundable. I guess you can also call someone at Choice Air and book on the phone also.

[southerngoose]

Cruisin - thanks for the explanation. I went back and saw this on their site:

http://www.cruisingpower.com/protected/choiceair/aboutChoiceAir.do

 

The interesting thing that I was not informed about was that if you do this, they will get you to the ship at the next port, if you miss the ship. It's also cheaper than an air deviation at only $25 for the international flight. But I still believe that when they were telling all the disclosures about how the ticket was non-refundable, I owned it, etc etc, they should have said "we're charging you $25 for it, it's not free with your platinum". And I'm not clear about the "you own the ticket" thing...since the website says that if you cancel the cruise, the air gets cancelled too. I guess they were trying to say that you're paying upfront instead of with Custom air you pay at the end with the cruise. I bought cruise care so I wasn't all that concerned.

 

This seems to be their answer to "I want to book it myself" and their need to know who is flying on which flight to do their planning. With those types of prices...I'll use ChoiceAir again. I just wish they would have taken the time to explain it better.