Regent Flights - with and without deviation

[Dolebludger]

On 8/13/2020 at 4:59 PM, rallydave said:

Believe most ships come into Manhattan with a few into the other side of the river in Brooklyn.  Traffic in NY is horrendous so need plenty of time to the airport.  Not sure I would even do a 2 PM flight let alone an 11 AM.

 

Have read that might be better to use Newark as lot of traffic and construction to the other 2 airports.  Might google getting to the airports from Manhattan for ideas.  Yes options for non Regent air but, extremely expensive although for New York everything is expensive.  Really doubt in NY there are staging at hotels as never know how long the trip is and only for really late flights if at all.  Expect 

22 hours ago, rallydave said:

It isn't Regent dong the domestic upgrades, it is the airline.  The airline will upgrade the domestic flight connecting with an overwater flights if there are seats available to be upgraded.  This means that there might be open seats but, based on capacity and projections, upgrades are not available.  So, it all depends on what is available when Regent books you.  Also domestic upgrades are only available if you are flying on the airline for the overwater portion's metal or more limited to airlines in their Alliances.  So you won't get upgrades between any of the domestic majors and if on a foreign airline for the overwater, only their Alliance Partners.  Not a simple subject with many variances and just plain luck.  Regent will always accept the upgrade if it comes thru when booking the flights and like I said it is up to the various airlines situations at the time of booking.  That said if it is the same airline or an Alliance Partner, you can most times contact the domestic carrier and ask to be waitlisted for an upgrade on that portion.  They can see you are Business for the other flights and most will do that waitlist. You will not be very high on the upgrade waitlist but, might just get the upgrade if you are lucky so all is not lost if you don't get the upgrade when your flights are booked.

 

In the case of Dolebluger, he lives in a small town with only small commuter plans that take him to Denver, Dallas, etc. and they have either no First Class section or very limited so generally upgrade seats aren't available to him. 

 

 

[Dolebludger]

Sorry that my link quit on me before I could edit and respond. Here is what I wanted to post immediately above.

 

we have little problem with computer jets that fly the quick routes to Denver or Dallas as far as interior room is concerned. These routes from Durango aren't covered within Regent’s “included air” policy so we arrange and pay for those air legs anyway. But on our last Regent cruise only economy air was furnished Denver to LAX, and those longer legs were rather uncomfortable.

[SusieQft]

1 hour ago, Dolebludger said:

These routes from Durango aren't covered within Regent’s “included air” policy so we arrange and pay for those air legs anyway.

Are you saying that Regent will not allow you to designate Durango as your "non-Gateway" airport and book from there with the upcharge? 

 

We have pretty much decided that if/when we book anything with Regent Air we would save money by driving the ~300 miles to LAX (or especially to the Port of Los Angeles) in a one way rental car rather than flying out of Las Vegas.  And all things considered, it won't take much longer to get there, probably less time if going directly to the port.  I realize that the latter is not an option from Colorado.  🙂

[runnerswife]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but can't find the answer.  We are fairly new to Regent having

only done a transatlantic on Explorer (which we loved) and are booked on the Mariner in Oct. transatlantic in a Penthouse Suite.  Know we have a hotel the night before and business air, but

when do we know when and what airline the flight is without the deviation fee?  Thanks, also we are looking at the Norweign Fjords in July which means flying both ways.  If we book a regular suite and

pay the deviation fee does that cover the round trip flights?  Thank you so much, we have really learned a lot on these boards.  Mary

[1982CruzStart]

5 minutes ago, runnerswife said:

when do we know when and what airline the flight is without the deviation fee? 

I believe it can be around 75 days before the cruise that you get flight details if you don't deviate. 

5 minutes ago, runnerswife said:

If we book a regular suite and

pay the deviation fee does that cover the round trip flights?

Yes the deviation fee covers round trip flights. 

[runnerswife]

7 minutes ago, 1982CruzStart said:

I believe it can be around 75 days before the cruise that you get flight details if you don't deviate. 

Yes the deviation fee covers round trip flights. 

Do you get any choices of flights. or take what they give you.  Thanks for the quick response

[rallydave]

10 minutes ago, runnerswife said:

when do we know when and what airline the flight is without the deviation fee? 

Yes, 1982CruzStart absolutely correct.  Flights without deviating are booked by Regent approx. 75 days before departure which is a great reason to deviate since if you don't like Regent's flights your choices are limited.  By that time available deviations flights are much more difficult to get at that point so you might be limited to not as satisfactory flights compared to what you would have gotten at the 270 day mark and should you choose at that point to book your own flights and take the Regent credit, again your choices will be limited and likely much more expensive than booking earlier and if planning on using airline miles, in many cases it is necessary to book those immediately  when they are able to be booked which is somewhere between 330 and 365 days out.   Even waiting until the Regent 270 day mark likely to not be available frequent flyer seats.

 

And, remember when booking using miles for the most part you should book the departure when seats ar available and then the return when they are available as frequent flyer seats are identical each way while paid for overseas flights are much more expensive when booking one way rather than round trip.

[rallydave]

3 minutes ago, runnerswife said:

Do you get any choices of flights. or take what they give you.  Thanks for the quick response

No choice without paying the deviation fee.   That said, have read about people contacting Regent and getting the flights minimally hanged but, would not count on it plus likely they would not be much if any better than the ones Regent booked.

[Dolebludger]

We have never heard of Regent booking flights from a non-gateway airport. And we are fairly certain that Regent doesn’t include legs from a non-gateway to a gateway. The gateway airport Regent usually books for us is Denver. That’s 300 miles (by car) from here in Durango. The drive takes eight hours due to poor quality highways on much of the route, so we have had to arrange our own flight there. The problem with this is that it is often difficult to make flight timing right. Only United serves this route, and it has reduced the number of flights. 

[Wendy The Wanderer]

18 minutes ago, Dolebludger said:

We have never heard of Regent booking flights from a non-gateway airport. And we are fairly certain that Regent doesn’t include legs from a non-gateway to a gateway. The gateway airport Regent usually books for us is Denver. That’s 300 miles (by car) from here in Durango. The drive takes eight hours due to poor quality highways on much of the route, so we have had to arrange our own flight there. The problem with this is that it is often difficult to make flight timing right. Only United serves this route, and it has reduced the number of flights. 

 

Richard, I don't know because I live in a gateway, but I thought you paid a fee for Regent to book your flights from a non-gateway airport.  Am I wrong?

[rallydave]

1 minute ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

Richard, I don't know because I live in a gateway, but I thought you paid a fee for Regent to book your flights from a non-gateway airport.  Am I wrong?

You are absolutely correct Wendy.  Believe the fee is the same no matter the non-Gateway City but, Dolebludger can certainly do this.  Might be less expensive to simply book the flight out of Durango himself.  Just depends. 

[SusieQft]

9 minutes ago, Dolebludger said:

We have never heard of Regent booking flights from a non-gateway airport.

My first quote from Regent included (itemized separately) $124.50 per person per direction ($598 total for both of us) for flights from Las Vegas to LAX for a RT cruise out of LA.  That is because Las Vegas is not a gateway airport.  Since then we have said no thank you to included flights including that one, which we booked without air, but I assume that the same non-gateway fee would apply if we had made a connection at LAX, which is a gateway airport, or if we had flown directly from Las Vegas to embark somewhere else. 

 

Based on the T&Cs and what I have read, I would assume that the same non-gateway fee should apply for you out of Durango.  If you are at all interested in using Regent Air, you might want to discuss this with your TA.  If you are flying from Durango to a gateway airport, it seems to me it would be a lot easier to have the entire trip on one ticket unless you plan to overnight in the gateway city.

[SWFLAOK]

We book through a gateway, but we always pay 175 per person to choose our flights. We like to have our reservation and seats assigned well ahead of time instead of waiting until a few months in advance. This helps us plan on getting to our gateway airport (2.5 hours away) and back since we know what time we need to be at the airport, and what time we will return. Compared to the total cost of the cruise, that's not a lot of money. We just booked our Regent flights for September.

[1982CruzStart]

22 hours ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

Richard, I don't know because I live in a gateway, but I thought you paid a fee for Regent to book your flights from a non-gateway airport.  Am I wrong?

As Rallydave said you are absolutely correct. We had a non-gateway flight booked for our last cruise that we had to cancel. It was $249 pp (as mentioned by SusieQft) which for us is a good price for round trip flights from home to Vancouver. In the past we used points to fly to Vancouver but always went the day before so incurred the cost of the hotel, meals, extra baggage fees etc so $249 pp is a good deal for us.  It was going to be a nice change to have all our flights on one itinerary and not have to worry as much about late flights and missing connections.  

We will try to fly into our non-gateway for our Sept 2021 cruise. We only need a 1 way flight from Tokyo to Vancouver as we cruise out of Vancouver.  We are hoping to have a friend drive us to Vancouver to catch the ship. 

[Pudgesmom]

On 12/27/2020 at 11:40 AM, runnerswife said:

Sorry if this has been asked before, but can't find the answer.  We are fairly new to Regent having

only done a transatlantic on Explorer (which we loved) and are booked on the Mariner in Oct. transatlantic in a Penthouse Suite. 

Sorry to digress, but we’ve just booked this cruise yesterday, our first on Regent. We have done numerous transatlantic sails on Windstar and really enjoy all the sea days. 

[jeb_bud]

On 12/27/2020 at 10:49 AM, Dolebludger said:

We have never heard of Regent booking flights from a non-gateway airport. And we are fairly certain that Regent doesn’t include legs from a non-gateway to a gateway. The gateway airport Regent usually books for us is Denver. That’s 300 miles (by car) from here in Durango. The drive takes eight hours due to poor quality highways on much of the route, so we have had to arrange our own flight there. The problem with this is that it is often difficult to make flight timing right. Only United serves this route, and it has reduced the number of flights. 

My home airport is also a small airport not on Regent’s gateway list. After driving six hours to SFO to start our included air I decided not to do that again if I could avoid it. I called the Regent air department to discuss options. For a fee, Regent will add my local airport to the itinerary. I think the fee is around $225 per person, plus any air fare increase. Probably not a bargain but we wouldn’t have to worry about missed connections with separately booked flights. 
 

SusieQft, Las Vegas is a Regent gateway. Regent has some kind of tier structure for their gateway airports. Smaller market airports like Las Vegas or PDX incur an extra fee, while major market airports like SFO or LAX do not. 

[SusieQft]

8 hours ago, jeb_bud said:

SusieQft, Las Vegas is a Regent gateway. Regent has some kind of tier structure for their gateway airports. Smaller market airports like Las Vegas or PDX incur an extra fee, while major market airports like SFO or LAX do not. 

I have not heard of any tier structure for gateways.  If so, perhaps there are some that Regent just flat refuses to book, or maybe has a higher fee for?  Our quote was for $249 per person for a round trip flight from LAS to LAX, more than the cost of the flight but would have been a good deal including the transfers.  Except that we got $300 per person to forgo the air, so the real cost was $549 per person, which was totally outrageous.  $1098 was more than enough to cover the rental car and hotel to drive there the day before.  The car rental company said they would provide the transfer, but sadly we did not get to check that out since our cruise was cancelled.

 

I would dearly love for LAS to be a gateway airport, but I think this is probably an issue of semantics.  Regent has a specific definition for gateway airports, and they are listed at Air Programs and Upgrades | Regent Seven Seas Cruises (rssc.com)   Neither Las Vegas nor Portland is on the list.

Edited December 31, 2020 by SusieQft

[rallydave]

9 hours ago, SusieQft said:

I would dearly love for LAS to be a gateway airport, but I think this is probably an issue of semantics.  Regent has a specific definition for gateway airports, and they are listed at Air Programs and Upgrades | Regent Seven Seas Cruises (rssc.com)   Neither Las Vegas nor Portland is on the list.

You are 10,000% correct.  Either your chosen departure city is a Gateway per your link or it is not.  Absolutely no tier structure or sometimes yes and sometimes no.

 

Just like the included (not free) air that is included in all of Regent's fares, there are winners and losers in the does one take the air credit or not and if one pays the non-Gateway fee or not.  You see Regent only provides one price for a cruise and one price for a non-Gateway airport no matter where you live and where the cruise departure city is.  By doing this and setting the initial fares sometimes more than 2 years out Regent is setting average air costs in the cruise pricing.  In doing this there are cases where a customer can save money by taking the air credit simply depending on their departure airport and the cruise departure port.

 

For instance those on the East Coast for European departures are able to save money by taking the air credit for a European cruise while those on the West coast would save by not taking the credit.  Same for Asia cruises in reverse.

 

As to Gateway or non-Gateway cities the same situations can occur depending on the fares from your non-Gateway City combined with your cruise departure ports.  Winners like Susie from Vegas to LA while others from a small city with high fares might win.

 

This simply underscores the facts that each person needs to do their own calculation for their specific home city and departure port no matter if in a Gateway City or Non-Gateway City.  Asking in generalities on this Board will likely get you the wrong answer as each case is different and don't forget fare sales also play into this picture.  Good luck to all and make sure you do your due diligence to make the best choice for your included NOT free air.

[jeb_bud]

12 hours ago, SusieQft said:

I have not heard of any tier structure for gateways.  If so, perhaps there are some that Regent just flat refuses to book, or maybe has a higher fee for?  Our quote was for $249 per person for a round trip flight from LAS to LAX, more than the cost of the flight but would have been a good deal including the transfers.  Except that we got $300 per person to forgo the air, so the real cost was $549 per person, which was totally outrageous.  $1098 was more than enough to cover the rental car and hotel to drive there the day before.  The car rental company said they would provide the transfer, but sadly we did not get to check that out since our cruise was cancelled.

 

I would dearly love for LAS to be a gateway airport, but I think this is probably an issue of semantics.  Regent has a specific definition for gateway airports, and they are listed at Air Programs and Upgrades | Regent Seven Seas Cruises (rssc.com)   Neither Las Vegas nor Portland is on the list.

We have here a bit of a semantic issue and a bit of an old news issue.  When I am researching a cruise I click "Plan my Cruise" on the itinerary page.  On the "Select Options" page is a section to select whether to use Regent's "Free" airfare.  There is a dropdown menu to select an airport.  To me, that list is the gateway list.  PDX and LAS are both on that list.  My home airport, MFR is not on that list and in my mind that makes it a non-gateway airport.

 

A couple of years ago when I was researching a cruise the cruise price was higher flying from PDX than it was flying from SFO.  When I called Regent to ask about that the agent told me some gateways were more equal than others.  That was the basis for my post yesterday.

 

Today I looked at a cruise we are planning for 2022 and now the cruise price flying from PDX and SFO is the same, so it appears the gateway tier structure has been eliminated.

 

I haven't tried to actually book a cruise with air from PDX since I prefer the options from SFO.  Maybe there is a complication I would discover if I tried, but at first glance it appears that I could book a cruise with PDX as my airport.  The same is apparently true for LAS.  Maybe the list on the Air Program page is outdated?

 

 

 

[SusieQft]

3 hours ago, jeb_bud said:

Maybe there is a complication I would discover if I tried

Yes, you would almost certainly see the extra fee if you got a quote from your TA.  I would be totally amazed if Regent discontinued this fee, especially in 2020.  The $249 fee for a non-gateway airport is not part of the cruise fare.  It showed up on a separate line (actually $124.50 each on two separate lines) when I got a quote, it was under "Additional Items," below the "Cruise Fare Total."

[amusea]

In the unique situation that the world is facing today it has brought up a new question for me about Custom air (deviating).  I think I am correct that deviation can only be accomplished if the cruise has been paid for in full.  In my case I am talking about a very long cruise that involves a total cost of more than six figures.  If I want to deviate as soon as possible I assume it means that I must make total final payment before deviation which is almost a year in advance.  Due to the continually changing situation with Covid I am not willing to make the final payment until the required 150 days before the cruise.  So this means that I have to wait and book the deviations once the final payment becomes due.  Correct?

 

Secondly, I have been charged for using an airport that is not on the major airport list.  Now, if I deviate does that mean another fee is charged for the deviation or is this part of the charge for the 

home airport?

 

Jay in Tucson

[BBWC]

I have never heard that you have to pay in full. You can deviate 270 days before the cruise starts and pick your flights. This does not affect final payment date.

[rallydave]

You definitely do not have to make final payment before deviating a maximum of 270 days before departure. That said you have brought up another wrinkle you didn’t know you brought up

 

You said a very long cruise. Well in most cases if your cruise is more than 60 days you will not be able to book your return at the 270 day mark as they in most cases simply not be available. Since Oceania world cruises are 180 days long and the air office is tied to Regents sure they have a solution so best you have your TA or you contact Regent and ask that question  

 

As to your airport question deviating and using a non gateway you will pay that fee along with the deviation fee. 

[amusea]

Rally Dave,

 

Thanks for your input.  We are booking our own flight on the outbound but taking Regent at the end of the cruise.  Since the cruise is more than 60 days I will have to find out from either my cruise agent or Regent representative when the return flight can be booked as a deviation.  Thanks for bringing up that detail.

 

Jay

[SWFLAOK]

We pay for a deviation because we don't want to wait until the last minute to find out what flight Regent has selected for us. At that point, you can still pay to deviate if you don't like it, but you'll get the leftover seats, so you may not be seated together, and you may have an additional stop. You don't need to pay for your cruise in full to pay the deviation and select flights. Our TA still uses Regent to select the flights early since they have blocks of seats reserved and are happy to provide them for an additional fee. We consider the deviation fee insignificant on Regent since our cruises are eligible for included business class airfare. On other cruise lines, we don't get business class airfare, and some expect us to pay for gratuities which cost more than Regents deviation fee.

If you choose a non-gateway airport, you'll pay extra for that, but I don't think that's a deviation fee. If you decide to stay on your own after your cruise, and take their suggested flight back, you will pay the deviation fee.