Advice needed re booking return flight after a Worldie sector cruise

[Growler5010]

We have just booked the Southampton - San Francisco sector of Arcadia's world cruise in 2015 & we intend to stay there for 10 days before flying home & we want to fly Business Class (or Premium Economy dependant on cost). P & O can't obviously quote prices until February 2014 so we have to re-contact them then. However, we have just contacted a couple of flight consolidators who tell us that the cost is ridiculously expensive because we are booking it in this country but to fly one-way from the US.

 

Can anyone who has done a world sector cruise & were flying back into the UK please advise me as to who they booked with - is P & O more cost effective than trying to find a better quote elsewhere? We know that P & O are quoting £360 for Economy from San Fran to London for this cruise but I can't fly Economy due to a health problem so we are hoping their Business Class price will be better than the £3500 each we have just been quoted by the consolidator we usually use!! Otherwise we may have to swim home!!

[gstewart]

Try Icelandair - will require changes in Vancouver then Iceland . They offer cheaper one way fares - looking at September 2014, the price is around £1500 each for Business Class.

 

Same story with Aer Lingus - cheaper one way fares and one change required in Dublin.

[kersh]

Hi, we have booked the Arcadia world Cruise 2014 segments LA to Dubai. We have booked all flights through PO. We wanted to upgrade our seats on BA to world traveller plus which PO booked for us. The cost on top of the economy price was £289 each. Not sure how much the economy seats were as we paid £700 each for the outward and return flights so don't know what the split was between flights to LA or Back from Dubai.

The reason they can only tell you the price in February is because the scheduled airlines only advertise the prices 11 months before the flight date.

Hope this helps. We also booked the hotel stay through PO. A bit more expensive than if we had booked direct but PO include all of the transfers from airport to hotel and hotel to ship.

 

Sue

[ivygirl]

We flew back from Hong Kong after our worldie segments on Arcadia in2011. We booked everything through P & O who were very helpful. Don't remember actual cost but it was reasonable. We flew Premium Econpmy on VA. we only stayed 3 days after leaving the ship but found leaving P & O to book everything, hotel as well worked very well. Next year we are flying to Hong Kong and sailing back to Southampton and are once again leaving everything to P & O to book. This time we are on a BA flight (upgraded) and are quite happy with the cost.

[NSWP]

Growler, have you looked at Air New Zealand Premium Economy with their Space Seats? Very good. I know they fly LAX to Heathrow, not sure about San Francisco to UK, but only a short flight from LAX to connect with an Air NZ flight to LHR.

 

Re Virgin Atlantic we travelled with them last year LHR to San Francisco, Economy Class, nothing special, just ok.

 

Good luck with your planning.

[Nevleen]

We are flying to San Francisco in January 2014 to join Worldie and decided to book through P&O because the cost for the two of us is under £1800 for world traveller plus. The fare quoted up to yesterday for us is £4500+ for the same flight, same day etc.

 

P&O obviously have some pull presumably due to business put through BA. We have also found P&O proactive with questions and connections etc.

 

Hope this helps.

[Growler5010]

Thank you to everyone for your help & advice, especially Nevleen who has given me some idea as to how much P & O will charge by the time the fares are released in February. We have flown (return) many times between London & San Fran but never cruised one way so we only knew what return prices would probably be. Gstewart - thanks for the tips - we have flown Icelandair several times in the past (from the eastern seaboard) and we would consider flying with them again. NSWP - Air Newzealand is also one we have considered but I'd rather not go via LA if possible as it's always been too hectic when we've flown from/to there in the past.

 

I can't wait to book the flights now - roll on February!!