Help with Alaskan airfare and hotel...

[misha1]

We are cruising Alaska on Summit next September but my TA is quoting a pretty hefty price for the airfare and hotel. The Hotel is the Hilton for 270 a night. Has anyone had luck with Priceline for a 3 star hotel and what kinds of prices were they getting hits on? Is the train transfer to Seward better than the motor coach? Thanks

[Texed]

We are cruising Alaska on Summit next September but my TA is quoting a pretty hefty price for the airfare and hotel. The Hotel is the Hilton for 270 a night. Has anyone had luck with Priceline for a 3 star hotel and what kinds of prices were they getting hits on? Is the train transfer to Seward better than the motor coach? Thanks

 

I remember you. Do you remember me?

 

Where are you flying into? Anchorage? Fairbanks? Are you on a cruisetour, or just the cruise? Give a few details, and I will TRY to help. :)

[pennstater]

Misha - My sister-in-law lives in Anchorage and travels to Maryland and Minnesota several times a year. She always seems to get great deals, so I would watch the airfares to see if they go down. I've had luck with Expedia.

 

As far as priceline goes, I can't speak for Alaska but DH and I vacationed in London last summer and paid less than $100 per night for a brand new hotel in a great part of the city. :D DH's secret: He checked out www.biddingfortravel.com before making his bid to see which bids were picked up by which hotels. If you see a good price for a hotel on Bidding for Travel and want to make sure it is nice, there are lots of websites out there to check out hotel reviews by customers. Priceline allowed us to choose the area of the city, which helped increase the chances of getting the hotel we wanted. We are planning the same strategy for our hotel stay in San Juan after our cruise in December.

 

If you are looking to save some money and are willing to put some time and effort into researching your air and hotel, Priceline and Bidding for Travel can help.

 

Hope this information is helpful! Happy travels! :)

[misha1]

How can I forget you?...I have been watching your posts for your upcoming cruises. We are taking a southbound Alaska Sept. 2nd of next year on Summit. We are flying in the day before and staying in Anchorage and then taking the motor coach or train to Seward. Our TA is just now starting the flight and hotel search and made some recommendations to us. I'll tell ya...we aren't in the Caribbean no more Dorothy! Wow, the prices are really up there. No wonder they say it's the trip of a lifetime...it's gonna take me a lifetime to pay it off! I have used Priceline very effectively before but hate going to Bidding for travel...probably because I am lazy and don't want to sift throught their disclaimers all of the time. Thanks Pennstater for your info.

[denalichic]

We are cruising Alaska on Summit next September but my TA is quoting a pretty hefty price for the airfare and hotel. The Hotel is the Hilton for 270 a night. Has anyone had luck with Priceline for a 3 star hotel and what kinds of prices were they getting hits on? Is the train transfer to Seward better than the motor coach? Thanks

 

misha1

 

Congrats on booking your Alaska cruise:D ! I currently live up in Anchorage, and while prices here are high, $270 for the Hilton sounds very, very high. My first suggestion would to to call the hotel directly. Also, be sure to try the Hotel Captain Cook, or the Marriott. There are also some independent hotels downtown, including the Historic Anchroage Hotel, the Aspen Hotel, and the Voyager. If you don't need to be downtown, there's places like Fairfield Suites and Residence Inns, Best Western, and the Millienium. Then try some online sites like Orbitz or hotels.com.

 

Same goes for airfare. Part of this depends on where you're flying from. I travel to the lower 48, usually the east coast, several times a year, and rarely, if ever, pay more than about $500, even in the summer. But, you have to be willing to fly at odd time, usually over night on the return trip outside. Check the online sites, and watch alaskair.com

 

As for train or bus, I would take the train. It's a beautiful trip, I've taken it several times, and it's worth the money

 

denalichic*

 

*all spelling errors are the fault of someone besides me.

[Texed]

How can I forget you?...I have been watching your posts for your upcoming cruises. We are taking a southbound Alaska Sept. 2nd of next year on Summit. We are flying in the day before and staying in Anchorage and then taking the motor coach or train to Seward. Our TA is just now starting the flight and hotel search and made some recommendations to us. I'll tell ya...we aren't in the Caribbean no more Dorothy! Wow, the prices are really up there. No wonder they say it's the trip of a lifetime...it's gonna take me a lifetime to pay it off! I have used Priceline very effectively before but hate going to Bidding for travel...probably because I am lazy and don't want to sift throught their disclaimers all of the time. Thanks Pennstater for your info.

 

You should join us on our cruisetour starting June 5th for the June 10th Summit cruise. :) That way they take care of the hotels and transfers. :) It is Cruisetour # 12 if you want to read about it.

[CruisinDoug]

Also think about if your are flying into Anchorage, where are you departing from? If it is somewhere other than Anchorage then you are flying an "open jaw" flight which is more expensive than starting and ending at the same airport. These fairs are traditionally higher.

 

You'll love Alaska, we just cruised in August on Summit.

[misha1]

Thanks for all the hotel suggestions, that really helps alot. We are indeed flying into Anchorage and flying home from Vancouver so I expected the flights to be expensive but I really appreciate the insight into hotel prices. Goes to show ya...don't believe everything your told. My TA probably gets somekind of kick back from the Hilton. Is there advantage to staying dowtown in Anchorage? I doubt we would arrive until later evening. We are flying in from Wisconsin. Texed, you know we would love to see ya'll again but this Sept. cruise is in celebration of our 25th and we already have the thing booked and paid for. We are taking Connie out to sea December 10th...so counting down to that one right now.

[Texed]

Have a great cruise. :)

[misha1]

Is all well with your family? Who's joining you on your next adventure? Say hi to Jackie.

[bob278]

We flew into Anchorage the end of August this year a day early for our cruisetour. The hotel Celebrity was using was the Downtown Marriott and they wanted $225 for the room the night we got in. We stayed at the airport Courtyard for $135 on a senior rate, but their standard rate is only about $160. It was a very good hotel and they picked us up from the airport. That rate was well worth the trouble of moving to the downtown hotel the next morning. If you are getting in late and leaving the next day, there doesn't seem to be much advantage to staying downtown. The Courtyard does not have a retaurant open for dinner, but they do serve breakfast.

 

The regularly scheduled Alaska Railroad train to Seward leaves very early in the morning (about 6:45, I think). Some of our friends who cruised with us but did not go on the land tour flew in the night before the ship sailed and bought a Celebrity rail transfer and that train left around noon.

 

Ed, Garry and I took Tour #12. I posted a review here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=231534 and Garry has pictures of the land part posted. The link is in her signature (gkm).

[wdworbust]

misha1, what were you quoted for airfare? I'm from Chicago area and also looking flying into Anchorage/Fairbanks and then Vancouver to Chicago next June. I'm at a loss at finding a benchmark price for comparison pricing. I'm seeing $590 for ord-sea-fai / yvr-sea-ord with Alaska Air. Since June is so far out and Alaska summer being a "hot" season, and with gas prices being unpredictable, it's difficult enough to tell a fair price or not!

[misha1]

Our quoted airfare from Minneapolis to Anchorage and from Vancouver to Minneapolis...non-stop...on United (Yikes!) is 1043 per person for coach. If we use Celebrity air with it's unknown number of stops and carrieres, it is 750 dollars and some odd cents. Using United from Minneapolis to Chicago and to Anchorage, then Vancouver to Denver to Minneapolis is also around 750. I like your price better.

[wdworbust]

You're right that is expensive!! Those open-jaw prices are painful! The non-stop is nice but if you have just one stop over and it's not too long, think of it as a chance to stretch your legs. And just think of the excursions you can take with the savings!

 

If the price is similiar Celebrity (ours was quoted at 750 too!) at least by booking yourself you know what the itinerary is without the nervousness of waiting for Celebrity, that's worth something! If you do purchase the tickets yourself I understand the flights schedules on your booked flights could change alot between now and next summer, so you do have to keep checking them even after you purchase them. Also be sure and sign up for the airlines Frequent Flyer program to earn miles for that next trip, we've accrued over 46000 miles(with credit card purchases) since I've started looking into buying tickets for this trip 2 months ago. That will make for free coach tickets for the next trip to Alaska (I keep reading it's not a one time trip! )

 

Well after seeing your your prices I purchased our tickets at the $590 and can live with that number. During the planning of this trip I've tried really hard to save where I can, but I resigned myself not to stress out any more about the airfare. So I'll keep reading these boards about all of the wonderful experiences everyone has had in Alaska and know our trips will be wonderful too (and worth the not so cheap airfare)! After all this hard work, we'll deserve it!

I hope you have a great trip!

Laura

[misha1]

May I ask which airline gave you a 590 dollar fare? Is that a direct flight from Chicago to Anchorage? I don't care as much about connections on the way home as I do getting there. Even though we are flying in the day before there simply are not a lot of flights going to Alaska and we are stuck with what is out there.

[misha1]

As I looked back at your posting I see you are flying into Fairbanks vs Anchorage...isn't that a long distance from Anchorage? How do you go from 1 place to the other or are you taking transportation to the ship from Fairbanks? I don't think that was ever offered as an option by my TA.

[Texed]

Is all well with your family? Who's joining you on your next adventure? Say hi to Jackie.

 

Everyone is great. I showed Jacque your post. At Thanksgiving, it is just Jacque, Sean, and me. At Christmas, almost the whole immediate family AND some friends. For Alaska, we are traveling with sister and BIL.

 

Also, if you can't beat Celebrity's airfare, you can call Captain's Club and deviate it to pick airlines and flight times. :)

[Texed]

Ed, Garry and I took Tour #12. I posted a review here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=231534 and Garry has pictures of the land part posted. The link is in her signature (gkm).

 

Bob,

Garry posted about the review, and I have already read it. It was great. :) I also saw some great pictures. Your review was exactly what we needed to see exactly what we will be doing. THANKS! :)

[wdworbust]

I booked with Alaska Air and is ord-sea-fai/yvr-sea-ord. We leave at Chicago @8:00am arrive Fairbanks 3:40pm, leave Vancouver 9:00am arrive Chicago 5:00pm. I am pleased with the times, but as I said that might be subject to change booked this far out. I started checking prices about 2 months ago and they were in the 700-750 for the cheapest with reasonable times, then a couple weeks ago travelocity started coming up with these cheaper rates. About 1 week ago they went up a couple of bucks (plus the seating assignments got slimmer pickins!) so that's when I started to feel like I should get "off the fence" and so I've been trying to find hard numbers to compare to, and which is why I was excited when I saw your post about prices. I am starting to notice more threads asking about airfare, it's hard to know what to do with these gas prices!!!

 

United did have a non-stop ord-anc/yvr-ord for about $595 but we are starting an independent land tour in fairbanks (anc to fairbanks so add another $76 on Alaska Air and separate booking). I decided on the cheaper Alaska Air flight over non-stop to save some bucks!! United is from Chicago so I think thats helps with prices there.

 

We are taking train to Denali/Talkeetna/Anc/Seward before Summit south bound cruise. We had originally booked cruisetour #12 (hence the quote from Celebrity air for $750 ord-anc/yvr-ord) then after finding this board(actually the Alaska board) I decided I wanted to customize the trip. I wish I had seen Bob's review since it sounded less hetic than I thought it might be.

 

I've also been checking a website flytalk.com which is more about the Frequent Flyer programs but I sifted through postings and got alot of info about best seat selection, searches for plane routings...

 

You're definitely going to come out ahead by starting this process now and these boards (the generous people are what makes the boards great!!!!) are a wonderful resource.

 

If you are Captain's Club, that sounds like a great perk and might be something to think about. Also my understanding is that you can "purchase" Celebrity air but can cancel it prior to final payment to help hedge your bets in finding something cheaper, it helps to have options.

 

I've been stressing about airfare for a few weeks now, so I owe you my graditude!!! Thanks!

Laura