Celebrity Air

[Bear7953]

Have a cruise booked for Australia/New Zealand in February. Anyone have any experience booking airfare with Celebrity Air service? How about Celebrity City Stays?

TIA

[Karynanne]

We've used Celebrity Air many times for International flights. The fares are substantially lower, and easy to book.

 

 

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[jelayne]

We have used Choice Air, now renamed Celebrity Air, a number of times and have found there prices for one way tickets to be much less than the airlines to and from Europe.

 

We didn't t find the fares to be lower on flights to or from. NZ or Australia but that could have been a factor of when we looked to purchase tickets.

[Orator]

Be sure to check the price if you book as two one way fares. You might find some significant savings.

[RickT]

Also, be sure to do your research using ITA Matrix or google flights. The Choice Air website does not list/show all flight options but if you find a routing/price you like they can usually find that for you and sometimes can provide decent savings.

[emelle]

Research the opinions on using Cruise associated air on the separate forum found towards the bottom of the main page. While the price for my RT tickets to Europe via Choice Air a summer ago were ok, the connections ended up being horrendous once changes were made by the airlines to flight times (outside of my control) and they were absolutely not going to change the flights no matter how many people I talked to about it. I knew the connection time at Heathrow was likely too short and it was and we were left at Heathrow in the line of folks trying to get rebooked and got the last 2 seats out that would get us home in a "timely" fashion. People we know traveling with our group were not so lucky and got to spend the night in the UK (which would be great most of the time, but not when you are trying to get home).

 

All to say, there are some great posts on CC forum about cruise air and I would read them and then decide what you want to do. Sometimes it's not just price. Your milage may vary. Good luck.

[aloanldy]

I used it to book my flights for Alaska. I phoned in to book the 4 tickets and the person on the line couldn't get to the prices I got on the website. So I ended up booking them online thru choice air instead of on the phone with the agent. no problem with the tickets and they were considerably less expensive then booking direct with the airline.

 

charlie

[alcpa1]

OP,

You need to do your own research. Use Kayak or Google Flights or ITAMatrix or whatever tool will give you your best flight options along with pricing.

Choice Air may not be able to provide your fare code. This is where comparisons between the above search engines and the direct airline web sites differ from Choice Air. Booking codes are the key to your ticket. For example, some tickets will earn frequent flyer miles at full, partial, or no value. Some tickets are fully refundable but with restrictions that are not clear booking through a third party site. That is what Cruise Air is...a third party site.

For much more expert advice, scroll down to the sub topic called CRUISE AIR. There are well traveled posters who can be of great assistance. And, do so BEFORE you purchase your tickets.

[transam84]

I price it out both ways. For international flights with different arrival and departure cities I have found Choice air (old name) to be very competive and often cheaper, especially first or business. I just got business class for my Asia 2018 cruise, direct flights for same price as united direct. So I went with celebrity. I like having it all connected to my reservation for cruise. And I still get points and same elite benefits with a United. So I just go with better fare and all things being equal I go with celebrity air. Just my two cents.

[vickykay]

We did this same cruise this past Feb. we didn't use city stays with Celebrity but stayed six days at the Marriott Circular Quay in Sydney, which I would recommend. Wonderful location, can walk most everywhere, including the ship. Sydney was an amazing city and I would recommend spending several days there if you can. The cruise was amazing!

[waterbug123]

So I just go with better fare and all things being equal I go with celebrity air. Just my two cents.

 

And therein lies the catch. Problem is, with Choice Air you won't generally know ahead of time if the tickets you got are truly equal to the tickets you might have gotten directly from the airline. Often they are much more highly restricted. If there are no flight issues on travel day, it won't matter and you'll have gotten a great deal. If there are travel day issues, you might find out at that point just how "not equal" your ticket actually is.