pros and cons of cruise line booking your flight

[pmjnh]

What are the pros and cons of the cruise line booking your flight?

[JMorris271]

Flexibility to myself is what I like about doing it myself.

I booked my current cruise myself after finding out the tickets bought through the Cruise line would have been $50 more.

Hopefully, if there is an issue, you will get assistance from the line IF I bought their insurance.

Cons, you take what they give you.

 

Have you had better luck with buying yourself or going through the line?

[Hlitner]

We would never consider letting any cruise line "book" our flight. However, we would certainly take advantage of favorable air fares offered by the cruise lines. The difference is that we first would look at the flight options offered by the cruise line, compare their prices and offerings to what we can book on our own, and then make an informed decision as to the best option for us!

 

Some cruise lines such as Princess and Holland American now make this process easier since they offer online cruise/air booking options where one can select the flights. Other cruise and river cruise lines will require dealing on the phone which is somewhat limiting since you cannot visually see various options. But such is life :).

 

Why won't we allow the cruise line's to choose our flights? Because they generally have contractual relationships with various airlines (or travel companies that work as a middle man) to obtain "bulk" or reduced rates. In some cases you can get lousy flights and connections because that is what the airlines are tying to sell. As very experienced world travelers we prefer to choose our own airlines, class of service (we generally look for Business Class on longer International flights), seats, etc.

 

When it comes to domestic you might also want to consider that cruise lines do not generally use Southwest (ranked as one of the most popular US domestic airlines) and seldom use JetBlue (this seems to be changing). For those that have easy access to Southwest, they are the only domestic airline that includes up to 2 checked bags (per person) in their fares.

 

Hank

[LHT28]

depends on the cruise line

 

 

We pay a deviation fee to choose the flights/dates we want

sometimes the prices are better using the cruise line that DIY

do your homework then decide what works for you

[pmjnh]

Flexibility to myself is what I like about doing it myself.

I booked my current cruise myself after finding out the tickets bought through the Cruise line would have been $50 more.

Hopefully, if there is an issue, you will get assistance from the line IF I bought their insurance.

Cons, you take what they give you.

 

Have you had better luck with buying yourself or going through the line?

 

Thanks for your thoughts. I have actually always booked the flights myself but am looking at the cruise line doing it for me this year...or I should say my TA via the cruise line. Not sure if it is worth it if I am flying in the day before the cruise and flying out the day after disembarkation.

 

I always like the flexibility of choosing my own flights but the cruise line gives me that opportunity as well. When I looked, I found the pricing to be comparable to the airline.

[John Bull]

 

Why won't we allow the cruise line's to choose our flights? Because they generally have contractual relationships with various airlines (or travel companies that work as a middle man) to obtain "bulk" or reduced rates. In some cases you can get lousy flights and connections because that is what the airlines are tying to sell.

 

Hank

 

For example we booked our own flights London to Istanbul for an RCI cruise. Direct flight, about 2.5 hrs.

Others on the ship booked cruise-air. Via a change in Amsterdam, with a layover there of several hours, total about 8 hours. And they paid a chunk more than us.

 

UK cruise lines often charter aircraft to provide fly-cruises. Everyone on the aircraft is on the cruise, transfers included, hand over your bags at the UK airport & next time you see them is at your cabin door. If your aircraft is delayed, the ship isn't going to sail without 200 to 300 passengers.

And at prices you can't match independently.

The only way I'd book flights through the cruise line.

 

JB :)

[Flatbush Flyer]

In part, it depends on the cruise line.

For example, while Our preferred cruise line includes airfare in its pricing, they are economy tix with arrival set for day of embarkation and routing that doesn't necessarily suit your preferences. Except for certain loyalty levels, you need to pay a deviation fee for different arrangements (date, carrier, routing, ticket class, etc) you may require/desire.

So, we have always taken the cruise line's air credit instead and DIY.

Why?

If it's a long haul flight, we will fly biz class using money, FF points or a combo. If at all possible, we use United or a Star Alliance partner since that's where we focus our mileage/points accrual.

Another reason we DIY is that we almost always add trip days pre/post cruise and prefer different arrive/depart cities to maximize the value of the airfare and travel time.

We also want very specific departure/arrival time windows to accommodate hotel/local tour/time zone adjustments as well as preferred connection hubs/layovers and seat assignments.

And, of course, we use ITA Matrix to search all possibilities and keep costs reasonable before buying tix. Even then we do our best to have any Star Alliance tix issued by United to maximize their perks.

[marco]

When doing a TA or European cruise the cruise line air has ALWAYS been considerably less $$$$ than anything I could find on my own. Living less than an hr from JFK they've pretty much always been a nonstop, so that made it pretty convenient.

When doing a cruise out of a domestic port, cruise line air has ALWAYS been way more $$$$, so we've never taken them up on that.

[Roz]

I book my own when I cruise from a US port. Lately I've been taking European river cruises, and booking air thru them has been way less expensive than trying to do it on my own. Plus they meet me at the airport and take me to the hotel or ship. You don't know what a welcome sight it is to arrive in Bucharest at 7 pm in the dark, exhausted and hungry, and to see that cruise line rep waiting for you.

 

Roz

[JMorris271]

I book my own when I cruise from a US port. Lately I've been taking European river cruises, and booking air thru them has been way less expensive than trying to do it on my own. Plus they meet me at the airport and take me to the hotel or ship. You don't know what a welcome sight it is to arrive in Bucharest at 7 pm in the dark, exhausted and hungry, and to see that cruise line rep waiting for you.

 

Roz

 

Yes I do Roz. Viking did the same thing by meeting us in both Budapest and Beijing. It is very nice to see that sign. However when we got to Amsterdam and Shanghia,after the cruise, they took took us directly to the airport with no chance to take in the sights without purchasing their overnight package even though the advertise those cities are part of the tour.

[love to cruise 2017]

i used the cruise line flights pretty good....try this site for searches

 

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/#search:research

[pris993]

What are the pros and cons of the cruise line booking your flight?

 

rarely any pros. Only acception is if you need an open jaw ticket which are expensive. But if you have miles you can do that too on your own.

 

Cons: you give up control over your flight, can't made any changes to it, you will probably end up with the worse seats, if that matters to you.

If airline offering an up grade you can't take advantage of it because you did not book the ticket.

 

We have booked on own air, hotels, insurance and cruises directly with all carriers now for 20 years.

[Hlitner]

JB (an old friend) raised an interesting issue that is not very common here in the US. At one time some US-based cruise lines such as the long gone Renaissance Cruise Line used to use charter flights to get many of their cruisers to their ships in places such as Tahiti. Carnival used to own their own small airline and used that as a charter airline to get some of their passengers to their ships but abandoned this project in 1998 after about 10 years. While there are still plenty of charter airlines here in the USA they are not commonly used to get folks to cruises except for some large group bookings. Perhaps the problem with charters in the USA is that we have over 5000 public airports spread over 50 States. This does offer many workable solutions for charter flights so cruise lines tend to rely on the commercial airlines.

 

Hank

[Heidi13]

When using points we will book the flights ourselves.

 

If using cash we will compare both options unless the cruise line provides free, or heavily discounted air. Can't comment on the mainstream lines, but our current Line provides flight options for a small fee. We provide our preferred airline (BA & OneWorld) and the cruise line will schedule flights accordingly. We can also discuss routing options and arriving a day early or staying later. Booking seats, meals, etc are completed via the airline's website under manage my booking.

 

Provided the cruise line is same or cheaper than booking ourselves, we go with the cruise line. Biggest benefit is they include transfers and if the flight is late, the ship will wait or they get you to the next port.

[capriccio]

The only experience we have with cruise line booking of our flights is through the EZAir program with Princess.

 

We've used EZAir twice since October 2017 and are booked on another RT next June. We fly United because we have status that gives us automatic free upgrade from coach to economy plus and can reserve our seats immediately, 2 free pieces of luggage per person, and United lounge access on overseas flights regardless of the level of service we're flying.

 

On our October 2017 flights Fort Lauderdale to Rome (one way) we paid about 1/2 the United fare.

 

On our June/July 2018 flights Washington DC to Seattle and return we paid more than $100 less than the lowest fare I could find anywhere else - and since we were paying for 7 people that was a significant savings.

 

All of these flights were with arrivals 1 to 6 days in advance of the ship's embarkation.

 

On our upcoming June 2019 flights Washington DC to London and return our current EZAir fare is less than 1/2 the current United fare. Of course that is a long time away so I'll keep checking periodically but we specifically appreciate the fact that, unlike purchasing tickets directly from the airline where you are then committed both to the flights and the fare, with EZAir you can change airline, flights and fares right up to 45 days before the outbound flight (although we always pay for the tickets at final payment).

[davecttr]

For example we booked our own flights London to Istanbul for an RCI cruise. Direct flight, about 2.5 hrs.

Others on the ship booked cruise-air. Via a change in Amsterdam, with a layover there of several hours, total about 8 hours. And they paid a chunk more than us.

 

UK cruise lines often charter aircraft to provide fly-cruises. Everyone on the aircraft is on the cruise, transfers included, hand over your bags at the UK airport & next time you see them is at your cabin door. If your aircraft is delayed, the ship isn't going to sail without 200 to 300 passengers.

And at prices you can't match independently.

The only way I'd book flights through the cruise line.

 

JB :)

 

It is easier in the UK as many fly cruises are sold as 'package' holidays with flights and transfers included. With a package the cruise line is bound by the contract to get you to the ship. For example I use Marella cruises a lot and they have an extensive range of fly cruises from the UK. They fly on departure day and the ship will wait, helped by a following sea day. The airline they usually use (TUI) is owned by the same organisation as Marella. :)

[geoherb]

We've used Princess EZAir to book our flights next month to London and then the return flight home from New York City. It was more than $1,000 cheaper per person. It helped that Princess had a special on airfare at the time we booked our cruise. Even without the special, though, it would have been at least $700 cheaper per person.

 

I got to choose our flights without paying for any deviation. We're flying to London six nights before our cruise.

[paul929207]

We sail on Princess. They let me pick the airline and the flights I want. I can review the prices and times for the different options.

If there is a problem with the flights, they will help straighten things out and get us to the ship and to home.

[Flatbush Flyer]

We sail on Princess. They let me pick the airline and the flights I want. I can review the prices and times for the different options.

If there is a problem with the flights, they will help straighten things out and get us to the ship and to home.

 

 

 

This works for some folks. However, it might be a good idea to compare the available options from Princess to your own search of ITA Matrix, particularly for multi-city itineraries. I would also add a follow-up personal check of the preferred flights on that airline's website as well as via a call to the airline asking the rep about better available "fare base" costs or suggested alternate routings on that airline as well as with its partners.

As good as a service by a cruise ship company (and/or a TA) may be, no other entity will ever pay as much attention to assuring your best interests as will you. The challenge is to arm yourself with the tools and knowledge to be a discerning consumer.

[pmjnh]

i used the cruise line flights pretty good....try this site for searches

 

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/#search:research

 

 

Thank you, this will be very helpful!

[pmjnh]

Thanks to you all for your very helpful responses.

 

I got a tip from a friend to get the air pricing from the cruise line, then call the specific airline to to compare the pricing. In HAL's flight ease program they have a flexible plan and a restricted plan. The restricted plan is non refundable and locks you in, but the flexible plan can fluctuate because you pay for the flight when the cruise final payment is due. This means you risk the fare going up (or maybe down), but in the meantime they do reserve your chosen flight and give you a seat assignment. I'm not sure what the benefit is of this plan, especially if the price could go up.

[Hlitner]

Thanks to you all for your very helpful responses.

 

I got a tip from a friend to get the air pricing from the cruise line, then call the specific airline to to compare the pricing. In HAL's flight ease program they have a flexible plan and a restricted plan. The restricted plan is non refundable and locks you in, but the flexible plan can fluctuate because you pay for the flight when the cruise final payment is due. This means you risk the fare going up (or maybe down), but in the meantime they do reserve your chosen flight and give you a seat assignment. I'm not sure what the benefit is of this plan, especially if the price could go up.

 

The risk of flex air prices going up is negligible. In fact the actual language they use in the fine print is as follows:

"Prices are not subject to increase, except for charges resulting from increases in government imposed taxes or fees."

And that is why many of us love Flex Fares. There is no risk (prior to payment) and if prices go down, you change your mind, find better flights, etc....you can always change or cancel your flexair until 45 days prior unless you insist on having them "ticket" the flight.

Hank

[pmjnh]

The risk of flex air prices going up is negligible. In fact the actual language they use in the fine print is as follows:

"Prices are not subject to increase, except for charges resulting from increases in government imposed taxes or fees."

And that is why many of us love Flex Fares. There is no risk (prior to payment) and if prices go down, you change your mind, find better flights, etc....you can always change or cancel your flexair until 45 days prior unless you insist on having them "ticket" the flight.

Hank

 

ohh, I had not read that. Can you tell me where I can find that verbage? It isnt in my flex confirmation.

[Hlitner]

ohh, I had not read that. Can you tell me where I can find that verbage? It isnt in my flex confirmation.

 

I am not sure you can find it on HAL's site but it is displayed on the Princess EZAIR site (which is actually the same folks that run the HAL program). You can actually bring it up on Princess without booking a cruise or air. Go their web site and click on "Plan a Cruise." Bring up any future cruise at random and then click on "Cruise Details." Then click on the tab (upper right) that says "Flight Quotes." The request a specific air quote to get to the various flight options. Once you have some flights listed just choose any flight and click on "Fare Restrictions" and it will bring up a screen with booking details. The 2nd item from the bottom of that screen will say" Prices are not subject to increase, except for charges resulting from increases in government imposed taxes or fees." The HAL policy is exactly the same. I suspect many are not aware that Princess and HAL use the exact same air booking system (and staff).

 

The irony is that the price increase language is exactly the same whether you book Flex Air or Restricted Air. In both cases they reserve the right to increase prices (even after payment) for increased taxes or fees. We have never heard of this happening...but I guess anything is possible.

 

 

Hank