Flight ease?

[dbsb3233]

1 hour ago, mkl55 said:

I just booked an international on Delta today and it was Economy Main Cabin, not Basic Economy.  It just keeps getting more and more layered and confusing, doesn't it?  

 

It sure does. And FlightEase doesn't do the best job of explaining things either.

 

Thanks for the confirmation.

[terrydtx]

We used Flight Ease for our Alaska cruise next year. Flying from DFW to Vancouver and back from Fairbanks. Flying home from Fairbanks isn't easy. Through FE we were able to pick our airline, flight times and seats all online. I remember the days before FE when you didn't know your flight itinerary from the cruise line until you received your cruise docs, which is why  we always booked our own air. We are on American to Vancouver and Alaska Airlines coming home. We saved $400pp over what we could book ourselves on American RT. Best part we do not have to pay for the tickets until final payment and can rebook or cancel anytime up to FP if fares drop.

[14 months and counting]

In the past, we have always booked our own airfare since the HAL's price always seemed very high.  After reading this thread, I decided to check on our airfare to our cruise next summer to Iceland and Greenland out of Amsterdam and was pleasantly surprised to find we would save a substantial amount of money booking through flight ease with flights that included one stop only and got us there in a reasonable amount of time.  When I printed out the confirmation from United I noticed that we each can bring one 50lb suitcase for $ 0.  Since all the airlines appear to charge for bags to Europe that also saved us money.

 

Even after thirty cruises, I am still learning such great tips from Cruise Critic members.  Thank you.

[terrydtx]

1 hour ago, 14 months and counting said:

In the past, we have always booked our own airfare since the HAL's price always seemed very high.  After reading this thread, I decided to check on our airfare to our cruise next summer to Iceland and Greenland out of Amsterdam and was pleasantly surprised to find we would save a substantial amount of money booking through flight ease with flights that included one stop only and got us there in a reasonable amount of time.  When I printed out the confirmation from United I noticed that we each can bring one 50lb suitcase for $ 0.  Since all the airlines appear to charge for bags to Europe that also saved us money.

 

Even after thirty cruises, I am still learning such great tips from Cruise Critic members.  Thank you.

I think where HAL's Flight Ease works best is when you fly into and out of different countries and airports with multiple airlines. On our Alaska Cruise next July from DFW to Vancouver, only American had a non stop early morning flight that got us there in time to get on the ship. We booked that flight.

 

Coming back from Fairbanks American only had flights leaving at 1:30am or red eye flights leaving at 5:45pm. Alaska Airlines has a flight leaving at 8:00am that connected in Seattle that gets us back to DFW at 11:30pm. We are booked on that flight. Even though American code shares with Alaska we could not book through either airline the two itineraries we wanted. Booking one way with American and the other with Alaska one way was very expensive. I found only HAL Fight Ease could book the flights at a very reasonable fare that saves us $400pp.

 

Since we have an American Airlines Advantage CC we do not have to pay any baggage fees either.

[LF23]

Hi, this thread has such helpful info.  We’re stumped with how to compare HAL cruise fare options since we can’t check FE price first.  We have choice of a “private” fare or the current promotion which is $300 more but includes a flight credit. Any insight?  Thank you. 

[dbsb3233]

10 minutes ago, LF23 said:

Hi, this thread has such helpful info.  We’re stumped with how to compare HAL cruise fare options since we can’t check FE price first.  We have choice of a “private” fare or the current promotion which is $300 more but includes a flight credit. Any insight?  Thank you. 

Others that sail HAL and use FE more often probably have better insight (I've only used FE once, for our upcoming April trip). 

 

But FWIW, I think it depends a lot on the parameters, like how much the flight credit is as compared to the $300 higher cruise fare.  And also where you're flying to/from.  As others have noted, FE tends to have much better deals for international flights than for domestic (US).  Also depends on whether you're just flying between home and the cruise, or might throw in another stop for a few days along the way (we like to do that sometimes, like a few nights in Iceland on the way to Europe).  FE will only let you book flights to/from the embark and disembark cities, although you can add days to fly in a few days earlier or out a few days later.

 

Unless the flight credit is significantly more than the $300, I'd probably lean toward just booking the cheaper cruise fare.  That then gives you full options to keep checking airfares (through FE and independently) to find the best ones.  While FE will *probably* have the better fares, it's nice to have the option to use or not use them.  Depending how far out from the cruise it is, I often check airfares every few days for months waiting for sales before locking in.  By the time it gets maybe 5-6 months out though, I start getting a little nervous and like to get the flights locked in. 

 

 

[Sue from Canada]

On 9/22/2018 at 5:05 PM, swin26 said:

We just booked flights to Amsterdam for next summer. The price was over $1000 less pp than what I found on my own. Great deal!!!

Were you able to book your seats. 

[superoma]

So how many days after a cruise ends could you book your Return? We hope to do the Panama on the Rotterdam next February flying in to San Diego a couple of days before. But when we get to FLL we would like to stay for about 10 days before flying home. Any luck with that? FWIW our start and end airport would be Detroit.

[swin26]

7 hours ago, Sue from Canada said:

Were you able to book your seats. 

Yes, other than the leg on Air Canada. 

[dbsb3233]

30 minutes ago, superoma said:

So how many days after a cruise ends could you book your Return? We hope to do the Panama on the Rotterdam next February flying in to San Diego a couple of days before. But when we get to FLL we would like to stay for about 10 days before flying home. Any luck with that? FWIW our start and end airport would be Detroit.

 

I don't recall exactly how many days you can add before/after.  We added 2 on each end of our Lisbon-Rome cruise in April, and I do remember that I could have added more (I played with some different options checking days before and after for the best fares).  But I don't know about 10.

 

Once you have a cruise booking#, you can go in anytime thereafter (up to 330 days in advance) to start checking flights.  Since your flights are all domestic, you might actually find better prices outside of FE if you want to use one of the discount airlines (like Southwest or JetBlue).

[TiogaCruiser]

On 10/28/2018 at 5:13 PM, dbsb3233 said:

Now I'm a little confused on the various fare types.  When I select "Economy" on FlightEase, how does that translate to each airlines newer fare classes?  For instance, on United, does FlightEase Economy translate to Basic Economy or Standard Economy?

 

And on Delta does it translate to Basic Economy or Main Cabin?

 

Basic Economy tickets are the newer no-frills tickets both started about a year ago to compete with ultra low-cost carriers, and don't include advanced seat assignments, free 1st checked bag ion international flights, etc. 

I’m aware this question is a little old, but I had exactly the same question (Bolding mine).

 

I contacted United customer service directly via email and was confirmed that my FE Economy ticket was regular Economy, and I could therefore bring a regular carry on as well as the personal item and my checked bag allowance was 2 included in the cost of the ticket. I was able to choose seats. That was for SNA - IAH-EZE in 2-2018.

 

At that time Basic Economy was new and only available on a few domestic flights.

Edited February 24, 2019 by TiogaCruiser

[Daisyloo]

2 hours ago, superoma said:

So how many days after a cruise ends could you book your Return? We hope to do the Panama on the Rotterdam next February flying in to San Diego a couple of days before. But when we get to FLL we would like to stay for about 10 days before flying home. Any luck with that? FWIW our start and end airport would be Detroit.

 

I'm not sure the maximum days before or after a cruise you can book air through flight ease.  But we have used flight ease three times now.  We have gone early to our embarkation port by 6 days, and our upcoming cruise we will be flying in 5 days early.  

[Lido deck main]

Hi,

just curious re flight ease and the comment re Air Canada and seat selection, we are using flight ease Air Canada for our April cruise, I wasn’t able to do a seat selection under manage my account, however calling Air Canada they were able to pre-assign seats to us and at no charge.

[firecrewcapt]

7 hours ago, superoma said:

So how many days after a cruise ends could you book your Return? We hope to do the Panama on the Rotterdam next February flying in to San Diego a couple of days before. But when we get to FLL we would like to stay for about 10 days before flying home. Any luck with that? FWIW our start and end airport would be Detroit.

We've done 7 days several times at either end of the cruise, FYI.

[TAD2005]

I have heard that you can arrive many days before your cruise and spend many days after the end of the cruise, with no problems.   The one thing you can't do is setup a stopover somewhere along the way.  For instance, you are flying from LAX to VCE.   You could not schedule a stopover in London or Paris for a few days.   

[Boatdrill]

On 9/22/2018 at 2:05 PM, swin26 said:

We just booked flights to Amsterdam for next summer. The price was over $1000 less pp than what I found on my own. Great deal!!!

Just wondering , was your cruise booking part of the current Why Not Now promotion ?  It includes airfare credit. 

[swin26]

2 minutes ago, Boatdrill said:

Just wondering , was your cruise booking part of the current Why Not Now promotion ?  It includes airfare credit. 

It was not. It didn’t make sense to give up what we had in perks to change to that promotion 

[LF23]

Thought I’d update what we were able to do to check FE prior to booking on HAL-

If you book a “courtesy hold” you do get a confirmation# that allows you to proceed to FE where you can enter any pre- and/or post-cruise dates to get a sampling of flights.