Question about Airline Tickets

[pirate_dad]

Quick question for those who have booked air through Holland America. How do you get your tickets? Are they sent in the mail? I have never booked through the cruise line before and was wondering how this works?

[oceanmom]

No paper tickets. Electronic tickets through the airline. Flight Ease sends you, via e-mail or your HAL booking confirmation, the confirmation code for the airline ticket. Once you have the confirmation code, you can pick seats for most airlines, check-in on-line, print a boarding pass or download to an app, etc. from the airline website.

Edited December 3, 2018 by oceanmom

[DAllenTCY]

The major advantage of reserving flights though HAL is that the ship will likely give you a few extra minutes to arrive if you have missed a connection. 

Such was the situation today in San Diego.

All aboard time was 4:30 pm.

Had it not been for the 2 HAL booked guests, the ship would have sailed then.

4 "lucky" others happened to be on the same late flight....(missed connections in SEA from PDX and YVR).

Flight landed in SAN 4:06 pm.  Gate arrival was a few minutes later.

Shoreside staff met them, and remained in contact with the bridge until all were onboard.

At 4:46 pm, gangway pulled, lines dropped, off to a beautiful sunset.

 

David

 

 

[Hflors]

We are thinking about booking a cruise from New Zealand to San Diego in 2020.  I guess our flight would be from either Lax or San Diego.  If we book thru hal would we be able to go a day or two earlier?   How are prices with HAL compared to booking independently?   Have never gone this far from home.  When we book the cruise do we have to sign up for the air or can we decide later?   I know that cruise lines usually get the worse routes/ travel times, but how many different routes could they take when flying from lax / San Diego to Auckland New Zealand?  Thanks for any info.  

[DC1979]

You can add the air at a later date.  We booked the cruise first and then a few months later I booked my flight with HAL on the website.  As far as costs, it really depends on your class of service.  The economy seats seemed to be the same price, or even higher than booking with the airlines directly.  On the other hand, I was able to book a business class seat for half the cost of what the airline wanted.  I was very pleased with the cost.  I’ve also heard that one way fares are much cheaper with HAL but my flight was a round trip so I can’t comment on that. Also you are able to choose the date of travel you want.  I booked a flight arriving 4 days earlier and departing one day after my cruise.  Just a heads up, when booking on the HAL website, they go by arrival date of your flight, so you will probably need to enter your start date as the day before you want to arrive.  Hope that helps.   Good luck!!

Edited December 4, 2018 by DC1979

[kazu]

51 minutes ago, Hflors said:

We are thinking about booking a cruise from New Zealand to San Diego in 2020.  I guess our flight would be from either Lax or San Diego.  If we book thru hal would we be able to go a day or two earlier?   How are prices with HAL compared to booking independently?   Have never gone this far from home.  When we book the cruise do we have to sign up for the air or can we decide later?   I know that cruise lines usually get the worse routes/ travel times, but how many different routes could they take when flying from lax / San Diego to Auckland New Zealand?  Thanks for any info.  

 

Yes, you can go earlier/later with FlightEase.

 

Personal experience only, I've found very little difference with North American flights.

 

For my transatlantics there has been a big difference - especially in business class.  there were lots of options for flights when I looked including some of the best routes which I would have chosen automatically.

 

There are only so many seats on each flight so it's wise to start checking as they load in case there is one you want.

[kapear]

55 minutes ago, Hflors said:

We are thinking about booking a cruise from New Zealand to San Diego in 2020.  I guess our flight would be from either Lax or San Diego.  If we book thru hal would we be able to go a day or two earlier?   How are prices with HAL compared to booking independently?   Have never gone this far from home.  When we book the cruise do we have to sign up for the air or can we decide later?   I know that cruise lines usually get the worse routes/ travel times, but how many different routes could they take when flying from lax / San Diego to Auckland New Zealand?  Thanks for any info.  

 

 

You should be able to fly in a few days early. We are cruising out of Copenhagen this summer. We are using HAL air and are arriving 2-1/2 days prior to the start of our cruise. The flights we got are flights that we would have chosen if we had done the air on our own . LAX-Stockholm-CPH on the way there and on the return we fly CPH-Paris-LAX. The layover times on both trips are acceptable. 

[terrydtx]

1 hour ago, Hflors said:

We are thinking about booking a cruise from New Zealand to San Diego in 2020.  I guess our flight would be from either Lax or San Diego.  If we book thru hal would we be able to go a day or two earlier?   How are prices with HAL compared to booking independently?   Have never gone this far from home.  When we book the cruise do we have to sign up for the air or can we decide later?   I know that cruise lines usually get the worse routes/ travel times, but how many different routes could they take when flying from lax / San Diego to Auckland New Zealand?  Thanks for any info.  

We are using Flight Ease for our Alaska cruise next July. We fly from Dallas TX to Vancouver direct on American and fly home from Fairbanks on Air Alaska with three stops. Fairbank is a very challenging place to fly back to the lower 48 from. We tried booking on our own with the same one way fares on both airlines but it was expensive. Using HAL Flight Ease we save about $300 per ticket with the airlines and fight times we wanted. There are three of us on the cruise so we saved a total of about $900. The other advantage of Flight Ease we do not pay for the air cost until final payment so if the fares go down we can rebook or cancel with HAL with no penalty. If we booked ourselves we have to pay the airlines when we book and cannot change or rebook without heavy penalties.

[Tom O.]

In the past, I have always done my own airline booking, because it was much cheaper.  We just booked our Alaska cruise tour yesterday, and our TA said that the current offer from HAL included $100 off per person on HAL booked airfares. So I checked online at the HAL website, and found the prices to be a real bargain. The $100 was taken off the price per ticket, but even without that savings the prices were cheaper than what I could book myself. And as someone already mentioned, I don't have to pay anything until our final cruise payment is due. I can also change flights and cancel at any time.

I am very impressed with Flight Ease. I am very particular about the seats I get on airplanes, and I was able to select seats immediately after booking. I would not have even looked at Flight Ease, if my TA hadn't mentioned the $100 off. Unless I run into some sort of problem, Flight Ease will be my go-to method of flying to and from a cruise.

[Tom O.]

OK, so I booked my flights with Flight Ease yesterday. Today I thought I would look at the booking online. But, I can't find it on the HAL website. I can only find my cruise booking. I also never got a confirmation email. Any suggestions?

[Tom O.]

Update: I found out I can examine the airline booking by going to the airline web site. In this case Delta Airlines. So I am happy now.

[terrydtx]

51 minutes ago, Tom O. said:

Update: I found out I can examine the airline booking by going to the airline web site. In this case Delta Airlines. So I am happy now.

You can also go to HAL and under manage my bookings find your cruise booking. On the left and side is a field "Book Flights and travel", click on that and then check "I need to book travel for flights: and hit begin. That will take you to a page that says find flights click on it and it will pull up you confirmed flights that you booked yesterday. From there you also add your Airline loyalty number and choose seats. You should get a confirmation from HAL or your TA if you used one, within 24 hours of booking confirming your air travel.

[Tom O.]

42 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

You can also go to HAL and under manage my bookings find your cruise booking. On the left and side is a field "Book Flights and travel", click on that and then check "I need to book travel for flights: and hit begin. That will take you to a page that says find flights click on it and it will pull up you confirmed flights that you booked yesterday. From there you also add your Airline loyalty number and choose seats. You should get a confirmation from HAL or your TA if you used one, within 24 hours of booking confirming your air travel.

Thanks, I tried that and got to the page I wanted, finally. What is confusing, is that in order to get to it, I have pretend that I am starting a new booking. It would be nice if after I got to the Flight Ease page, there was a link that said "View Your Flight" or "Already Booked" or something similar.

[terrydtx]

2 hours ago, Tom O. said:

Thanks, I tried that and got to the page I wanted, finally. What is confusing, is that in order to get to it, I have pretend that I am starting a new booking. It would be nice if after I got to the Flight Ease page, there was a link that said "View Your Flight" or "Already Booked" or something similar.

This is just one of many things HAL could do to make their website more user friendly. Just trying to book cruises is hard enough with their terrible website.

[wyobean]

Just a point that I brought up not long ago. If you want to get your benefits from using your airline credit card you have to ask them to use your card instead of theirs. We are TSA pre  check, boarding in group 2 and we get our first checked bag free when we use our UAL cc. If HAL books on their card those bennies are not available. 

[AryMay]

On 12/4/2018 at 1:11 PM, Tom O. said:

Thanks, I tried that and got to the page I wanted, finally. What is confusing, is that in order to get to it, I have pretend that I am starting a new booking. It would be nice if after I got to the Flight Ease page, there was a link that said "View Your Flight" or "Already Booked" or something similar.

 

You should be able to see your flights when you go to "Already Booked" and pull up your itinerary. At the top it shows your flight to the cruise and at the bottom of the itinerary you can see the flight home afterwards.

 

One word of caution...be careful searching on the Flight Ease page once you have your flights booked.

 

I decided to just "look" and see the prices of flights from a different airport after I had already booked our flights. Just searching from a different airport caused my original flights to be cancelled without any notice. It was a few weeks later that I accidently discovered this. I called HAL but was just told I must have somehow cancelled the flights myself. No help from my TA either. 😠 Luckily I was able to rebook the same flights although the price had gone up in the meantime.

 

I wrote a letter to HAL explaining what happened and received a phone call from a manager in the HAL travel department apologizing to me for the situation. He said they knew it was a glitch in the new website that caused my flight to get cancelled when I did a new search. He adjusted the price of my flights and actually gave me a rate cheaper than what I had originally. He also gave me his direct number in case I had any other issues or questions. 

 

Things are OK now and I am happy with how HAL handled the situation. The outcome could have been much worse if my original flights wouldn't have been available to rebook (we are traveling with other friends.)

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

On 12/4/2018 at 10:31 AM, Tom O. said:

In the past, I have always done my own airline booking, because it was much cheaper.  We just booked our Alaska cruise tour yesterday, and our TA said that the current offer from HAL included $100 off per person on HAL booked airfares. So I checked online at the HAL website, and found the prices to be a real bargain. The $100 was taken off the price per ticket, but even without that savings the prices were cheaper than what I could book myself. And as someone already mentioned, I don't have to pay anything until our final cruise payment is due. I can also change flights and cancel at any time.

I am very impressed with Flight Ease. I am very particular about the seats I get on airplanes, and I was able to select seats immediately after booking. I would not have even looked at Flight Ease, if my TA hadn't mentioned the $100 off. Unless I run into some sort of problem, Flight Ease will be my go-to method of flying to and from a cruise.

BUT with (Flight Ease) your fare cost is not locked in until you pay for the full cruise and the plain ticket ...

[utahtea]

On 12/8/2018 at 4:39 AM, we're sailing away.... said:

BUT with (Flight Ease) your fare cost is not locked in until you pay for the full cruise and the plain ticket ...

 

Are you saying the ticket price that I agreed to with Flight Ease can go up before final payment?  It's showing on my Holland America invoice as the price I agreed to.  I'm going to be VERY upset if they can raise the price on me before final payment.  

 

Utahtea

[utahtea]

On 12/4/2018 at 5:12 AM, Hflors said:

We are thinking about booking a cruise from New Zealand to San Diego in 2020.  I guess our flight would be from either Lax or San Diego.  If we book thru hal would we be able to go a day or two earlier?   How are prices with HAL compared to booking independently?   Have never gone this far from home.  When we book the cruise do we have to sign up for the air or can we decide later?   I know that cruise lines usually get the worse routes/ travel times, but how many different routes could they take when flying from lax / San Diego to Auckland New Zealand?  Thanks for any info.  

 

I see you have already booked your tickets.  Did you check the price of New Zealand Air?  We did the reverse cruise in 2016 and the priced for Premium Economy seats on New Zealand Air was half of what Holland America was offering.  That said, we are flying home from Copenhagen in May 2019 after a cruise and Holland America Flight Ease was half the price of what I could find on my own.

 

Utahtea

Edited December 29, 2018 by utahtea

[terrydtx]

10 hours ago, utahtea said:

 

Are you saying the ticket price that I agreed to with Flight Ease can go up before final payment?  It's showing on my Holland America invoice as the price I agreed to.  I'm going to be VERY upset if they can raise the price on me before final payment.  

 

Utahtea

From the information I received from my TA, when you book with Fight Ease, that price is locked in, even if it goes up prior to final payment. Conversely if the price goes down you can cancel and rebook anytime up to the final payment date at the new lower price.

[Tom O.]

11 hours ago, utahtea said:

 

I see you have already booked your tickets.  Did you check the price of New Zealand Air?  We did the reverse cruise in 2016 and the priced for Premium Economy seats on New Zealand Air was half of what Holland America was offering.  That said, we are flying home from Copenhagen in May 2019 after a cruise and Holland America Flight Ease was half the price of what I could find on my own.

 

Utahtea

This was our experience too. The last time I checked cruise line air line prices, I discovered I could book flights myself for half the price. That was 2015. But this year when I booked I found Flight Ease to be about 20% cheaper than anything I could book myself or through any online agency.

The only airline that flies to my hometown is Delta, so I don't have much flexibility when booking, but I was happy to see that every flight I had found on the Delta website was also on Flight ease.

[utahtea]

8 hours ago, terrydtx said:

From the information I received from my TA, when you book with Fight Ease, that price is locked in, even if it goes up prior to final payment. Conversely if the price goes down you can cancel and rebook anytime up to the final payment date at the new lower price.

 

7 hours ago, Tom O. said:

This was our experience too. The last time I checked cruise line air line prices, I discovered I could book flights myself for half the price. That was 2015. But this year when I booked I found Flight Ease to be about 20% cheaper than anything I could book myself or through any online agency.

The only airline that flies to my hometown is Delta, so I don't have much flexibility when booking, but I was happy to see that every flight I had found on the Delta website was also on Flight ease.

 

Thank you both.  I feel better.  This is our first time with Flight ease.

 

Utahtea