Silversea business class air

[hsheffield]

Hi all: I was hoping you could share your experience with Silversea air reservations and tell me what's reasonable to expect. 

 

I made a request for Delta airlines inbound and outbound out of Charlotte. one stop each way.

 

initially the outbound was as I requested but the inbound was booked on United with 2 stops. 

 

today I checked and the outbound had been changed to 2 stops. the inbound was still on UA w/ 2 stops.  I checked the Delta website, and the one stop outbound route is still showing.

 

can anyone tell me about their experiences? any suggestions on how to get the flights I want?  we live in a smaller city and we're driving a couple of hours to get to Charlotte. does Silversea book flights out of smaller cities or only the larger ones?  

 

thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[kimanjo]

1 hour ago, hsheffield said:

Hi all: I was hoping you could share your experience with Silversea air reservations and tell me what's reasonable to expect. 

 

I made a request for Delta airlines inbound and outbound out of Charlotte. one stop each way.

 

initially the outbound was as I requested but the inbound was booked on United with 2 stops. 

 

today I checked and the outbound had been changed to 2 stops. the inbound was still on UA w/ 2 stops.  I checked the Delta website, and the one stop outbound route is still showing.

 

can anyone tell me about their experiences? any suggestions on how to get the flights I want?  we live in a smaller city and we're driving a couple of hours to get to Charlotte. does Silversea book flights out of smaller cities or only the larger ones?  

 

thanks for sharing your knowledge!

 

Not sure of your destination, but... Example:   Chattanooga to Rome.  The 1st leg CHA to ATL might be a little " love thy neighbor" aircraft, and not have a Business class.  But the ATL-Rome does. ( so its a 1 stop flight with the 1st leg not in business) Maybe its routing 2 stops so that every leg is in Business.  Go to Google Flights and look at each leg and maybe you can survive on a short 1st leg in main cabin, and long leg in Business, to get the 1 stop routing you want.  

Just a thought.

[hsheffield]

sorry-I wasn't clear!

 

 not looking for a flight directly from Charlotte. e.g. looking for Charlotte to JFK to Venice.

 

regardless, just wondering how much say everyone feels like they've had in their flights.

 

for the record, the love thy neighbor flights are fine by me!

Edited September 4, 2020 by hsheffield

[kimanjo]

37 minutes ago, hsheffield said:

sorry-I wasn't clear!

 

 not looking for a flight directly from Charlotte. e.g. looking for Charlotte to JFK to Venice.

 

regardless, just wondering how much say everyone feels like they've had in their flights.

 

for the record, the love thy neighbor flights are fine by me!

 

I mostly do my own air, but whenever I've gone thru the cruiseline, I search for the flights I want and submit.  Nine times out of 10, it's been fine with what I submit.  I don't know if its because I've done all the legwork, and it's just a matter of approval ??  It's been on a few different lines, and it's pretty much all the same.  Find the flights I want and submit.  

[hsheffield]

yes, that's what I did. I found the exact flights and them submitted them. neither outbound or inbound ended up where I was hoping

[nowornever]

We have paid the deviation fee (about $150 pp) to select our flights & more importantly to us, arrive a day or two early to be on the safe side with luggage & jet lag.  They don't have contracts with all carriers but sometimes, strangely enough, they do with a code share partner.  For instance, they wouldn't book BA non-stop from LHR - SEA but would book Finn Air which was a code share BA- same flight.  Weird is the world of air travel.  I think you can cancel up to 90 days in advance with no loss, or as  just happened to us, if they cancel, there is no penalty & it's a straight up refund.  No airline to haggle with over refunds or air miles re-deposit which is so important these days.  Good luck with your choices.

[MBP&O2/O]

I will watch this with interest [emoji846]
We are UK based and we have a cruise booked that includes European B/C airfares.
We depart from the UK / Southampton.
We want to arrive Southampton the day before we fly.
Direct flights to SOU from our local airport take 1hr 20mins, however, there are no direct flights that offer b/c.
The economy flights on the day we want to travel are evening flights and are relatively impractical. As an aside I would be surprised if SS had these companies on their contracts listings.
If I insist on b/c the only way is via AMS. This means a 4hr lay over and an 8hr experience.
I would be happy if SS booked economy and provided the b/c perks ... lounge luggage etc, but the flights are dire.
It may be that
(1) we need to travel two days early.
(2) we opt of of the airfare offer either in whole or in part.

We shall see.

[Lois R]

Good morning,  the gal I deal with at SS is always aware of my preferences.  I have used that Business Class upgrade

on multiple cruises😃 and everything has always worked out the way I wanted it to🙂

[kimanjo]

18 hours ago, hsheffield said:

yes, that's what I did. I found the exact flights and them submitted them. neither outbound or inbound ended up where I was hoping

 

They ask if you can get the flights you want if you pay the deviation fee.  

[silkismom]

We can see our flts for RT Tokyo Apr 2021 cruise--would you believe---DEN-LHR--NRT(BA) talk about round the world flts!!  Home is nonstop NRT--DEN on UA, why didn't they do that outbound??? Won't complain too much until we know the cruise actually goes. Then obviously we'd want DEN-NRT nonstop. The flts are long enough.

[jollyjones]

11 hours ago, MBP&O2/O said:

I will watch this with interest
We are UK based and we have a cruise booked that includes European B/C airfares.
We depart from the UK / Southampton.
We want to arrive Southampton the day before we fly.
Direct flights to SOU from our local airport take 1hr 20mins, however, there are no direct flights that offer b/c.
The economy flights on the day we want to travel are evening flights and are relatively impractical. As an aside I would be surprised if SS had these companies on their contracts listings.
If I insist on b/c the only way is via AMS. This means a 4hr lay over and an 8hr experience.
I would be happy if SS booked economy and provided the b/c perks ... lounge luggage etc, but the flights are dire.
It may be that
(1) we need to travel two days early.
(2) we opt of of the airfare offer either in whole or in part.

We shall see.

Why on earth are you bothering with cruise air? Why don't you just book it yourself? Why are you bothering about biz class on local short haul? I thought local short haul was much simpler to do it yourself.

Anything less than three hours, I don't care what class I'm in, it's too short to be worth the bother. Overnight, nine, ten hours would be a different matter.

 

[Lois R]

24 minutes ago, jollyjones said:

Why on earth are you bothering with cruise air? Why don't you just book it yourself? Why are you bothering about biz class on local short haul? I thought local short haul was much simpler to do it yourself.

Anything less than three hours, I don't care what class I'm in, it's too short to be worth the bother. Overnight, nine, ten hours would be a different matter.

 

Looks like they are flying overseas........from the states to Venice, Italy.  That is normally an 8 to 9 hour flight from the

East Coast.  

[cruiseej]

We're booked on a trip to Antarctica in December 2021, which came with a reasonably-priced upgrade for business class air, so we're going to use Silversea's air for that. Here's my question: can we first find out what they would book for us, and then if we're not satisfied with the routing, pay the deviation fee to get it changed? Or do we have to pay the deviation fee first to try to make sure we can get an airline/route we want? How many months in advance of the trip should we try to pursue air info? 

[hsheffield]

can someone explain when the 'deviation fee' is assessed?

[clo]

1 hour ago, jollyjones said:

Anything less than three hours, I don't care what class I'm in, it's too short to be worth the bother. Overnight, nine, ten hours would be a different matter.

 

IF we get to do the Galapagos, it's only about a five hour flight from US to Quito. With all the beginning and ending "stuff" it's probably 3-1/2 hours. I wouldn't pay a dime or use miles for anything that short. Ten to 14 hours you bet.

[beaujolais]

9 hours ago, jollyjones said:

Why on earth are you bothering with cruise air? Why don't you just book it yourself? Why are you bothering about biz class on local short haul? I thought local short haul was much simpler to do it yourself.

Anything less than three hours, I don't care what class I'm in, it's too short to be worth the bother. Overnight, nine, ten hours would be a different matter.

 

  

Also if you do not use their BC air offer you get an air credit of £400 against the cruise cost

Well covers doing the flights and hotel yourself

[hsheffield]

so we're looking to get overnight Delta business class for next April. 

 

we found direct flights to our destinations in and out of JFK and submitted them to Silversea. agree w/ others that we don't care about business class on shorter flights. (we connected to JFK out of Charlotte)

 

they did not book those flights as requested. they booked fights with more stops and on different airlines. 

 

our question is:  any suggestions as to how to proceed to get the flights we requested? 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by hsheffield

[SSCAF001]

I have exactly the same problem as yours. Up to now I could get the flights I wanted easily. I use to submit my air itinerary and it was straightforward. Recently for a cruise in the Caribbean SS booked exactly the Air France flights I wanted. Suddenly back a month ago I started to see many changes and finally they have removed the entire booking. The guy at SS told me it’s because AF has cancelled or changed their schedule but it’s wrong. The 4 flights I was suppose to fly are still operating normally. I think SS has changed some of their contracts with some airlines and they do not want to disclose it. It’s pity because I could understand it. They prefer put the responsibility on airlines rather than assuming the truth. Anyway the cruise I am talking about us due to départ in December 2020 so I dit not argue a lot with SS since I know that it will not happen.


Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[hsheffield]

that's very interesting.  thank you for sharing.

 

I first booked with SS in May of 2019 but have yet to take a cruise!  I'm afraid that so far they aren't meeting my expectations for a luxury level experience. It feels pretty sneaky to change the flights without telling us...

 

Based on the flights they booked for us, it will now take over 20 hours to get to Venice from the US east coast.  

 

We have 2 cruises booked in 2021. Not sure what we're going to do: the hassle factor is starting to outweigh the anticipated fun. Perhaps if we'd actually been on a SS cruise, we wouldn't feel this way.  

 

 

 

 

[Lois R]

49 minutes ago, hsheffield said:

that's very interesting.  thank you for sharing.

 

I first booked with SS in May of 2019 but have yet to take a cruise!  I'm afraid that so far they aren't meeting my expectations for a luxury level experience. It feels pretty sneaky to change the flights without telling us...

 

Based on the flights they booked for us, it will now take over 20 hours to get to Venice from the US east coast.  

 

We have 2 cruises booked in 2021. Not sure what we're going to do: the hassle factor is starting to outweigh the anticipated fun. Perhaps if we'd actually been on a SS cruise, we wouldn't feel this way.  

 

 

 

 

Good morning, sorry you are having so many issues☹️ 20 hours from Venice back home is ridiculous for sure.

Maybe you could call them and ask to speak with a supervisor. 

[MBP&O2/O]

Why on earth are you bothering with cruise air? Why don't you just book it yourself? Why are you bothering about biz class on local short haul? I thought local short haul was much simpler to do it yourself.
Anything less than three hours, I don't care what class I'm in, it's too short to be worth the bother. Overnight, nine, ten hours would be a different matter.
 

I am not bothered at all about the biz class on such short flights. The offer was included in the price and aftrva bitbof thought we accepted it .... not for any other reason that if it all goes bum over breast again .. a la covid ... SS can sort everything out.
We have just had all sorts of grief trying to resolve our self booked non refundable flights from another cruise. The matter has now been resolved.
As an aside, I don’t think that SS will be able to supply biz class on the first internal leg ... long story but the airport is having issues with runway length.

[cruiseej]

4 hours ago, SSCAF001 said:

Recently for a cruise in the Caribbean SS booked exactly the Air France flights I wanted. Suddenly back a month ago I started to see many changes and finally they have removed the entire booking. The guy at SS told me it’s because AF has cancelled or changed their schedule but it’s wrong. The 4 flights I was suppose to fly are still operating normally.

 

I'd note that while the flights you want may remain on the schedule, many others have likely been cut. As a result, the number of discounted, group contract seats on each flight may have been reduced -- especially for premium seats that produce the most revenue for the airline. So the flights may still be there, but SS may no longer have access to them.

[hsheffield]

cruiseej: that seems like a likely scenario to me now that you bring it up

 

[SSCAF001]

 
I'd note that while the flights you want may remain on the schedule, many others have likely been cut. As a result, the number of discounted, group contract seats on each flight may have been reduced -- especially for premium seats that produce the most revenue for the airline. So the flights may still be there, but SS may no longer have access to them.

Thanks for your comments but the flights were booked and confirmed and now removed. So while I understand your comments should my flights had not been booked and confirmed I do not think they are relevant in my case.


Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[hsheffield]

@SSCAF001 my outgoing flight was also initially booked as I had requested and then changed without notice. 

I'm wondering if Delta changed something with SS...

 

my incoming flight was never booked as requested.