Silversea BC Air Upgrade

[bigmjh]

If we book an itinerary that offers BC Air as an upgrade (for an additional cost), do we have an choice as to carriers, flights, arriving a few days early or leaving a few days later, etc.? Has anyone done this? If so, where you happy with the arrangements? Thanks.

[MBP&O2/O]

I have just asked for specific flights and an earlier journey out. No problems whatsoever. It cost me £50pp deviation fee.

[Randyk47]

8 hours ago, bigmjh said:

If we book an itinerary that offers BC Air as an upgrade (for an additional cost), do we have an choice as to carriers, flights, arriving a few days early or leaving a few days later, etc.? Has anyone done this? If so, where you happy with the arrangements? Thanks.

We are one of the unfortunate couples that has not done well with Silversea’s upgrade offers.   Case in point was our 18-day cruise in 2017 on the Spirit.   Cruise started in Rome out of Civitavecchia and ended in Dubai, UAE.   That cruise had included coach air   for both legs with the offer of business class upgrade.  We wanted to add a couple of days to the beginning and a day at the end.  By the time Silversea priced out the up charges for the plane tickets and the extra days deviation the cost was more than we could book the flights on our own.   It doesn’t help that our starting point is not a hub city.  It means to catch an International flight we have to fly to a major hub like Dallas, Atlanta, or Philadelphia and that adds sometimes quite a bit to our fare.     

[nowornever]

We've had good luck with the upgrade offer on international flights. Arriving a day or two early hasn't been a problem at all because we're happy to pay the $100 or so deviation fee.  It helps to have your travel agent find the flights you want & propose them to the air dept at Silversea.  If they are on carriers that Silversea has a contract with, it should be fairly easy.  As Randy says though, it helps to be near a hub, as you are.  Good luck - please post how it works out for you.

[silkismom]

I guess this isn't valid, since the cruise was canceled, but they had us fly from DEN LHR NRT when UA does a non-stop DEN NRT I was going to yell a lot, but then the cruise canceled. We've re-booked for Mar 2022 and I will start watching flts ASAP in April. 

[Stumblefoot]

27 minutes ago, silkismom said:

I guess this isn't valid, since the cruise was canceled, but they had us fly from DEN LHR NRT when UA does a non-stop DEN NRT I was going to yell a lot, but then the cruise canceled. We've re-booked for Mar 2022 and I will start watching flts ASAP in April. 

That is just nuts!  LAX or SFO from DEN makes so much more sense than sending someone to LHR in order to get to Japan.  
 

DEN is our home airport too and I have never found SS Air to be of any value to us whatsoever.  Always take the air credit and book the exact flights and seats we want.

[Silver Spectre]

We’ve never had any problems, but dealing with the U.K. office can sometimes be easier, and we live near to one of the biggest international hubs. The only times we have had to push for a better routing is when transiting through a US hub.

[MBP&O2/O]

I researched my own flights and told them what I wanted ...

We are so restricted at our regional airport (NCL) that our choice is severely limited.

[Stumblefoot]

13 hours ago, MBP&O2/O said:

We are so restricted at our regional airport (NCL) that our choice is severely limited.

I had to look up that airport code.  Always nice discovering a new one!  From the pic, it looks like a very nice building.

[tiggertom]

8 hours ago, Stumblefoot said:

I had to look up that airport code.  Always nice discovering a new one!  From the pic, it looks like a very nice building.

It’s a great airport, we are joining Whisper in Reykjavik in July from there but we have to go via Amsterdam.

[cruiseej]

We're booked on a December-January Antarctica cruise on the Silver Wind. We're traveling from Philadelphia or Newark and have upgraded to Silversea business class air. In the current travel environment, when would be a good time to try to pursue flight bookings with Silversea? As soon as it's 11 months from the return date? Or does Silversea air not do bookings that far out? And in the crazy state of travel right now, any thoughts on whether it's better to move fast or hold back?

 

And for anyone who's done an Antarctica cruise, when can we expect to find out which city in South America Silversea is using as the gateway to Ushuaia? The Silversea web site says "Flights to Santiago on Silver Cloud Expedition Voyages; Flights to Buenos Aires on Silver Explorer Expedition Voyages" -- but no mention of Silver Wind. Huh? 

[MBP&O2/O]

Nine months from return date is what I was told. I have just made a request for some flight deviations for a return date in early October. I have actually asked for an economy flight rather that the included BC. See what they say 😁

[MBP&O2/O]

Request denied ... contractual issues ... which didn’t surprise me ... revert to Plan ‘A’ 🙄

[julmops]

Hi all, what is your experience with BC upgrades from London, UK? We are booked on Rio to Bridgetown and I would imagine the best option would be BA as I believe they would offer the only direct flights but does Silversea tend to make you fly indirect ?
many thanks in advance ! 

[julmops]

On 1/30/2021 at 4:34 PM, julmops said:

Hi all, what is your experience with BC upgrades from London, UK? We are booked on Rio to Bridgetown and I would imagine the best option would be BA as I believe they would offer the only direct flights but does Silversea tend to make you fly indirect ?
many thanks in advance ! 

Anyone ? Many thanks !

[57 varieties]

Silversea do not give you an indirect flight if there is a direct option, in our experience.  We have nearly always flown BA to and from London when joining a SS ship.

[Silver Spectre]

1 hour ago, 57 varieties said:

Silversea do not give you an indirect flight if there is a direct option, in our experience.  We have nearly always flown BA to and from London when joining a SS ship.

That’s also our experience.

[m00]

8 hours ago, 57 varieties said:

Silversea do not give you an indirect flight if there is a direct option, in our experience.  We have nearly always flown BA to and from London when joining a SS ship.

That's not always true...

For flight Tokyo-New York at first was given indirect through Montreal, then per request changed to direct.

On another occasion direct flight wasn't granted due to unavailable seats.

On third occasion direct flight required extra surcharge.

In my opinion, it depends on circumstances.

[julmops]

22 hours ago, Silver Spectre said:

That’s also our experience.

Thanks guys for the British perspective ... I’d be more than happy with Club World 😉 

[cruiseej]

One thing to remember is that her the next year or two, there will be far fewer flights than there used to be, as airlines slowly ramp up to match people returning to travel. So the cruise line air departments will likely have fewer options, especially for business class seats, than they have typically had in the past. 

[taxatty]

On 2/14/2021 at 1:35 PM, cruiseej said:

One thing to remember is that her the next year or two, there will be far fewer flights than there used to be, as airlines slowly ramp up to match people returning to travel. So the cruise line air departments will likely have fewer options, especially for business class seats, than they have typically had in the past. 

Not only are there fewer flights, but many of the planes flying these routes have been downsized (examples--very few routes still exist with the huge A380s, others now have 787-8s on routes formerly using larger aircraft, etc.), so fewer seats are available.

[labrasett]

hulmops - you would be happy with Club Word, that is Business Class in airline langugage.   Our experience of SS flights has been very good, usually BA and usually direct although we did come back from Cape Town via Doha on one occasion, will be watching out for that one for our next planned return from Cape Town but I am conscious that BA may not do daily flights on all of the routes it used to service pre Covid.