Carnival fly program

[jstrutton]

We booked our return air through the carnival fly app on their website. The price was a little cheaper than I would have gotten from the airlines.  However this was over 2 months ago and the ticket still shows on American Airlines as pending.  I’ve called my PVP at carnival that we booked the cruise with to find out what is going on.  She said that everything is confirmed and we have seat assignments. She is right in one sense but when I called AA to try and change seats they say they can’t do anything till the flight is confirmed (in other words AA is paid from carnival). 
 

AA rep said that the cruise are always late on paying (confirming) tickets.  But my concern is that Carnival won’t pay AA till the very end and then we get stuck with some seats we don’t want.  I have status with AA so it allows me to upgrade to better seats.  
 

Anyone else run into this problem?

 

Thanks in advance 

 

Jay

[Schoifmom]

You booked a "flexible" fare, which means that you have confirmed reservations, but the flight isn't ticketed until 60 days prior to the trip.  You can't change your seats on same airlines until they are ticketed (I was able to, though), but not purchase upgrades.  Once it is ticketed, you will have no problem getting your upgrades.

[klfrodo]

The cruiselines air programs are considered "Consolidator" tickets.

 

You have a reservation, but the cruiseline doesn't actually "pay" the airline until about 60 days out. Only then does the airline actually "ticket" the reservation.

 

To better understand this procedure there is an old (but still informative) thread on the Cruise Critic Cruise Air board. I will link it for you. Again, it's an old thread but after reading it you'll know more about airline ticketing than you ever wanted to know.

 

 

[jstrutton]

Thanks for the info. The return flight is actually on 23 Jan 2022 which is about 45 days out. So I was figuring on giving them till 30 days to do something, then start hassling them.  
 

jay

[babygrljaz]

My pvp told me they don't pay the airline until 30 days prior.  But he was able to secure seats.  I noticed on our documents that 1 flight had changed so he had to go back into our booking to reserve seats for the new flight.  Your pvp is able to select your seats for you

[jstrutton]

Amazing enough, right after I posted my last comment, I got a confirmation email from Carnival about the flight.  They paid AA so it now shows confirmed on AA and I was able to chane seats.  So, it appears they pay out around 30 days prior to our embarkation.  

 

Thanks all