Give me patience… Viking Air Plus trials

[deec]

that was our experience...we have been able to upgrade Delta tickets thru Viking on other trips...not this time! :(....

[millybess]

19 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

If you are using Viking Air, another pax's experience may not be similar to yours. Whether you can upgrade depends on the fare class that Viking books through their contract. Their are no guarantees that you would have a similar fare class. 

Heidi13, I know that Business Class Air is included with the World Cruise.  Did you use Air Plus?  Or did you assume they would fly you AC from YVR to LAX non-stop?  And is that how it worked out -- nonstop from YVR to LAX on Air Canada?

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, millybess said:

Heidi13, I know that Business Class Air is included with the World Cruise.  Did you use Air Plus?  Or did you assume they would fly you AC from YVR to LAX non-stop?  And is that how it worked out -- nonstop from YVR to LAX on Air Canada?

 

Affirmative, with included Business flights we use Viking Air, paying the surcharge for the "Plus" option.

 

For the last WC, I provided them with 2 direct options for YVR-LAX and LHR-YVR. We received both our first options.

 

For the YVR-LAX, our preference would have been AA to get the points, but their Business Class is poor and they didn't have any direct flights. We requested Air Canada as 1st choice and Westjet as 2nd choice. They booked us on the early morning Air Canada flight.

[BlairsvilleCruiseGirl]

We're booked for a ship sailing May 2023 and decided to also book the Viking Air Plus. I think my final payment is going to be due before flights are even posted by the airlines!  There is a non-stop flight that I really want, but if Viking can't get it for me and wants me to make connections (thus extending an already long flight into a ridiculously long flight!), I would prefer to book it myself directly.  Will Viking refund the money I've already paid for the airfare/Air Plus without a problem?  Or will they want me to take it as an onboard credit?

[Australia08]

On 2/19/2022 at 11:21 AM, deec said:

that was our experience...we have been able to upgrade Delta tickets thru Viking on other trips...not this time! :(....

I’ve been told Viking has a totally new contract with Delta. On our Iceland trip last summer booked by AirPlus, we could not get our usual upgrades (due to status) and couldn’t even buy upgrades from Delta. That’s why we booked our own tickets the last two cruises and had no problem with upgrades. 

[molymoo]

On 2/17/2022 at 2:19 PM, JeriGail said:

I researched my flights, found the ones I wanted, and forwarded them to my TA, and then she called Viking and got my flights.  I was probably lucky too, but I had no issues getting my flights and upgrading my international flight to economy plus on the airline's site (no PE on that flight).

That has been our experience.  No TA but generally can upgrade to economy plus directly with the airline.  Yesterday I booked our flights for our December 2022 Panama cruise.  We selected flights but they upgrades were not available as they are both domestic flights (FLL/LAX).  Booked flights with United and five minutes after hanging up took the confirmation number and upgraded the seats on the United site ... easy peasy!  Our experience has been that United will allow seat selections and upgrades before the trip is formally ticketed ... even international flights.

 

[CCWineLover]

1 hour ago, molymoo said:

That has been our experience.  No TA but generally can upgrade to economy plus directly with the airline.  Yesterday I booked our flights for our December 2022 Panama cruise.  We selected flights but they upgrades were not available as they are both domestic flights (FLL/LAX).  Booked flights with United and five minutes after hanging up took the confirmation number and upgraded the seats on the United site ... easy peasy!  Our experience has been that United will allow seat selections and upgrades before the trip is formally ticketed ... even international flights.

 

Good to know!  We are going in Dec as well SBP (San Luis Obispo) to FLL.  We can get really cheap coach seats now on our own, but will check VAP even though we have had horrible experiences every time.

[MarkTapley]

4 hours ago, molymoo said:

Our experience has been that United will allow seat selections and upgrades before the trip is formally ticketed ... even international flights.

That’s very interesting.  This has not always been my experience with United, and I’ve flown more than 4 million BIS miles with them going back to 1986.  Just booked three international flights with them in the last week.  Seats may be chosen during the reservation process but are not confirmed until tickets are issued (13 digit number, starting with 016).  But United currently issues tickets almost instantly after the reservation is made and the six digit/letter confirmation code is issued.  
 

If you book at +/- 330 days out, when they’re first loaded into United’s system, you normally have to wait about a week to choose seats after tickets are issued.  Still waiting for seat selection on tickets for Auckland next January.

 

Just my experience, but maybe @FlyerTalker will weigh in with his experience as well.

Edited February 28, 2022 by MarkTapley
Clarification

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, MarkTapley said:

But United currently issues tickets almost instantly after the reservation is made and the six digit/letter confirmation code is issued. 

 

Of course, the question here is if you are talking about revenue tickets bought directly from UA, or bulk tickets bought through Viking (or any other cruiseline).  The experiences can vary greatly, in many ways.

 

 

1 hour ago, MarkTapley said:

Just my experience, but maybe @FlyerTalker will weigh in with his experience as well.

 

FWIW, I rarely fly UA.  Last UA flights were on a last-minute Viking "included air" promo in the fall of last year.  It was within the 60 day window (I think it was closer to 30) and the tickets were issued within a few days of cruise payment.  These were contract rate tickets (checked the fare code and rules), and allowed for Economy Plus seat upgrade purchase, but did not allow for a paid upgrade to anything more than just the extra legroom seats. 

 

So I have no experience with UA on a longer time frame.

 

1 hour ago, MarkTapley said:

I’ve flown more than 4 million BIS miles with them going back to 1986.

 

My hat is off to you.  Though you still have a bunch of flying to do to catch Tom Stuker.  (Which I don't think anyone will do)

[MarkTapley]

5 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

Of course, the question here is if you are talking about revenue tickets bought directly from UA, or bulk tickets bought through Viking (or any other cruiseline).  The experiences can vary greatly, in many ways.

Yes, how true.  I have no experience with bulk or consolidator tickets.

 

5 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

Though you still have a bunch of flying to do to catch Tom Stuker. 

Agree.  I’ve met him a few times on planes and United lounges.  Nice guy. 

[junnipper]

I booked our first Viking cruise today with air.  What's my next move? Do they call me and ask if I want Air Plus? 

Thanks :)

[Cadodge]

16 minutes ago, junnipper said:

I booked our first Viking cruise today with air.  What's my next move? Do they call me and ask if I want Air Plus? 

Thanks 🙂

When I booked, the agent transferred me to the Air Department and I did it then. Call the air department directly and ask.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Cadodge

[greydog]

On 2/18/2022 at 4:52 PM, JMichigan said:

When is your cruise? After you’ve flown can you please let us know if you were able to upgrade? My husband is delta diamond platinum and we have a zillion miles so we were hoping to upgrade too and bought the Viking economy plus air. Thanks!

 

On 2/18/2022 at 9:39 PM, Heidi13 said:

 

Whether you can upgrade depends on the fare class that Viking books through their contract. Their are no guarantees that you would have a similar fare class. 

Also agree with Flyertalker post.  Delta lists its fare class rules and the lower class fares such as vendor contracts do not allow upgrade.  I personally have experienced this with V-air when trying later to upgrade on my own at Delta website.

 

What I've since done is reserve the Delta Comfort+ with the V-air agent, with V-air agent adding the C+ upcharge. 

My understanding (reading Delta's fare class rules) is you need Class Y fare to be upgradable - suggest asking V-air to quote you the add-on $ to Class Y fare so you can later upgrade with miles. Verify with Delta that their fare rules would permit upgrade with miles.

 

For my V Nov. Australia cruise, I did not take Prem Econ option at original booking (V charged + $2500 pp to upgrade over economy).  More recently, I decided to add Prem-Econ at the $2500 only to learn that V's allotment of PE at $2500 was sold out, but the V-air would buy it for me at current market PE-add on price.  Haven't yet pulled the trigger, but Australia recently relaxed its travel limits.

GOOD LUCK

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, greydog said:

My understanding (reading Delta's fare class rules) is you need Class Y fare to be upgradable - suggest asking V-air to quote you the add-on $ to Class Y fare so you can later upgrade with miles. Verify with Delta that their fare rules would permit upgrade with miles.

 

Just for reference, Y is full-fare coach, so that "add-on" could be quite the jump.  And FWIW, there are often business class tickets offered that are priced less than Y in coach.

 

[westcoastmom]

I have always arranged my air and I am doing my own J class air as I will departing from NY and returning to CA. The Business class supplement is more expensive than I can get it myself. I will be doing the Grand European cruise in Sept.

@Flyer Talker, I am also a flyer talker.

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, westcoastmom said:

@Flyer Talker, I am also a flyer talker.

 

Please feel free at any time if I am incorrect about something.  Always willing to both learn new things and to acknowledge when I am wrong.

[dwlmg]

I have noticed a pattern. It seems the normal course of action when I have Viking Air Plus is that they assign me seats that have some issue identified for that seat on seatguru.com (e.g. no or a misaligned window). This has happened on most of my Viking Air Bookings. Why are those seats assigned by Viking when the plane is half empty? It may be that those are the seats they get from Delta when they make the booking. I or my travel agent are always to change them but it is a hassle. Bottom line, check your seat assignments.

[CCWineLover]

1 hour ago, greydog said:

FYI  6.5 hrs wait yesterday for aa agent - did the scheduled callback option and finally got issue addressed at appointed time.

Luck of the draw!  I called AA yesterday also and had only a 5 minute wait!  I was shocked.  Got a very good an experienced AA agent.  Again, pure luck!   Got our tickets cross country AND in first class for our Dec Panama Canal out of Florida.  Was only a couple hundred more than Viking was charging us for economy, and if we had wanted economy, that was 1/2 the Viking economy fare.  I'm hoping by December we won't have to continue to look at Viking Air for just the "insurance" aspects.  In fairness it is usually not that bad if you fly directly in, directly out, and don't mind going coach.  Anything else - the issues, complications, and costs can skyrocket.