Got my NCL Airfare. Ugh.

[EvanBedar]

It's not horrible, but if you're used to micromanaging your cruise itinerary like I am, you'd hate this like I do.  But I'll take it.

2 Layovers in both directions.   One layover in both directions is four hours.  I'm sure I'll have to recheck my bags.

I was able to select preferred seating with Air Canada on my departing flight, but not on the Swiss Air to Tenerife.   The changes cost me $270 total for two legs, two passengers.
American Airlines offers no link to change anything about the seating, nor does Iberian to get off the island.

So few choices, long layovers, and Airlines I never choose on my own.

The good thing, after all the warning, and emails, and customer service reps reminding me "your flight arrangements will arrive some time between 30 days, and as late as two weeks before your cruise date" ... the itinerary came at exactly 50 days.  So if you're one of those people counting down the days and dreading a two month wait, hopefully this give some hope.

 

[davencl]

Here's a plus to a 4 hour layover.  In September on our flight from London to Portland Oregon, Delta modifed a flight so we had a 4 hour layover in Seattle.  Where's the plus?  The flight from London was delayed by 2 hours due to the Queen's funeral so many on our flight missed their connections and all other flights were full.  Several got stuck in Seattle overnight.  Fortunately with a 4 hour delay we made it home on "time".  FWIW this was airfare I booked on my own.

Edited October 25, 2022 by davencl

[Davechipp74]

You wouldn't let your airline book your cruise, why let your cruise book your flights? I hear countless horror stories of cruise line arranged flights, I personally think its not worth the "deal" you get, arrange flights as a secondary step and not all in one. JMHO   

[EvanBedar]

5 minutes ago, DAVECHIPP1974 said:

You wouldn't let your airline book your cruise, why let your cruise book your flights? I hear countless horror stories of cruise line arranged flights, I personally think its not worth the "deal" you get, arrange flights as a secondary step and not all in one. JMHO   

Because I couldn't afford $3000 in flights.   Mm-kay.  Thanks.

Edited October 25, 2022 by EvanBedar

[RedwingHockeyFan]

If you are flexible, then booking flights thru the cruise line is a good idea.  I did a 2-day deviation prior to my last cruise leaving Seattle to avoid any issues.  Next time I do an Alaskan cruise I will definitely do a 1-day post-cruise deviation to avoid a red-eye.

[davencl]

18 minutes ago, EvanBedar said:

Because I couldn't afford $3000 in flights.   Mm-kay.  Thanks.

Yes I would have paid $2500 more myself.  So NCL deal well worth it for my trip in January.  

[farjar]

The one time we used NCL our original flights were terrible.  I went to the sites for the airlines they were using and came up with an itinerary that was much better including a nonstop flight.  I then called NCL's air desk and asked if we could have those flights.  They agreed and changed for no charge.  This was pre-Covid and the flights were domestic but you might try it.  The worst they can do is say no and the time spent on the phone would be worth it if it saved you several hours in layover time.  

[DCGuy64]

1 hour ago, EvanBedar said:

Because I couldn't afford $3000 in flights.   Mm-kay.  Thanks.

Exactly. Anytime someone says "I'd have paid the $3000 extra," I'm like "OK moneybags, since that's chump change to YOU, why don't YOU pay for my flights?" LOL  😆

[hallux]

1 hour ago, RedwingHockeyFan said:

Next time I do an Alaskan cruise I will definitely do a 1-day post-cruise deviation to avoid a red-eye.

Don't count on it!  I did a 1-day deviation flying from NY (Albany) to LA, still had a 6 AM flight out of Albany and got to LA at 11 AM, could have EASILY made the cruise if I had flown on embarkation day (which I wouldn't have anyway).  Taking a deviation does not mean you'll get a 'better' flight departure.

 

1 hour ago, farjar said:

The one time we used NCL our original flights were terrible.  I went to the sites for the airlines they were using and came up with an itinerary that was much better including a nonstop flight.  I then called NCL's air desk and asked if we could have those flights.  They agreed and changed for no charge.  This was pre-Covid and the flights were domestic but you might try it.  The worst they can do is say no and the time spent on the phone would be worth it if it saved you several hours in layover time.  

Was this on a promo offer or were they booked using NCL Premium Air?  Yes, IT MATTERS.

[PTC DAWG]

I’m not sure what people expect with these cheap fares…that said,  no way I’m doing it. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by PTC DAWG

[cruiseny4life]

2 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

I’m not sure what people expect with these cheap fares…that said,  no way I’m doing it. 

We're using NCL airfare in March. I'm expecting mediocre. 

[SpacemanSpiff]

12 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

We're using NCL airfare in March. I'm expecting mediocre. 

We'll likely get ours soon for next September's trip. For us, the big expense will be getting refundable fare (about $500 extra).  But, between the potential of the cruise being cancelled (it's the Viva, and as it now stands, we're cruise #3 with a target on our back), and the risk of mega layovers -- or worse still, short layovers of 90 minutes for an international flight -- we think it's the smarter choice.  Plus this allows us to take extra time at each end instead of the two-day deviation so we can spend three days in Athens and Rome.  

Edited October 25, 2022 by SpacemanSpiff

[bortman23]

For our upcoming cruise next month my partner and I, and my parents, all booked our flights on points. My brother (who doesn't collect points) used the NCL promo. He got lucky and is on a flight to Miami roughly around the same time as us (with no connections); and on the way back he has one 2 hour connection; and departs around the same time as us again. 

His total for the two of them was $330 CAD.

 

It really is luck of the draw.

Edited October 25, 2022 by bortman23

[grozzy1]

2 hours ago, DAVECHIPP1974 said:

You wouldn't let your airline book your cruise, why let your cruise book your flights? I hear countless horror stories of cruise line arranged flights, I personally think its not worth the "deal" you get, arrange flights as a secondary step and not all in one. JMHO   

I think the same. The number of horror stories I hear, there must be some huge $ savings before I relinquish control of my flights.

[Davechipp74]

3 hours ago, EvanBedar said:

Because I couldn't afford $3000 in flights.   Mm-kay.  Thanks.

I had no idea your difference was that much 😬 I found it well worthwhile to pay an extra $800 $900 to get the exact seat, airline, departure date/time, direct flight I wanted, when I had to fly per and or post cruise. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by DAVECHIPP1974

[DCGuy64]

1 hour ago, PTC DAWG said:

I’m not sure what people expect with these cheap fares…that said,  no way I’m doing it. 

I'm sure it varies, but the one time we did it, we got nonstop flights with NCL for $99 each. No way I could've beaten that fare/itinerary. YMMV

[GeezerCouple]

3 hours ago, farjar said:

The one time we used NCL our original flights were terrible.  I went to the sites for the airlines they were using and came up with an itinerary that was much better including a nonstop flight.  I then called NCL's air desk and asked if we could have those flights.  They agreed and changed for no charge.  This was pre-Covid and the flights were domestic but you might try it.  The worst they can do is say no and the time spent on the phone would be worth it if it saved you several hours in layover time.  

 

We did something like this the first time we cruised with NCL, a few years ago.  It was the only time we got air through a cruise line, but it worked out - or would have worked out if we hadn't had a medical emergency shortly before planned departure.

 

We wanted to fly business to Hawaii, and NCL was able to offer a better rate than we could have gotten on our own... except we wanted non-stop, and there was just one such flight a day, with limited business class seats.  We asked our travel agent to see what NCL would charge us for business class on that flight on that date, definitely.  It took a couple of days, but they came back with a price that was slightly better than we could get, so we took it.

[Thanks to the kind folks here at CC, we also got travel insurance for the first time, so we were reimbursed for all costs.]

 

However, as we thought more about it later, and read more on CC/etc., we realized that IF there were problems with the flight, *we* probably wouldn't have control over the changes, etc. (I guess that was an understatement! 😱 )

So we've always booked our own flights since, and better yet, we've been able to do them all with awards, at great values.

 

Whether NCL (or other cruise lines/air departments) will allow *specific* flights on specific dates nowadays, I don't know.  But it was worth it for us to ask, and let them know that we *only* wanted that flight on that date or we'd "do it ourselves".  The savings weren't great; whether the specific choice affected that, we have no idea.

 

GC

[EvanBedar]

39 minutes ago, DAVECHIPP1974 said:

I had no idea your difference was that much 😬 I found it well worthwhile to pay an extra $800 $900 to get the exact seat, airline, departure date/time, direct flight I wanted, when I had to fly per and or post cruise. 

They’re flying two of us for a thousand bucks.   Round air from here to Tenerife is about $1750 pp.  

[Jdmfrogg]

Just got our air (60 days out)

 

Family of 4 under 2 reservations.  They put us on different flights - wife and I leaving at 7am, son and mom leaving at noon.

 

I prepared myself for this possibility, so am ok with it since we still saved $, but it’s odd how they didn’t try to get us on the same planes since there is space on both and we placed a note in both reservations that we are 1 family under 2 reservations.   
 

Glad we did 1 day deviation 

[EvanBedar]

18 minutes ago, Jdmfrogg said:

Just got our air (60 days out)

 

Family of 4 under 2 reservations.  They put us on different flights - wife and I leaving at 7am, son and mom leaving at noon.

 

I prepared myself for this possibility, so am ok with it since we still saved $, but it’s odd how they didn’t try to get us on the same planes since there is space on both and we placed a note in both reservations that we are 1 family under 2 reservations.   
 

Glad we did 1 day deviation 

It is true they find the absolute cheapest path.   If they could buy an itinerary with you stowing away in the wheel well, they’d bah-gawd take it!

[farjar]

2 hours ago, hallux said:

Was this on a promo offer or were they booked using NCL Premium Air?  Yes, IT MATTERS.

It was back in 2019 and the promo code says: AIRPROM2.  We paid a total of $99pp to fly from Southern California to Vancouver then home again from Anchorage.  We NEVER could have found anything that reasonable on our own. Oddly the NCL airport transfers cost us $40pp for each airport (total $160) which was almost as much as the total airfare of $198 for both of us.  

[DCGuy64]

14 hours ago, farjar said:

It was back in 2019 and the promo code says: AIRPROM2.  We paid a total of $99pp to fly from Southern California to Vancouver then home again from Anchorage.  We NEVER could have found anything that reasonable on our own. Oddly the NCL airport transfers cost us $40pp for each airport (total $160) which was almost as much as the total airfare of $198 for both of us.  

You can have the transfers removed, if you like. They're not required as part of the BOGO air.

[SimplyAlbert]

We booked with BOGO airfare and ended up canceling it and booking on our own.  We paid a little bit more (about $75), but after reading some people's experiences we decided we preferred being in charge of our own air.   If we were saving thousands of dollars, however, we'd most likely chance it, with a deviation on both ends in case something went wrong along the way.

[bortman23]

17 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

I'm sure it varies, but the one time we did it, we got nonstop flights with NCL for $99 each. No way I could've beaten that fare/itinerary. YMMV

 

I feel like part of the reason for the undesirable flights/stop-overs is due what's going on with the airline industry (limited flights, over priced etc). Once things start to go back to how they were pre-pandemic we might start seeing things improve. NCL is always going to go with the lower cost flights, as long as they meet their guarantee. 

[EvanBedar]

8 minutes ago, bortman23 said:

 

I feel like part of the reason for the undesirable flights/stop-overs is due what's going on with the airline industry (limited flights, over priced etc). Once things start to go back to how they were pre-pandemic we might start seeing things improve. NCL is always going to go with the lower cost flights, as long as they meet their guarantee. 

Not getting your flight itinerary until their last possible moment is definitely due to airlines' cancellations etc.  That's for sure.  But I doubt we'd ever see the itineraries stop being so cheap and inconvenient.  That's the whole purpose of them booking it; they want the absolute cheapest airfare.