Why Viking Air?

[oskidunker]

Used Viking air-in business. $4500 per person. Klm sfo to bergen with stop in Amsterdam. Return British air lhr to sfo non stop. Great flights. Travel agent had viking pay when we booked 4 months in advance. Seats assigned at that time. Nothing changed. Same flights same seats. Did we pay a little more? Maybe service was worth it. 

[CCWineLover]

5 hours ago, oskidunker said:

Used Viking air-in business. $4500 per person. Klm sfo to bergen with stop in Amsterdam. Return British air lhr to sfo non stop. Great flights. Travel agent had viking pay when we booked 4 months in advance. Seats assigned at that time. Nothing changed. Same flights same seats. Did we pay a little more? Maybe service was worth it. 

We also did Viking Business Air $4500 last Apr/May.  SAS SFO-Copenhagen-Bergen outbound, and back from Basel to LHR to SFO on British Air.  Similar experience.  Everything on-time.  Booked, Ticketed, Paid, Seats done at 4 months.  Also no changes.

Hearing about so many many issues people have. . .   One thing I do note is many issues seem to come from those who take connection feeder flights to a major USA Hub.  Those flights seem to be changed or cancelled a lot, which then affects the whole trip, both coming and going.

We don't mind driving the 180 miles up to SFO to eliminate that issue!

[oskidunker]

I am 15 minutes from SFO. Cab drivers hate it. 

[MSEm]

I usually do our air and not use Viking.  We are booked on the Great Lakes Duluth to Toronto for Sept 2023.  It included "free air" 

We had Delta vouchers (from changes and cancelled flights during Covid shut down) that were close to use or lose the vouchers.  I booked Atlanta to Minneapolis to Duluth. Depart ATL about 11:45 am.  Arrive in Duluth at 4:30 pm on same day.  Depart Toronto non stop to Atlanta at 11:50 AM on the day we depart ship.

Viking sent us a schedule:  Depart Atlanta at 6:46 PM day before we board the ship. Fly to LAX with 4 2/1 hour layover. Depart LAX at 12:20 AM to Minneapolis with 2 1/2 layover.

Depart MSP at 9 AM to arrive in Duluth at 10:30am.  Depart Toronto at about 7 AM to ATL.

 

[Insanityx4]

We just disembarked Octantis on Thursday in Ft. Lauderdale. ALL flights were cancelled for two days due flooding. 26 inches in 24 hours. Flights were diverter to Miami. We had Viking Air. Our flight was changed by American airlines for the next night at 8:30. Viking transported us to Miami and put us up at the Sheraton airport hotel and picked up the tab. They didn't provide food but paid for late check out. Couldn't ask for more from Viking. They can't control the weather but felt responsible to get us home. Ft. Lauderdale airport was a mess and so was Miami but we made it home safely today.

[island lady]

Finally had my first experience using Viking Air option.   Was shocked at the price that our business class flights would have been had I booked on my own.  I did my upgrades from premium economy (with horrible flight connections) to business class on line in with MVJ.   

 

Viking Air not only was 1/3 the price, but once I upgraded, the connections were way better.  Might just be first timer luck, but I am happy with the results so far.  

[SM77]

We have always had excellent experiences booking our air through Viking Air.  The one time I booked air independently for an Oceania cruise went well flying to Athens & returning from Barcelona.  Different story with traveling to Hong Kong for a Crystal cruise - difficult to find the port and Crystal staff to embark.  When the pandemic happened, I had just booked our own flights for an Oceania cruise and just had to wait several months for United to cancel the flight to get our money refunded even though the cruise had already been canceled.  Since everything is so much more fluid these days, I'm inclined to only want to deal with just the cruise line if there are cancelations.  And when we had flights canceled from Hong Kong by AA a couple of days before flying home, Viking Air made all the arrangements on a different carrier & we got home without a hitch on a nonstop from Hong Kong.   We will be headed to Prague next week, pretty much the flights we wanted, in premium economy on United going to Brussels & returning from Paris.  No switching seats or flights, only cost us $799 each to upgrade to premium economy from free included airfare for this Viking river cruise.   My only concern is that we could miss our connecting flight from Brussels to Prague given all the problems that the airlines have been experiencing or that we could get stuck in Paris if there are any strikes going on at Charles de Gaulle.  I'm hoping that I can go with the flow these days; looking so forward to our first international trip in three & a half years.  

[island lady]

14 hours ago, SM77 said:

We have always had excellent experiences booking our air through Viking Air.  The one time I booked air independently for an Oceania cruise went well flying to Athens & returning from Barcelona.  Different story with traveling to Hong Kong for a Crystal cruise - difficult to find the port and Crystal staff to embark.  When the pandemic happened, I had just booked our own flights for an Oceania cruise and just had to wait several months for United to cancel the flight to get our money refunded even though the cruise had already been canceled.  Since everything is so much more fluid these days, I'm inclined to only want to deal with just the cruise line if there are cancelations.  And when we had flights canceled from Hong Kong by AA a couple of days before flying home, Viking Air made all the arrangements on a different carrier & we got home without a hitch on a nonstop from Hong Kong.   We will be headed to Prague next week, pretty much the flights we wanted, in premium economy on United going to Brussels & returning from Paris.  No switching seats or flights, only cost us $799 each to upgrade to premium economy from free included airfare for this Viking river cruise.   My only concern is that we could miss our connecting flight from Brussels to Prague given all the problems that the airlines have been experiencing or that we could get stuck in Paris if there are any strikes going on at Charles de Gaulle.  I'm hoping that I can go with the flow these days; looking so forward to our first international trip in three & a half years.  

 

Thanks!  That was what I was assuming as well...hope it all works out for us too.  I did check the assigned seats before I upgraded.   Even though, like you, I paid the extra 799.00 per person for premium economy, only 2 of the total of 6 legs (round trip) were actually in premium economy.  The other 4 were in regular economy.  I was happy I upgraded to business class.  

[SM77]

Just now, island lady said:

 

Thanks!  That was what I was assuming as well...hope it all works out for us too.  I did check the assigned seats before I upgraded.   Even though, like you, I paid the extra 799.00 per person for premium economy, only 2 of the total of 6 legs (round trip) were actually in premium economy.  The other 4 were in regular economy.  I was happy I upgraded to business class.  

Yes, only the overseas portion is in Premium Economy - IAD to Brussels, Paris to IAD - also there are very few PE seats on most flights.  We try to travel business class; we thought this time we try PE as an alternative when flying to Europe for a less expensive option.  Today we got an email from Viking providing a special number to call for flight related travel emergency issues which is staffed 24 hours, seven days per week.  Obviously air travel has been challenging since last summer, so much that Viking felt the need to have something available.  I have been checking our flight as to how well the flight has been on time.  It has been uneven, especially with some of the weather that we have been having.  I am comforted to know that we have a number to call if we have a flight related problem now.  

[island lady]

2 minutes ago, SM77 said:

Yes, only the overseas portion is in Premium Economy - IAD to Brussels, Paris to IAD - also there are very few PE seats on most flights.  We try to travel business class; we thought this time we try PE as an alternative when flying to Europe for a less expensive option.  Today we got an email from Viking providing a special number to call for flight related travel emergency issues which is staffed 24 hours, seven days per week.  Obviously air travel has been challenging since last summer, so much that Viking felt the need to have something available.  I have been checking our flight as to how well the flight has been on time.  It has been uneven, especially with some of the weather that we have been having.  I am comforted to know that we have a number to call if we have a flight related problem now.  

 

Enjoy your adventure.  Now that flights are finally booked...I feel I am really going now and getting very excited about our first Viking river cruise.  🙂 

[SM77]

2 minutes ago, island lady said:

 

Enjoy your adventure.  Now that flights are finally booked...I feel I am really going now and getting very excited about our first Viking river cruise.  🙂 

Thank you so much!  You will love your Viking river cruise - our first introduction to Viking was on the Danube from Passau to Budapest with a land portion starting in Munich & Salzburg in 2016.  I see that you are a very seasoned cruise traveler - you will love traveling on Viking Ocean - we did Auckland to Bali on Orion in early 2019.  

[island lady]

1 hour ago, SM77 said:

Thank you so much!  You will love your Viking river cruise - our first introduction to Viking was on the Danube from Passau to Budapest with a land portion starting in Munich & Salzburg in 2016.  I see that you are a very seasoned cruise traveler - you will love traveling on Viking Ocean - we did Auckland to Bali on Orion in early 2019.  

 

We are (or rather were) "loyal Royals" for many years.  So many things have changed with them, that we are now trying other lines.  Very happy to have the Viking river and ocean adventures booked, as I have heard so many good things about them.  Have done one river cruise in Europe many years ago, but it was not Viking.   We loved it, and are happy to do another one finally.  🙂 

[flyer79]

Here's my recent Viking Air experience.   We are traveling with another couple and are both repeat Viking cruisers.   We did a conference call with the Viking rep who did a great job with us booking a Mediterranean cruise- Venice to Barcelona..  The promo he had for us included air.   We made it clear we wanted to travel together so he charged us $50 for flight co-ordination.   We are sailing in like 90 days so we paid in full on the call.

 

A couple days later my buddy calls as he had gotten his flights from Viking Air.   As we sort of expected they weren't to our liking - for free we didn't expect much.   Of course nothing is every really free and they had baked at least a part into the cruise fare but it is what it is.   It was not the airline we wanted and had 2 different 4 hour layovers each way.   No big deal though so he gets on MVJ and looks for the alternatives.  He finds a nice one stop on the airline we both have good status with for a reasonable upcharge and makes the switch.

 

My flights haven't come yet so I call the next day.   The Air rep apologized for the delay (since we paid the air co-ordination fee) and says he will push mine thru and to check back in 24 hours or so.   They actually come very quickly and are the same ones my friend originally got.  I go on MVJ to make the same change but the option he got the day before is not shown.   I double checked the flights on the American Airlines site and they had a fairly reasonable rate and plenty of seats.  So I called Viking Air back to ask about it.   They told me that if wasn't showing then it had very likely priced out of their contract range.  She said she could check for me but it would cost me $100 a person non-refundable just to look.  I swallowed hard and agreed to that.   She came back with a deviation quote that was more than twice what my friend had paid the day before and was actually more than American was selling the flight for independently.    It literally would have been cheaper to pass on the free flight and buy it on my own then pay the deviation.

 

Now I am really not pleased.  If they had gotten us our original flights at the same time we could have searched for alternatives together and either both gotten the reasonable deviation or neither taken the unreasonable one.   I stayed pretty calm but was also pretty insistent that in my opinion they had caused my problem and needed to help fix it.  We have an Oceania cruise also this year and had no problems with their air group coordinating decent deviations for 3 couples.   I might have mentioned that to them a time or two.

 

90 minutes and a couple supervisors later they came back with a reasonable offer.   It was only the good flight to Venice ( a 1 stop with a 2 hour layover on our preferred airline) that  they didn't want to put us on.   They found a different airline with only 1 stop ( but a 7 hour layover, yuck) for that flight and let us the keep the return we liked on American for no extra $.   They waived the BS $100 take a look fee.   And they refunded the deviation fee my friend had paid the day before.

 

So we ended up with a little bit better inbound and fairly significantly better return home than the original 'free' flights for the same 'free' price.   All for the hassle of paying for flight co-ordination that wasn't particularly well co-ordinated, and then almost paying $200 just to get a quote for a deviation that was more than the whole cost of the flight.  

 

 

 

 

 

[CCWineLover]

39 minutes ago, flyer79 said:

Here's my recent Viking Air experience.   We are traveling with another couple and are both repeat Viking cruisers.   We did a conference call with the Viking rep who did a great job with us booking a Mediterranean cruise- Venice to Barcelona..  The promo he had for us included air.   We made it clear we wanted to travel together so he charged us $50 for flight co-ordination.   We are sailing in like 90 days so we paid in full on the call.

 

A couple days later my buddy calls as he had gotten his flights from Viking Air.   As we sort of expected they weren't to our liking - for free we didn't expect much.   Of course nothing is every really free and they had baked at least a part into the cruise fare but it is what it is.   It was not the airline we wanted and had 2 different 4 hour layovers each way.   No big deal though so he gets on MVJ and looks for the alternatives.  He finds a nice one stop on the airline we both have good status with for a reasonable upcharge and makes the switch.

 

My flights haven't come yet so I call the next day.   The Air rep apologized for the delay (since we paid the air co-ordination fee) and says he will push mine thru and to check back in 24 hours or so.   They actually come very quickly and are the same ones my friend originally got.  I go on MVJ to make the same change but the option he got the day before is not shown.   I double checked the flights on the American Airlines site and they had a fairly reasonable rate and plenty of seats.  So I called Viking Air back to ask about it.   They told me that if wasn't showing then it had very likely priced out of their contract range.  She said she could check for me but it would cost me $100 a person non-refundable just to look.  I swallowed hard and agreed to that.   She came back with a deviation quote that was more than twice what my friend had paid the day before and was actually more than American was selling the flight for independently.    It literally would have been cheaper to pass on the free flight and buy it on my own then pay the deviation.

 

Now I am really not pleased.  If they had gotten us our original flights at the same time we could have searched for alternatives together and either both gotten the reasonable deviation or neither taken the unreasonable one.   I stayed pretty calm but was also pretty insistent that in my opinion they had caused my problem and needed to help fix it.  We have an Oceania cruise also this year and had no problems with their air group coordinating decent deviations for 3 couples.   I might have mentioned that to them a time or two.

 

90 minutes and a couple supervisors later they came back with a reasonable offer.   It was only the good flight to Venice ( a 1 stop with a 2 hour layover on our preferred airline) that  they didn't want to put us on.   They found a different airline with only 1 stop ( but a 7 hour layover, yuck) for that flight and let us the keep the return we liked on American for no extra $.   They waived the BS $100 take a look fee.   And they refunded the deviation fee my friend had paid the day before.

 

So we ended up with a little bit better inbound and fairly significantly better return home than the original 'free' flights for the same 'free' price.   All for the hassle of paying for flight co-ordination that wasn't particularly well co-ordinated, and then almost paying $200 just to get a quote for a deviation that was more than the whole cost of the flight.  

 

 

 

 

 

So sorry to hear of your troubles - one of thousands sadly.

Unfortunately, that is the problem with going via bulk air (Viking or any other 3rd party) rather than doing it yourselves.  There really is no free lunch.  Air may be free or cheap but you will pay somewhere (in $ or in hassle/stress) is our experience.

 

I was on the phone with my Travel Agent today and she let me know that effective last Monday, Viking is now no longer doing coordination among different couples for flights.  Apparently too much of a hassle with the airlines (maybe what you experience).  So even that is gone.

That is again why if you are savvy travelers, you are better off booking yourselves (or via a TA).  You give up the airport transfers, and the theoretical Viking help should things go wrong enroute.  However, you gain control over exactly what you wish to do.  Not for everyone, but as I said, for savvy travelers, people might keep that in mind.

[flyer79]

Totally agree. I wish they would never bundle free air in a promo. Toss me some OBC or upgrade the drinks or whatever.  Let me do my own flights. 

[CHuntMD]

Well I just got off the phone (1.5hrs) with Viking Air. Since 15 Jan we have had 5 changes, all on the return flight.  We were scheduled to leave Tuesday from DCA and get to ANC at 7:57PM (via ORD). We were meeting my folks (Vietnam Vet) at ORD.

FYSA: It's 120miles from ANC to Seward.

Was told in April that the tickets were booked/paid and absolutely "NO CHANGES".

 

Now today 3:30PM get #6 flight change email.  We now leave a day earlier and get to ANC at 2AM.

Then you wait until enough folks arrive to fill a bus to take the 3hr trip to Seward (port). 

 

So I called and was told 7:57pm "was to late", guessing you arrive at the ship at midnight.

ok I can under stand this...but then why did they book this 4 months ago?????

 

Problem #2: The return flight kept changing until April 3 when they change departure at YVR to 9am.

need to be at airport at 7am-ish, airport is 30 miles from port or so, ok its going to be  early day.

Problem is the ship does not dock until 0700.  Not sure if that changed but why would they book a flight for the same time the ship docked. Did not get an answer.

 

Now we are leaving at 9:30PM (redeye) to Toronto (5am saturday) get to DCA at 8:30am.

 

They had not contacted my folks yet or updated their myvikingjourney.com.

 

Last I spoke they were working on some other flights w/different carriers.

 

My mistake a year ago was answering DCA is my closest airport. IAD or BWI have way more options but they won't change that.  They mention leaving Monday and putting us in a hotel @ Seattle then onto ANC tuesday. Will find out tomorrow.

CEH in MD

[FlyerTalker]

One thing that is important to recognize is the difference between an itinerary change because there was an operational change of the airline's flight schedule and an administrative change where the underlying flights aren't changing, merely the choice of what the cruiseline is giving you.

 

In the first case, you would be subject to those same changes whether you booked the flight yourself or the cruiseline booked them.  However, when it's the latter, then you have a separate situation from a self-ticketed perspective.

 

And how many folks, when posting about their "changes", tell us which was the case?   I'll let you look back and supply your own answer (but the smart bet is to take the under).

[Maryland4]

We just returned from a Viking Rhine River cruise (which we loved).  We booked Premium Economy through Viking Air.  First, we were pleased with the transfers, and pleasantly shocked when a Viking representative met us as we got off the plane in Heathrow for a transfer.  He led us through the terminal to the lounge where we were waiting for the connecting flight.  Without his assistance, I am sure we would have mistakenly thought we had to deal with immigration.  He was very helpful and pleasant.

 

Now the negatives:

1) We got frequent emails from Viking Air telling us there was a change to our itinerary, but without any explanation.  So we had to parse through every line of the booking to find the change.  It was usually insignificant, such as change of aircraft.  But once it was a (favorable) change in the layover.  Every airline seems to highlight the change with crossouts and/or underlining.  I wish Viking Air would do the same.

 

2)When we got to the airport in Amsterdam for our return, we saw that they had put one of us in regular economy, claiming Premium Economy was overbooked.  I wonder if that is becuase the airline is willing to bump disounted passengers, even though we booked this many months ago, in favor of their frequent fliers or full-fare customers.  (I don't see why airlines are allowed to overbook these days, since everyone pays in advance and there is no need to protect against no-shows.).

 

3) We also found out at the airport (Viking Air did not notify us) that the flight was delayed for about 1 1/2 hours, making it impossible to make our connection in Toronto.  We called the "emergency" number provided by Viking Air, and they told us they could not do anything because we had checked in.  Which we had NOT done yet. They offered absolutely no help, and told us to deal with it at the check-in counter for Air Canada.  Bottom line, the check-in person could not help with connecting flights, but told us to call Air Canada.  After a 20 minute hold, the wonderful Air Canada representative cancelled our check-in (which we had done at the counter), put us on a later connecting flight (to DCA instead of BWI, but there were no later flights to BWI), AND got me restored to a Premium Economy seat on the flight from Amsterdam.  AND--we were initially in regular economy for the short connecting flight from Toronto because the small aircraft did not have Premium Economy.  The Air Canada rep put us in Business Class, not economy.

 

Other than the unexpected escort at Heahtrow, not much to recommend Viking Air.  At these costs, I would expect more service than "go deal with the airline yourself."

[CCWineLover]

45 minutes ago, Maryland4 said:

We just returned from a Viking Rhine River cruise (which we loved).  We booked Premium Economy through Viking Air.  First, we were pleased with the transfers, and pleasantly shocked when a Viking representative met us as we got off the plane in Heathrow for a transfer.  He led us through the terminal to the lounge where we were waiting for the connecting flight.  Without his assistance, I am sure we would have mistakenly thought we had to deal with immigration.  He was very helpful and pleasant.

 

Now the negatives:

1) We got frequent emails from Viking Air telling us there was a change to our itinerary, but without any explanation.  So we had to parse through every line of the booking to find the change.  It was usually insignificant, such as change of aircraft.  But once it was a (favorable) change in the layover.  Every airline seems to highlight the change with crossouts and/or underlining.  I wish Viking Air would do the same.

 

2)When we got to the airport in Amsterdam for our return, we saw that they had put one of us in regular economy, claiming Premium Economy was overbooked.  I wonder if that is becuase the airline is willing to bump disounted passengers, even though we booked this many months ago, in favor of their frequent fliers or full-fare customers.  (I don't see why airlines are allowed to overbook these days, since everyone pays in advance and there is no need to protect against no-shows.).

 

3) We also found out at the airport (Viking Air did not notify us) that the flight was delayed for about 1 1/2 hours, making it impossible to make our connection in Toronto.  We called the "emergency" number provided by Viking Air, and they told us they could not do anything because we had checked in.  Which we had NOT done yet. They offered absolutely no help, and told us to deal with it at the check-in counter for Air Canada.  Bottom line, the check-in person could not help with connecting flights, but told us to call Air Canada.  After a 20 minute hold, the wonderful Air Canada representative cancelled our check-in (which we had done at the counter), put us on a later connecting flight (to DCA instead of BWI, but there were no later flights to BWI), AND got me restored to a Premium Economy seat on the flight from Amsterdam.  AND--we were initially in regular economy for the short connecting flight from Toronto because the small aircraft did not have Premium Economy.  The Air Canada rep put us in Business Class, not economy.

 

Other than the unexpected escort at Heahtrow, not much to recommend Viking Air.  At these costs, I would expect more service than "go deal with the airline yourself."

That’s why so many of us Viking veterans and savvy travelers DO NOT USE Viking Air.  Doing it ourselves solves so many problems if you care enough to be involved and have some degree of savvy on airline travel.  Less cost, less stress,