Regent - Unreasonable Air Itineraries - Never Again

[Golfess]

We tried Regent for our AK cruise because both the ships and expected high level of service appealed to us. When booking, we struggled to get Regent to provide a reasonable air itinerary (price was included in the cruise). Had we booked air ourselves, we would certainly have traveled the day before embarkation. But the Regent bookings were all day of embarkation with connections.   The first booking was Chicago-Dallas-Vancouver, day-or-embarkation.  We thought that an unreasonable route and high-risk so we asked to depart from Detroit instead.  That booking was Detroit-Chicago-Vancouver, also day-of-embarkation.  So, we asked if we could pay the significant up-charge fee and book our own flights, so we could fly the day before departure.  Regent said it was too late.  We were stuck with their itinerary.   Not surprisingly, we missed our connection and the cruise. By the time our delayed Detroit-Chicago flight returned from the tarmac, there were no alternative flight arrangements to get us to our cruise.     Regent, inappropriately, blamed the situation entirely on the airlines. Yet, Regent was the one who insisted on the high-risk air itinerary, with no back-up flight options. While insurance refunded our cruise costs, Regent offered no  future credits for the problems they caused.   We will not be traveling with Regent in the future.  Further, we will not book any line that includes airfares with itineraries the day-or-embarkation as the only option. We have had great experiences and excellent service on other lines. We have always used small ships (800 passenger max) in the luxury or mid-luxury class, so we had thought Regent would be a good fit. Fortunately, we know there are plenty of other good options to choose from.     We are curious if others have had similar problems with cruise-arranged airfare?  It seems that the cruise line has little downside to bad itineraries - as they still keep the cruise fee and don't need to house/feed the stranded passengers.

[mrlevin]

32 Regent cruises and we have never used Regent air; just took the credit.  We have used included hotel only once; last year at the Plaza before Grand Voyage.  Regent is a damn good cruise line; why would anyone expect they are great at hotels or air just because they are great at cruising?

 

Marc

[1982CruzStart]

So sorry you had this horrible experience. Did you use a TA familiar with Regent and their policies regarding Air?  Did you book the cruise close to the embarkation date? Did no one tell you that from the beginning you could have taken the air credit and booked your own flights or did this just come out when you received the flight info around 70 days before embarkation and by then it was too late? 

 

We use Regent Air for all our cruises but would never dream of arriving the day of embarkation. We always pay the deviation fee and fly the airlines and days we want, which is at least the day before but often a couple of days early to take advantage of the sites of that port. 

 

Thank goodness there are good options for you in other cruise lines.  Happy cruising in the future. 

[douginct]

Have sailed with Regent several times and always took the air credit and booked our own flights. Sometimes to use air miles. And always to be in complete control of our itinerary. We fly in at least one day ahead of sailing - and sometimes two days early.

[pingpong1]

1 minute ago, mrlevin said:

32 Regent cruises and we have never used Regent air; just took the credit.  We have used included hotel only once; last year at the Plaza before Grand Voyage.  Regent is a damn good cruise line; why would anyone expect they are great at hotels or air just because they are great at cruising?

 

Marc

Hi Marc - I guess people are (sometimes mistakenly) expecting the highest level of luxury from "End-to-End" (which also encompasses the flights on both ends and any "included" hotel stay experience).  Those initial expectations are "set" by Regent's advertising literature and not by the customers themselves.  You and I are both long-time Regent cruisers so we know that those initial advertising expectations are probably unreasonable and not reality-based in a lot of circumstances.

 

But for the new cruiser who is just beginning with Regent...they look through the "glitzy" cruise brochures, watch the short videos, and absorb the lovely glossy pictures and descriptions on each page.  They focus on all the superlative adjectives used in the product descriptions...and they swallow it all "hook, line, and sinker".  Regent wouldn't be advertising themselves this way if it didn't work.  It certainly caught our attention when I first "discovered" Regent back in 2011!

 

For some, if their first or second (Regent) experience doesn't (fully or approximately) measure up to their own initial expectations (which were initially set in place by Regent's own advertising)...they then have two options.  They either reset those initial expectations (now based on some of their own actual experience with Regent), or they "leave" Regent completely...having felt completely "snookered" and cheated... and take with them a lot of disappointment and animosity.

 

Like you and many other, we have never used Regent air, and have only a couple of times used Regent's "included" pre-cruise hotel (which, all in all, haven't been too bad for just the one night), if it came with suite level we had booked.

 

We still cruise exclusively with Regent...but our own "expectation yardstick" has become more accurately reset over the years through actual experience.  Best Regards.

[Golfess]

Thank you all.  Clearly, we have learned the hard way.  Specifically, in response to 1982CruzStart, we booked the cruise fairly late.  So, by the time we were faced with multiple bad itineraries, we were unable to change with the upcharge or to take a credit.  At that time, we would have paid a hefty extra price to book our own airfare.  

 

In the future, we will stick with alternative lines - as Regent's response to our problems left no motivation to use them again.  Even an on-board credit (or something comparable) on the next cruise would have been enough for us to reconsider Regent.  But that didn't happen.

[Golfess]

9 minutes ago, pingpong1 said:

Hi Marc - I guess people are (sometimes mistakenly) expecting the highest level of luxury from "End-to-End" (which also encompasses the flights on both ends and any "included" hotel stay experience).  Those initial expectations are "set" by Regent's advertising literature and not by the customers themselves.  You and I are both long-time Regent cruisers so we know that those initial advertising expectations are probably unreasonable and not reality-based in a lot of circumstances.

 

But for the new cruiser who is just beginning with Regent...they look through the "glitzy" cruise brochures, watch the short videos, and absorb the lovely glossy pictures and descriptions on each page.  They focus on all the superlative adjectives used in the product descriptions...and they swallow it all "hook, line, and sinker".  Regent wouldn't be advertising themselves this way if it didn't work.  It certainly caught our attention when I first "discovered" Regent back in 2011!

 

For some, if their first or second (Regent) experience doesn't (fully or approximately) measure up to their own initial expectations (which were initially set in place by Regent's own advertising)...they then have two options.  They either reset those initial expectations (now based on some of their own actual experience with Regent), or they "leave" Regent completely...having felt completely "snookered" and cheated... and take with them a lot of disappointment and animosity.

 

Like you and many other, we have never used Regent air, and have only a couple of times used Regent's "included" pre-cruise hotel (which, all in all, haven't been too bad for just the one night), if it came with suite level we had booked.

 

We still cruise exclusively with Regent...but our own "expectation yardstick" has become more accurately reset over the years through actual experience.  Best Regards.

Thank you.  I think you captured our situation accurately.  We had high expectations, reasonable or not, and now Regent has lost a customer.

[irishwitchy]

Whatever cruise line you pick next,  please ask a bunch of questions on cruise critic prior to booking the cruise.  I’m not a Regent cheerleader, but all of the lines will have something that you won’t  like.  
 

I also book my own flights.  

[Fairgarth]

1 hour ago, Golfess said:

But the Regent bookings were all day of embarkation with connections. The first booking was Chicago-Dallas-Vancouver, day-or-embarkation.   Not surprisingly, we missed our connection and the cruise.

 

Regent is doing itself no favours.  Flying in on day of departure is a no-no.  How could they not know that?  (I've said it before - your faith in the airlines is touching and entirely misplaced.)  Further, there are non-stops between Chicago and Vancouver.  I suspect they have 'arrangements' of one kind or another with various airlines so you end up with an itinerary that you would never choose yourself.  Very sorry you had such a miserable experience.  We get older, sadder and wiser so I'm sure that will never happen to you again.

[Georgia_Peaches]

1 hour ago, pingpong1 said:

But for the new cruiser who is just beginning with Regent...they look through the "glitzy" cruise brochures, watch the short videos, and absorb the lovely glossy pictures and descriptions on each page.  They focus on all the superlative adjectives used in the product descriptions...and they swallow it all "hook, line, and sinker".  Regent wouldn't be advertising themselves this way if it didn't work.  It certainly caught our attention when I first "discovered" Regent back in 2011!

I appreciate you saying this as we are new to Regent.  We've booked a 10 night cruise out of Venice for 2025 and one of the reasons we selected this option was for the advertised business class airfare inclusion.  I did a mock booking of airfare for travel in 2023 to get a rough idea of the cost of flights over seas knowing that in 2025, it will likely cost more.  The cost to book business class on our own via Delta was more than the cruise fare!  So we opted for the included air with Regent.  It is my understanding that we can pay a deviation fee once the air itinerary has been determined by Regent and that fee will allow us to make changes that may likely result in an up charge....unless of course, we like the itinerary that is provided.  Am I understanding this correctly?

[Golfess]

1 hour ago, irishwitchy said:

Whatever cruise line you pick next,  please ask a bunch of questions on cruise critic prior to booking the cruise.  I’m not a Regent cheerleader, but all of the lines will have something that you won’t  like.  
 

I also book my own flights.  

Great suggestion.  You can see that we have not used this forum much.  I think the only previous time was when we were preparing for our first cruise (Azamara Baltic, which was fabulous).   Based on the helpful comments in this forum, I will always check in here before we plan our travel.  Our next is Windstar (Scotland/Norway), so I'll be heading to those forums before we book air or excursions!

[Gpilon]

25 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

I appreciate you saying this as we are new to Regent.  We've booked a 10 night cruise out of Venice for 2025 and one of the reasons we selected this option was for the advertised business class airfare inclusion.  I did a mock booking of airfare for travel in 2023 to get a rough idea of the cost of flights over seas knowing that in 2025, it will likely cost more.  The cost to book business class on our own via Delta was more than the cruise fare!  So we opted for the included air with Regent.  It is my understanding that we can pay a deviation fee once the air itinerary has been determined by Regent and that fee will allow us to make changes that may likely result in an up charge....unless of course, we like the itinerary that is provided.  Am I understanding this correctly?

We are on Grandeur July 24, Barcelona to Rome. We checked Delta fares a long time before departure and they were “insane” for Delta One. We then checked with AmEx Platinum travel a few weeks ago the the fares had dropped CONSIDERABLY so we booked on Delta at the newly published price. Suggest you keep looking at airfare…..when you try and book too far out all airlines have bloated prices. We always book our own air and pre-cruise hotels and take the credits. 

[Golfess]

58 minutes ago, Fairgarth said:

 

Regent is doing itself no favours.  Flying in on day of departure is a no-no.  How could they not know that?  (I've said it before - your faith in the airlines is touching and entirely misplaced.)  Further, there are non-stops between Chicago and Vancouver.  I suspect they have 'arrangements' of one kind or another with various airlines so you end up with an itinerary that you would never choose yourself.  Very sorry you had such a miserable experience.  We get older, sadder and wiser so I'm sure that will never happen to you again.

Righto!  Lesson learned.  We'll always book our own flights going forward - as we have done previously.  Not only is it less stressful to get to your embarkation destination ahead of time, but also a chance to explore one more location. In any case, it won't be on Regent. 

[zak477]

We have had 16 cruises with Regent and with those I booked my own air and got the air credit. Also we arrive at least 2 days (sometimes more) prior to enjoy some of the new countries we are arriving in. But our cruise next month, Istanbul to Dubai, I researched the business class direct flight pricing and the round trip for us was more than our cruise costs with the added pre & post & overland tours too.  So this will be our first time using Regent air. So far, with the help of our TA, I found my preferred direct flight to and from, the TA requested our itinerary and Regent accepted it. We now have our eTickets for the flights we want. Oh and as Platinum members no deviation fee was charged.  So far all is good. My TA is the best and with his years of experience he knows who to call and when and makes sure is clients get the best service from Regent and all the other cruise lines we have traveled.

[Golfess]

32 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

I appreciate you saying this as we are new to Regent.  We've booked a 10 night cruise out of Venice for 2025 and one of the reasons we selected this option was for the advertised business class airfare inclusion.  I did a mock booking of airfare for travel in 2023 to get a rough idea of the cost of flights over seas knowing that in 2025, it will likely cost more.  The cost to book business class on our own via Delta was more than the cruise fare!  So we opted for the included air with Regent.  It is my understanding that we can pay a deviation fee once the air itinerary has been determined by Regent and that fee will allow us to make changes that may likely result in an up charge....unless of course, we like the itinerary that is provided.  Am I understanding this correctly?

An experienced Regent cruiser can give you a definitive answer here (or perhaps Regent).  But I do know that you need to be outside a time window even to make a change in their itinerary.  We missed that deadline by the time they gave us the 2nd bad itinerary, so we were stuck - unless we paid for our own air entirely without any credit from Regent.  Good luck.

[Golfess]

3 minutes ago, zak477 said:

We have had 16 cruises with Regent and with those I booked my own air and got the air credit. Also we arrive at least 2 days (sometimes more) prior to enjoy some of the new countries we are arriving in. But our cruise next month, Istanbul to Dubai, I researched the business class direct flight pricing and the round trip for us was more than our cruise costs with the added pre & post & overland tours too.  So this will be our first time using Regent air. So far, with the help of our TA, I found my preferred direct flight to and from, the TA requested our itinerary and Regent accepted it. We now have our eTickets for the flights we want. Oh and as Platinum members no deviation fee was charged.  So far all is good. My TA is the best and with his years of experience he knows who to call and when and makes sure is clients get the best service from Regent and all the other cruise lines we have traveled.

Would love the name of your TA if that is possible to do on this forum.  I don't see any option for a private message.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

1 hour ago, Fairgarth said:

 

Regent is doing itself no favours.  Flying in on day of departure is a no-no.  How could they not know that?  ...

They've been doing it this way for over 20 years.  We have taken their air a few times, not many, but only with a deviation to fly in the day before.  For example, if we had been flying from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale (back in the day when Radisson sailed from there), I would look at the cost of flights, then look at the air credit, and factoring in the deviation fee ($75 then), we would decide what to do.  Or when we were flying one way home to Florida from Ecuador after debarking in Lima, we found that Regent got us good Biz seats that couldn't be beat privately, so we did that. Have also done a few points flights.

 

That being said, to the OP, live and learn, but how awful for you.  In retrospect, you could have just refused their flights and booked your own, and swallowed the air credits they wouldn't give you. Sorry it left a bad taste in your mouth--Regent is wonderful in many ways.

[PaulaJK]

You are so fortunate that you purchased trip insurance..so pat yourself on

the back for that.

 

I very much appreciated pingpong’s post.

[welshfamily]

So sorry for your experience.
Perhaps we have been lucky. However we too, always deviate. We flew with Regent flights with in Europe in August deviating and upgrading to Business class. Yes there was an extra cost. TA kept Regent on the phone until we agreed flights. Again for next August we did the same the moment the flights were available.  The amount of air credit offered would not have covered the flights even adding the extra cost in. 
We would advise with any cruise company researching flights, seeing what’s on offer, adding deviation and any extra cost and coming to a decision when you have all the facts. 
 

[Fairgarth]

3 hours ago, Golfess said:

Not only is it less stressful to get to your embarkation destination ahead of time, but also a chance to explore one more location.

 

Good point, I agree.  In fact, for our next cruise out of Venice, we start with four days in Padova.  We were there a few years ago and loved it.  It also has the advantage that you can get a taxi for yourself and all your baggage right to the door of the cruise terminal.  You can't do that from Venice itself.

[Gray Lady]

We are new to Regent, and yes, the idea of all-inclusive and luxury hooked us in. That being said, after reading posts and getting wonderful advice from veteran cruisers, we upgraded to Concierge so we could get first crack at excursions. It worked out very well. Then we read about flight deviation and decided this was the prudent thing to also do. We even booked a room one day prior to our pre-cruise tour to allow for contingencies. Again, we are very pleased with our flights and the small up-charge. Regent Air was very helpful and worked to find routes/flights that were acceptable to us. We could not have booked these flights on our own for the price Regent was offering for air credit. The devil is always in the details. As to our upcoming cruise, our expectations are not unrealistic. We know “things” happen and are easily pleased people. The glass is always half full. I am sure we will be very happy with the overall experience and food. As I have heard it said, the worst day on vacation is better than the best at work. 

[Golfess]

3 hours ago, welshfamily said:

So sorry for your experience.
Perhaps we have been lucky. However we too, always deviate. We flew with Regent flights with in Europe in August deviating and upgrading to Business class. Yes there was an extra cost. TA kept Regent on the phone until we agreed flights. Again for next August we did the same the moment the flights were available.  The amount of air credit offered would not have covered the flights even adding the extra cost in. 
We would advise with any cruise company researching flights, seeing what’s on offer, adding deviation and any extra cost and coming to a decision when you have all the facts. 
 

Very helpful.  Thank you.

[Dolebludger]

I suggest that Regent should know that airlines have become very unreliable, and flying to a cruise on embarkation day is far too risky. The only exception might be where direct (no connection) flights are available. But that’s still risky. If one books Regent in lower suite categories (not concierge and above) Regent doesn’t provide the needed hotel accommodations, but the cost of one night hotel is cheap insurance. All independent travel advisors strongly advise against day-of-embarkation flights, and I’m sure Regent know why.

 

Along these same lines, Regent’s provided ground transfers and hotel accommodations (when provided) aren’t what they used to be. Our last Regent cruise was last June in Alaska on the Explorer. We booked our own air, hotel, and ground transfers (thankfully). When we got onboard, we learned from fellow guests that the Regent provided hotel in Anchorage was far from luxury, and the ground transfer was a disorganized cattle call.

[papaflamingo]

6 hours ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

I appreciate you saying this as we are new to Regent.  We've booked a 10 night cruise out of Venice for 2025 and one of the reasons we selected this option was for the advertised business class airfare inclusion.  I did a mock booking of airfare for travel in 2023 to get a rough idea of the cost of flights over seas knowing that in 2025, it will likely cost more.  The cost to book business class on our own via Delta was more than the cruise fare!  So we opted for the included air with Regent.  It is my understanding that we can pay a deviation fee once the air itinerary has been determined by Regent and that fee will allow us to make changes that may likely result in an up charge....unless of course, we like the itinerary that is provided.  Am I understanding this correctly?

Georgia Peaches... I assume you'll be flying out of Atlanta, we do too.  ALWAYS deviate your flights!  You can deviate at 210 days before departure of your cruise. The cost is $175 per person deviation fee (non refundable) and then any up charged depending on the flights you select.  When you contact Regent Air (or have your TA do it), have as many itineraries available as back ups.  It's getting harder and harder to get good flights in Business Class as. the airlines are shorthanded and operating full.  So the most desirable flights will likely cost extra.  It's up to you if you think that extra is worth it. 

My latest experience, just a few weeks ago, was excellent.  We are going Hong Kong to Tokyo in Feb.  I didn't want the Delta flight to Hong Kong as it changes to KAL in Inchon, Korea.  So I found a United flight via San Francisco.  I was able to book it with NO up charge. and I was able to get the non stop on Delta from Tokyo to Atlanta with about $1000 up charge per person.  They discussed alternatives with me and I could have done Japan Airlines with a domestic connection on JetBlue so I opted for the non stop.  But by the end of the conversation I had both flights arranged and seat selected.  

As for domestic flights I always book my own as they are in coach.  You have to pay for luggage and if you want to go early you have the $175 deviation fee.  So with the allowance from Regent plus the $175 (we always deviate to go a day or more early), plus the cost of luggage, it really isn't all that much more to just buy a First Class ticket.

One other comment.  You can use Regent Air both ways or just one way if you like.  We took the credit to Montreal last year and booked our own flight up, but used Regent Air back from London at the end of the cruise.  

Hope this helps.  Sorry if I got a bit long winded. 

[Georgia_Peaches]

1 hour ago, papaflamingo said:

Hope this helps

Most helpful!  Thank you so much!