Regent Air from Barcelona/Madrid

[papaflamingo]

9 hours ago, edgee said:

No such permission was needed when I called

Thanks.... I sort of thought that, but didn't actually know.  Appreciate the info. 

[cruiseluv]

On 12/26/2023 at 9:13 PM, GMIAC said:

We're suffering major Grandeur withdrawal, and are looking at the 10 April 14-night NYC-Barcelona sailing. We're agonizing about whether to add Regent Air, because there's not much availability in Business/First without going through LHR and paying over $700 in taxes to use our Avios points. 

 

Is there a standard route/airline that Regent uses from Barcelona to Chicago O'Hare? We'd also like to extend our Spain portion after the cruise to visit Madrid, so we might pay the fee to fly back home from there. 

 

Any advice is appreciated. 

No availability with Avíos on Iberia on their Madrid to Chicago flight?

[GMIAC]

56 minutes ago, cruiseluv said:

No availability with Avíos on Iberia on their Madrid to Chicago flight?

Not on the non-stop in business. 

[Whinenowine]

On 12/28/2023 at 8:20 AM, GMIAC said:

Not on the non-stop in business. 

This could change.  Happened for us this past summer when we wanted to spend a few weeks in Spain prior to our Med cruise.  Nothing on Iberia so we booked through LHR on BA using Avios.  Then a month before the trip, suddenly JFK-MAD on Iberia became available (outbound only)....AND it was only 50k miles and 1/3 the 'taxes' of the LHR flight.  Iberia is not BA, but for the time/money/effort saved, it was well worth it.  So...fingers crossed!

[NYC-London]

39 minutes ago, Whinenowine said:

This could change.  Happened for us this past summer when we wanted to spend a few weeks in Spain prior to our Med cruise.  Nothing on Iberia so we booked through LHR on BA using Avios.  Then a month before the trip, suddenly JFK-MAD on Iberia became available (outbound only)....AND it was only 50k miles and 1/3 the 'taxes' of the LHR flight.  Iberia is not BA, but for the time/money/effort saved, it was well worth it.  So...fingers crossed!

Airlines often release "redemption seats" shortly before the departure date - they hold on to the seats as long as possible in the hope that they can be sold, but as the departure date nears and there is still significant unsold seats, that is when one is more likely to find availability, especially for seats "in front of the plane" at the "saver rate"

 

Just be aware - redemptions of points for flights that land at LHR are subject to significant taxes and fees, especially for BA.

[Whinenowine]

27 minutes ago, NYC-London said:

Just be aware - redemptions of points for flights that land at LHR are subject to significant taxes and fees, especially for BA.

Yes this is why I've accumulated so many Avios; they made it so expensive to use them due to all the excess fees and 'taxes'. So my trip was much improved because I was able to cancel my JFK-LHR-MAD flight on BA and book a direct JFK-MAD flight oh IB for 20k few miles and $400 less fees.  A win-win (mostly due to no cancellation penalties on my BA flight).

[rallydave]

27 minutes ago, NYC-London said:

Airlines often release "redemption seats" shortly before the departure date - they hold on to the seats as long as possible in the hope that they can be sold, but as the departure date nears and there is still significant unsold seats, that is when one is more likely to find availability, especially for seats "in front of the plane" at the "saver rate"

 

Just be aware - redemptions of points for flights that land at LHR are subject to significant taxes and fees, especially for BA.

Not just LHR or BA and not for landing but for departures. It is all airlines and flights from the UK FOR departures from all UK airports and depends on class of service snd flight distance 

[GMIAC]

Resolution: We ended up going with Reget Air, as we were able to be confirmed on the BCN-ORD non-stop on American for the return; no included returns from Madrid that didn't include a 4-hour layover. Outbound ORD-LGA was not as important, as it's a 90-minute flight. So when we disembark at Barcelona, we'll take the high-speed train (2-1/2 hours) to Madrid, stay there four nights, then train back to BCN for three nights. There was a $175 deviation fee from Regent Air because of the changed return date. The $1,300 Regent air fee per person was much a much better value for us for that non-stop return, which American was asking $7.000+ per person for. 

[cruiseluv]

1 hour ago, Whinenowine said:

Yes this is why I've accumulated so many Avios; they made it so expensive to use them due to all the excess fees and 'taxes'. So my trip was much improved because I was able to cancel my JFK-LHR-MAD flight on BA and book a direct JFK-MAD flight oh IB for 20k few miles and $400 less fees.  A win-win (mostly due to no cancellation penalties on my BA flight).

Were  you not penalized by BA on your cancellation because you have status with them? 

[rallydave]

21 minutes ago, GMIAC said:

There was a $175 deviation fee from Regent Air because of the changed return dat

The $175 deviation fee is for one way or round trip.  Certainly hope you deviated on the flights to Barcelona.  Extremely dangerous to arrive on the day the ship is departing for many reasons the greatest risk is that you would have to pay all expensive for getting to the ship at another port. Just because you took Regent air Regent will for sure tae care of getting you to the ship.  This has happened however T's and C's clearly state that Regent is not responsible for third party companies and this includes air no matter if they wee  booked by Regent or not.

 

Hoping you are concierge or above and you have the pre cruise nite included so you are flying a day early.  If not you can change the flight to BCN however it will cost you another  $175 PP for this second deviation.

 

Good luck,

[GMIAC]

2 minutes ago, rallydave said:

The $175 deviation fee is for one way or round trip.  Certainly hope you deviated on the flights to Barcelona.  Extremely dangerous to arrive on the day the ship is departing for many reasons the greatest risk is that you would have to pay all expensive for getting to the ship at another port. Just because you took Regent air Regent will for sure tae care of getting you to the ship.  This has happened however T's and C's clearly state that Regent is not responsible for third party companies and this includes air no matter if they wee  booked by Regent or not.

 

Hoping you are concierge or above and you have the pre cruise nite included so you are flying a day early.  If not you can change the flight to BCN however it will cost you another  $175 PP for this second deviation.

 

Good luck,

 

Let me correct/clarify: We deviated on both outbound (to NYC, the departure city, to arrive a day early) and return (a week after disembarkation). 

[Whinenowine]

17 minutes ago, cruiseluv said:

Were  you not penalized by BA on your cancellation because you have status with them? 

I'm only Silver there days, so not sure status played a role.  I think the mileage tickets were just refundable, which is great.

[Lonedaddy]

3 minutes ago, Whinenowine said:

I'm only Silver there days, so not sure status played a role.  I think the mileage tickets were just refundable, which is great.

most milage bookings are refundable.  I think Qatar charges a $25 change cancellation fee on theirs.  

[Whinenowine]

1 hour ago, rallydave said:

Not just LHR or BA and not for landing but for departures. It is all airlines and flights from the UK FOR departures from all UK airports and depends on class of service snd flight distance 

Oh yes, understood.  The taxes are high (to pay for all the LRH construction/expansion over the past 20-30yrs).  I have no issues with that.  My issues was with the BA-specific add-ons.  For example when oil spiked around the time of the financial crisis in 2008, BA added a fuel surcharge too all tickets (including Avios tickets).  But over the following decade when oil dropped by as much as 80% those surcharges were never removed.  

 

Working for a British company for 20+years I racked up quite a sum of Avios but never used them b/c for a JFK-LHR biz class ticket BA added $2k+ in fees/taxes above and beyond the 120k points.  Out of principle that annoyed me.  For economy it was 50k miles + $600!  Silly.  

 

Just this year, however BA finally changed its policies--they now charge more miles per reward ticket but have cut the cash outlay (not taxes, but the excess surcharges) in half. I've already used 800k Avios this year to take advantage of this change (and before they change it again). 😉

 

[GMIAC]

9 minutes ago, Whinenowine said:

 

Working for a British company for 20+years I racked up quite a sum of Avios but never used them b/c for a JFK-LHR biz class ticket BA added $2k+ in fees/taxes above and beyond the 120k points.  Out of principle that annoyed me.  For economy it was 50k miles + $600!  Silly.  

 

Just this year, however BA finally changed its policies--they now charge more miles per reward ticket but have cut the cash outlay (not taxes, but the excess surcharges) in half. I've already used 800k Avios this year to take advantage of this change (and before they change it again). 😉

 

 

We've always used our Avios to book award travel on domestic (US) equipment. Since the award requirements are distance-based, we've gotten expensive short-haul flights for as little as 7,000 points each way, even last-minute. I've done this via BA and IB. Availability isn't the greatest, but as soon as we decide on a domestic trip our first stop is always the BA and IB websites! I hope the new points requirements aren't too steep, though we've taken advantage of the good deals for many years already. 

[mrstanley]

GMIAC:

 

Regent wouldn’t fly you back from Madrid on a nonstop flight to the states?

Curious to know what they offered you.

[GMIAC]

35 minutes ago, mrstanley said:

GMIAC:

 

Regent wouldn’t fly you back from Madrid on a nonstop flight to the states?

Curious to know what they offered you.

They would, for a $2,000 per person upcharge. There's only one non-stop per day, on IB, to ORD.

[cruiseluv]

On 12/30/2023 at 11:43 AM, Whinenowine said:

I'm only Silver there days, so not sure status played a role.  I think the mileage tickets were just refundable, which is great.

I think that level gives you some status, I just got Avíos tickets with them and read if I cancel it’ll cost me $55 to redeposit my Avíos as. I have zero status with them , just lots of Avíos 😃

[Whinenowine]

8 hours ago, cruiseluv said:

I think that level gives you some status, I just got Avíos tickets with them and read if I cancel it’ll cost me $55 to redeposit my Avíos as. I have zero status with them , just lots of Avíos 😃

I've a bunch of AMEX points too, and one irony is that AMEX frequently offers bonus miles if you transfer AMEX points to Avios--usually 30-40% bonus.  I always rolled my eyes at this, given how useless they historically have been for me.  I long for the day that BA/AA will finally merge and we'll have free reign on all AA flights (not as long as Lina Khan is head of the FTC!).   I know that @GMIAC has been able to use Avios domestically...but I've found that very hard to do (the timing never seems to work for me).  I'm jealous! 😪

[GMIAC]

2 hours ago, Whinenowine said:

I've a bunch of AMEX points too, and one irony is that AMEX frequently offers bonus miles if you transfer AMEX points to Avios--usually 30-40% bonus.  I always rolled my eyes at this, given how useless they historically have been for me.  I long for the day that BA/AA will finally merge and we'll have free reign on all AA flights (not as long as Lina Khan is head of the FTC!).   I know that @GMIAC has been able to use Avios domestically...but I've found that very hard to do (the timing never seems to work for me).  I'm jealous! 😪

 

The Madrid-Chicago flights from my OP were only offered in business with at transfer at LHR and a hefty $700+ charge for taxes; the non-stop was unavailable in any class. I have found that the domestic on AA has more availablibility if you either book really far in advance (I'm a Planner, so that works for me more often than I'd expect) or you look for less popular, short-haul flights. I actually found an Avios AA flight using Avios on IB, whose website never seems to work for the domestic Avios awards. I've also found that, generally, I can check AA first for their super-low mileage requirement fares, and those mirror what will be available to book with Avios. 

 

Chase had the 30% bonus points to Avios promo recently, which I took advantage of. As you state, AMEX does that too. 

[Whinenowine]

50 minutes ago, GMIAC said:

 

The Madrid-Chicago flights from my OP were only offered in business with at transfer at LHR and a hefty $700+ charge for taxes; the non-stop was unavailable in any class. I have found that the domestic on AA has more availablibility if you either book really far in advance (I'm a Planner, so that works for me more often than I'd expect) or you look for less popular, short-haul flights. I actually found an Avios AA flight using Avios on IB, whose website never seems to work for the domestic Avios awards. I've also found that, generally, I can check AA first for their super-low mileage requirement fares, and those mirror what will be available to book with Avios. 

 

Chase had the 30% bonus points to Avios promo recently, which I took advantage of. As you state, AMEX does that too. 

Thx for the info, yeah I had a hard time using miles to fly direct to the continent in 2023 too (esp to Spain and Italy).  Got lucky with that IB flight, otherwise it'd be through LHR, Paris or Amsterdam. . 

 

In the meantime, I've been on the BA site this week trying to see if I can use Avios from NY to MIA for our Grandeur cruise in late 2024, but alas the BA site basically says 'BA and our affiliates don't fly this route'....which we all know ain't true given JFK and MIA are huge AA hubs.  Sigh.....  

[alainciao]

On 1/2/2024 at 9:44 AM, GMIAC said:

 

The Madrid-Chicago flights from my OP were only offered in business with at transfer at LHR and a hefty $700+ charge for taxes; the non-stop was unavailable in any class. I have found that the domestic on AA has more availablibility if you either book really far in advance (I'm a Planner, so that works for me more often than I'd expect) or you look for less popular, short-haul flights. I actually found an Avios AA flight using Avios on IB, whose website never seems to work for the domestic Avios awards. I've also found that, generally, I can check AA first for their super-low mileage requirement fares, and those mirror what will be available to book with Avios. 

 

Chase had the 30% bonus points to Avios promo recently, which I took advantage of. As you state, AMEX does that too. 

How does one check for AA's "super low" mileage requirement fares?  TIA.

[GMIAC]

28 minutes ago, alainciao said:

How does one check for AA's "super low" mileage requirement fares?  TIA.

 

I usually look on AA.com for award travel, and see what's available. I guess "super-low" is a bit of a misnomer, since their mileage requirements keep increasing all the time, but you'll know one when you see it in relation to the higher mileage fares that come up in the search result. Those are what's typically available to book via BA Avios and, theoretically, IB Avios. 

[alainciao]

Thanks.  You had me hoping for some magic search!  "Find me all of AA's low mileage destinations"😁

[GMIAC]

13 minutes ago, alainciao said:

Thanks.  You had me hoping for some magic search!  "Find me all of AA's low mileage destinations"😁

 

Sorry about that! They sure make it hard to find those low mileage destinations, and lots of guesswork is involved.