Flights and Hotel questions.

[georgiacat]

We are new to cruising HAL, doing a TA in April on the Oosterdam.  I checked the website for flights from Barcelona and post-cruise hotels, etc.  There were none listed.  Does HAL put out this information later?  I know it is early, but I like to look and plan.  Delta has their flights out for May from Barcelona to Atlanta.  I was hoping HAL might have a better price.

 

We have done Princess flights to Europe and Alaska and find them (usually) dependable.  How about HAL?  They play switch on you a lot?

[CruiserBruce]

As far as hotels, that info is sometimes hard to find. Hopefully someone can tell you what hotels HAL has used in the past. However, this is a post cruise hotel....they don't usually make too much of a deal about those. The pre-cruise hotels are the ones they push most often.

 

One of the best things the cruise line air programs do is one way international flights. April's flights are out...you should be able to go into the Flight Ease program and start researching things.

[shiner6]

I dont know about HAL, but we booked our April flight from Barcelona on Princess well over a month ago. Glad we did. Prices have more than doubled since then.

[terrydtx]

You need to go into your account on the HAL website and go into Manage My Cruise, from there you will find a link to book flights and hotels. It should look like this:

[Ellencruise]

I’ve used Flightease for my international flights in the past and I’ve always been pleased. I’m booking for next May, Med on Oosterdam. Looking at Flightease, NOT happy this time around. Prices are crazy high and choices of flights from Florida are awful, no nonstop, long lay overs. I might have to book straight through airline which I don’t like to do because then I have to pay upfront. What to do, what to do!

[Haljo1935]

Has FE put American Airlines back on the board? If not, that will greatly impact flight availability. 

[Ellencruise]

24 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Has FE put American Airlines back on the board? If not, that will greatly impact flight availability. 

Not back yet!

[Haljo1935]

50 minutes ago, Ellencruise said:

Not back yet!

That's really unfortunate and plays into this whole conversation on a couple levels. 

We used FE last year for all 3 of our Rome flights (DFW->Rome RT, DFW->Rome & FLL->DFW). We were able to compare prices on FE and direct on AA as well as see alternate flights. We ultimately told FE the flights we wanted; they tried to book us non-stop w/either loooong layovers or ridiculously short ones. Their prices were much much better.

So we got the protection & pricing of FE with the AA schedules (and miles) we wanted.

[Ellencruise]

6 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

That's really unfortunate and plays into this whole conversation on a couple levels. 

We used FE last year for all 3 of our Rome flights (DFW->Rome RT, DFW->Rome & FLL->DFW). We were able to compare prices on FE and direct on AA as well as see alternate flights. We ultimately told FE the flights we wanted; they tried to book us non-stop w/either loooong layovers or ridiculously short ones. Their prices were much much better.

So we got the protection & pricing of FE with the AA schedules (and miles) we wanted.

I see some British Airway listings on FE so that’s a plus. I’ll work on it with my TA this week.

[terrydtx]

55 minutes ago, Ellencruise said:

I see some British Airway listings on FE so that’s a plus. I’ll work on it with my TA this week.

Last year we used FE to fly to Amsterdam BC on United and then home on BA in BC.

[iowacruiser]

19 hours ago, Ellencruise said:

I’ve used Flightease for my international flights in the past and I’ve always been pleased. I’m booking for next May, Med on Oosterdam. Looking at Flightease, NOT happy this time around. Prices are crazy high and choices of flights from Florida are awful, no nonstop, long lay overs. I might have to book straight through airline which I don’t like to do because then I have to pay upfront. What to do, what to do!

We booked Intl Business class for our September cruise from Athens. Ended up with Air Canada from Orlando through Montreal to Athens.. and then Barcelona through Montreal to Orlando.. Got a great price. Just keeping checking the Flight Ease options-they constantly change.

[georgiacat]

Thanks, I will continue looking into it.

[Lido deck main]

We book flight ease the first day we can, we book flight ease for all our flights.  The last booking we just made was on Saturday direct Vancouver to Amsterdam for a June 2025 cruise.  I always check pricing about every week.  So I went in today three days later the direct option is no longer there on flight ease, just has flights with one or two stops, so I checked the airlines directly is a Delta flight but operated as KLM.  So the Delta and KLM have the same flights direct flight available but both those direct are $300.00 more per person.  Another one of our flights went up $1,000.00 on the direct airline sites and our direct flight option from flight ease also wasn’t available after two weeks.  I think best bet is to book flexible on flight ease the day the flights are available, always 330 days from the end of the cruise date and then check weekly to see if any price drops, however all of our recent flights prices have increased after we have booked.

[FlorenceItaly]

For our return from upcoming Spring TA and post cruise in Amsterdam, we booked our Flight Ease(Polaris BC flexible) the first day it became available.  I check periodically, and now same flight is over $700pp more.

[Ellencruise]

I booked thru TA using Flightease, Iberia, nonstop. Reasonable pricing and will recheck weekly. Yes thru air website much more. 

[musicismylife]

We booked our flights for next April and May through FE last week. Can you change or modify them if a lower price pops up? (first time using FE)

[Ellencruise]

1 minute ago, musicismylife said:

We booked our flights for next April and May through FE last week. Can you change or modify them if a lower price pops up? (first time using FE)

Yes

[terrydtx]

15 minutes ago, musicismylife said:

We booked our flights for next April and May through FE last week. Can you change or modify them if a lower price pops up? (first time using FE)

Yes, we have done it many times. We booked our FC flights for our Volendam cruise this month, last Fall. In April American had a much better price than what we booked on FE, so we booked direct with AA and canceled the FE flights with no penalty, we saved about $300pp by doing this.

[Hlitner]

HAL and Princess (as well as Seabourn) all use the same air office/folks for their air program.  In the past 2 years, we have noticed that the really good deals (for business/first) are not much better than booking direct with the airlines.  One needs to spend some time comparing deals from a few sources, including the cruise lines.

 

As to pre/post hotel packages, we think the rule of thumb is that you will pay about twice the price, if using the cruise deals, then if you book the same or comparable hotels on your own.  Many times you will find that when you compare the cruise line hotel prices (which must be doubled for two persons) you can book that same hotel (direct with the hotel) for about 1/2 the price.   Again, folks are well-advised to compare the cruise line deals with what it would cost to do it on your own.  Also keep in mind that the cruise lines do not always use hotels with the best locations, and when you book on your own you can carefully choose location and category of room.

 

Hank

[Torquer]

Definitely keep checking the flights on Flight Ease, and change them when you find something better.  Previously we got very good deals with FE on international business class, compared to booking with the airlines.  However, for our cruise next year leaving from Chile we found a much better deal by booking directly with American Airlines, which is not currently available on FE.  It is 30% cheaper for a fully refundable fare on AA versus a refundable (until final payment) on FE.  So you really have to do your homework.  We are still holding our FE booking for this cruise on a different airline just in case something falls through with AA, but we will cancel the FE booking at final payment.

 

On all our cruises, we have never used a cruise line's hotel...it is always much more expensive than booking directly with hotels.  And the difference in price always pays for a taxi to the port, with lots left over.  I really don't understand why people do this...the extra cost is simply not worth the slight convenience of booking through the cruise line and getting the "free" transfer.

[terrydtx]

59 minutes ago, Torquer said:

Definitely keep checking the flights on Flight Ease, and change them when you find something better.  Previously we got very good deals with FE on international business class, compared to booking with the airlines.  However, for our cruise next year leaving from Chile we found a much better deal by booking directly with American Airlines, which is not currently available on FE.  It is 30% cheaper for a fully refundable fare on AA versus a refundable (until final payment) on FE.  So you really have to do your homework.  We are still holding our FE booking for this cruise on a different airline just in case something falls through with AA, but we will cancel the FE booking at final payment.

 

On all our cruises, we have never used a cruise line's hotel...it is always much more expensive than booking directly with hotels.  And the difference in price always pays for a taxi to the port, with lots left over.  I really don't understand why people do this...the extra cost is simply not worth the slight convenience of booking through the cruise line and getting the "free" transfer.

I agree about the hotels. In 2022 we looked into the HAL hotel in Venice, what they wanted was double what we could book direct.  Viking River cruises have to be the worst. They wanted $895pp for two nights pre cruise in Lucerne, Switzerland. We booked the same hotel for $300per night.