Air Waitlisted?

[Crown Prince]

GREATAM: I sent you an e-mail tonight & it came back to me.

 

Do you have a new e-mail address ? :confused:

 

Remember? AEP > IGR return & also LIM > Santiago on 7 Feb.

 

I still need your help & appreciate it.

 

- South America (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=76)

- - PERU - Machu Picchu & the Plains of Nazca (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=597112)

 

Thank you.

[dmk]

You got some of the initial contract allocation. However, you have posted that there are no seats out of Montreal for you. So you will either wait until someone cancels and you get their seats or book custom air where there will most likely be an upcharge. From your posts, it appears the initial contract tickets are spoken for.

 

Question: How can the initial contract tickets be spoken for, when they only get their contracts 9 months in advance. The cruise is next April...10 months away.

[greatam]

Question: How can the initial contract tickets be spoken for, when they only get their contracts 9 months in advance. The cruise is next April...10 months away.

 

Again, INCORRECT INFO. The cruise line CONTRACTS with the airlines AT LEAST one year pre cruise (please see my prevous post on this issue). The cruise line usually contacts the airlines for initial contract bids when the cruise line has finalized the cruise schedules.

 

So at the time of contract completion the cruise lines KNOWS it has XXXX seats available from YYY to ZZZ cities (Let's use Montreal to London). That is the INITIAL contract allowance. Think of them as SPACES on unspecified flight numbers on a specified date with the CONTRACT AIRLINE from Montreal to London. The unknown is flight number and flight time.

 

When the airlines release their schedules (usually 330 days pre cruise), they notify the cruise line "per the contract, you have 20 seats on flight AAA and 30 seats on flight BBB". Those 50 seats are the INITIAL contract seats-NO more or less.

 

In your situation, it appears the SPACES have been filled. Whether there will be additional allocation from the airline is unknown (not likely in today's volatile environment-most yield management software will not allocate additional heavily discounted seats). So you will wait until someone cancels and their SPACES are released.

[greatam]

GREATAM: I sent you an e-mail tonight & it came back to me.

 

Do you have a new e-mail address ? :confused:

 

Remember? AEP > IGR return & also LIM > Santiago on 7 Feb.

 

I still need your help & appreciate it.

 

- South America (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=76)

- - PERU - Machu Picchu & the Plains of Nazca (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=597112)

 

Thank you.

 

Same email-greatam at earthlink.net Put CC in the subject line

 

If for some weird reason it bounces back again, please post a new thread in the South America forum.

[Susan-M]

Everyone tells me not to take cruise air but I haven't even been able to come close pricewise. Celebrity was charging $700 plus taxes from YYZ to Rome. It's a promo, their regular fare is $989.

 

If you can help I'd be eternally grateful, because to leave on the date we wish (there are no deviations with this promo) we have to book hotel through Celebrity too at a ridiculous rate, but it's still cheaper than the non-promo air since the transfers are included.

 

Hi Susie,

Checking prices on Celebrity's site, it looks like the air fare pp from Toronto-Rome & San Juan-Toronto is $750 pp incl taxes ... which seems like a deal. I agree with Greatam about having control over your flights by booking on your own, but I think it would be hard to match this pricing. Will Celebrity give you this air price if you book their hotels....and if so, how bad are Celebrity's hotel prices in Rome?

[greatam]

Hi Susie,

Checking prices on Celebrity's site, it looks like the air fare pp from Toronto-Rome & San Juan-Toronto is $750 pp incl taxes ... which seems like a deal. I agree with Greatam about having control over your flights by booking on your own, but I think it would be hard to match this pricing. Will Celebrity give you this air price if you book their hotels....and if so, how bad are Celebrity's hotel prices in Rome?

 

 

If you are willing to do the research and use all available resources, VERY rarely will cruise air beat independently booked air when you add in ALL factors-like the taxes they chunk on later, over priced hotels, premiums for flying in a few days early. You just need to put all the pieces together and yes, sometimes it does take extra work.

 

But you have control, have tickets that are good on other airlines AND can fly in days early or stay post cruise without involving the cruise line. Sounds like a win/win to me!!!!

[Susan-M]

If you are willing to do the research and use all available resources, VERY rarely will cruise air beat independently booked air when you add in ALL factors-like the taxes they chunk on later, over priced hotels, premiums for flying in a few days early. You just need to put all the pieces together and yes, sometimes it does take extra work.

 

But you have control, have tickets that are good on other airlines AND can fly in days early or stay post cruise without involving the cruise line. Sounds like a win/win to me!!!!

 

I agree that normally this would be the case, but I think the OP is returning from San Juan and in your prices mentioned above, you quote FLL at $900+ (maybe I miss how she was getting from SJU to FLL?).

 

Factor in the transfers in NYC between airports, transfers in Rome from airport to hotel, hotel to port and the price keeps going up. The cruise hotel price will be much more than booking on your own, but sometimes you have to look at the whole package price.

 

I normally book my own air, but for our upcoming cruise, I could not match the pricing or convenience of cruise air ... and I was able to do this with custom air.

[greatam]

I agree that normally this would be the case, but I think the OP is returning from San Juan and in your prices mentioned above, you quote FLL at $900+ (maybe I miss how she was getting from SJU to FLL?).

 

Factor in the transfers in NYC between airports, transfers in Rome from airport to hotel, hotel to port and the price keeps going up. The cruise hotel price will be much more than booking on your own, but sometimes you have to look at the whole package price.

 

I normally book my own air, but for our upcoming cruise, I could not match the pricing or convenience of cruise air ... and I was able to do this with custom air.

 

I did post FLL. My mistake. However, it is $33.00 cheaper to fly SJU/YYZ than to fly FLL/YYZ. Those Canadian/US air taxes are killers.

 

I also figured in transport from LaGuardia to JFK (about $45.00) AND posted it was actually easier to transfer via taxi between airports than to transfer via airport shuttle, so taking the later flight in LaGuardia eliminates a long wait at JFK.

 

No, I did NOT figure in the transfers from FCO to hotel or Rome to port. But the double/sometimes TRIPLE price of booking a cruise line hotel more than covers those fees. AND Susie V wanted to fly two/three days early.

 

The ONLY way she could accomplish this was with either a LARGE upcharge in air fare OR book the overpriced cruise hotel. I gave her an option which compared favorably to the cruise line booking. Booking your own air is NOT for everyone. But being stuck in XYZ airport, missing your flight and having to deal with these things on your own with a CONSOLIDATOR ticket is not something for the inexperienced. The cruise line will offer little if any help.

[johnjen]

Your actual flights cannot be booked until that amount of time, but you can book a cruise with air when you make your cruise booking - the air price is then locked in. We booked our Equinox transatlantic with air for Nov 2009 in March of this year (20 months before the cruise). We usually book all but US departure cruises with air and then look for better airfare deals - if we don't find one before final payment, at least we have our air taken care of. So far for our transatlantics we haven't found better deals than Celebrity air.

You can go to Celebrity's website and price and book any cruise with or without air - your actual air arrangements aren't made until you contact them for custom air or closer to the cruise if you are not doing custom air.

Tink gave a good explanation of why the air would be waitlisted.

 

I tell you, I thought at first we were being taken with the price quote for air to Rome from Dulles Celebrity gave me - $1523 pp. We're booked on a cruise out of Rome for next year in June. I checked the prices for air fare on American Airlines - for THIS June, it is $1566 pp! I was expecting the fares to be around $1200 pp....I am hoping that we're ok with these prices. When you consider that the transfers from the hotel in Rome to Civitavecchia are covered, and we're going to Rome two nights before the cruise departs, I think that maybe we're doing alright.

[capegranny]

I think one of the problems right now is that airlines are cancelling flights. We had included air to/from San Juan for our 12/27 cruise and are entitled to custom air on Celebrity by virtue of being Captain's Club members. When I saw that flights from Boston and DC (rest of family) were filling fast, I asked our TA to start nudging Celebrity. Celebrity continued to say that seats hadn't yet been released to them by the airlines. I watched direct flights fill up and decent connections go away. Finally told TA to pull our air-inclusive and we made our own arrangements...but prices increased by more than $100 each in a one-week period. Not sure this is the cruise line's fault but all travel is a bit of a nightmare right now.

[Susan-M]

The ONLY way she could accomplish this was with either a LARGE upcharge in air fare OR book the overpriced cruise hotel. I gave her an option which compared favorably to the cruise line booking. Booking your own air is NOT for everyone. But being stuck in XYZ airport, missing your flight and having to deal with these things on your own with a CONSOLIDATOR ticket is not something for the inexperienced. The cruise line will offer little if any help.

 

It would be interesting to see Susie's comparison of costs between the cruise air, 2 nights in a hotel and transfers and what they can book for on their own. Personally I would rather book a flight from Toronto to Rome that didn't involve collecting luggage and changing airports but if the savings is enough, then it might be worth it.

 

We're fortunate to have a direct flight with Air Canada in October from Toronto to Rome, but it must be seasonal because I don't see it for December.

 

Air Canada has a number of flights to Rome each day ... I wouldn't worry about missing a connection with them (it happened to us on the way to Barcelona and because they partner with Lufthansa, we were on a flight pretty quickly.

[SusieV]

Celebrity is ripping us at $225pp/day for a hotel in Rome. The going rate is about $325 for the same hotel so the difference basically pays for the transfers I guess. It is killing me to spend a month's rent on 2 nights in a hotel,though! Actually, those 2 nights cost more than the entire cruise.

 

My husband isn't crazy about the idea of changing planes so many times, though. We're going to have to talk about it.

 

Yeah, if we want air with deviations, we pay $989 plus tax instead of $700 plus tax. That's enough to pay for the hotel for one night at least :P

 

The other issue is that I'm concerned about which airline we fly. We generally take 4 suitcases with us plus carryon, etc. I don't object to paying the second bag fee (although if they keep us in Star Alliance, we won't have to), but I will have a problem if we have to switch planes in Europe to a carrier with a stricter baggage limit.