Celebrity Choice Air

We have always reserved our own flights through airline websites (with both miles and cash) and have found decent prices in doing so. Our next cruise is a Sydney to Auckland itinerary and in my search for airfare I have noticed Choice Air to have the best deal flying Air New Zealand in PE from the US. Although ANZ is the airline we are leaning toward I am beginning to wonder what the downsides are to not booking directly with the airline. Are there any upsides asiade from price?

This brings me to a few questions-

Has anyone traveled internationally recently using Celebrity Choice Air? If so, how was your experience before, during and after your cruise in regards to seat request, customer service and flight change updates, etc?

We want to select our Premium Ecoomy seats, is this possible?

Can you earn miles by reserving air through Choice Air? Assuming not but you never know.

Thank you for all the great tips and suggestions on this site!

If you look at the top questions you'll see there's a thread discussing this. 236 replies for you to peruse.

We have always reserved our own flights through airline websites (with both miles and cash) and have found decent prices in doing so. Our next cruise is a Sydney to Auckland itinerary and in my search for airfare I have noticed Choice Air to have the best deal flying Air New Zealand in PE from the US. Although ANZ is the airline we are leaning toward I am beginning to wonder what the downsides are to not booking directly with the airline. Are there any upsides asiade from price?

 

This brings me to a few questions-

 

Has anyone traveled internationally recently using Celebrity Choice Air? If so, how was your experience before, during and after your cruise in regards to seat request, customer service and flight change updates, etc?

 

We want to select our Premium Ecoomy seats, is this possible?

 

Can you earn miles by reserving air through Choice Air? Assuming not but you never know.

 

Thank you for all the great tips and suggestions on this site!

Potential downsides: You may not earn miles, Choice Air might change your flights, Choice Air might give you connection times that aren't practical, if you have flight disruptions on the day of travel they may or may not help you

Others' experience: Reports have varied widely... everything from "they were wonderful and took care of everything and rebooked us before we even knew there was an issue...." to the other end of the spectrum including "they were no help at all, they told us to talk to the airline" or "we couldn't get in touch with them because it was the weekend."

Can you earn miles? Maybe. It will depend on exacly what kind of ticket CA books for you. You may or may not be able to get an answer prior to purchasing. Any answer you get prior to purchasing may or may not be correct.

We have always reserved our own flights through airline websites (with both miles and cash) and have found decent prices in doing so. Our next cruise is a Sydney to Auckland itinerary and in my search for airfare I have noticed Choice Air to have the best deal flying Air New Zealand in PE from the US.

By "the best deal", I am going to assume you mean "cheapest price".

May I suggest you remember this: if you find air travel pricing that is significantly less than what you would get from the airline itself, there is a high probability that you are NOT buying a published fare ticket. You are most likely getting a bulk/consolidator/negotiated (pick your nomenclature) ticket that has different fare rules from what you would find for a published fare ticket ON THE SAME FLIGHTS.

Is a bulk ticket necessarily bad? No. However, only each individual can assess whether that's a wise purchase for their particular travel situation. So you need to research and find out just what you are buying. Beware of marketing hype and weasel words, and especially know that there is more to an airline ticket than the flight, date, time and price.

OP- There is a current thread in this forum titled "can someone help me with what this means?" It's an example of things that can go wrong when you book air through the cruise line.

Although I usually book my own airline reservations prior to a cruise, I did check with choice air for two one way first class flights from Miami to London prior to a September 2014 cruise. Choice air was able to provide a direct flight from Miami to London (2 first class tickets) at a cost lower than I could obtain directly with the airlines. The flight was with British Air: no schedule changes, great service, on time, points transferred to code sharing American Airlines. Maybe we were lucky; however, it is difficult, in my opinion, to beat Choice Air for at least one way direct flights, especially in business or first class. With that said, I just booked my own airline reservations prior to a cruise this September.

We used Choice Air in June 2014 because we were flying into Venice and out of Istanbul. When I looked directly at airline sites, the prices went way up. When I used Expedia, I got prices similar to Choice Air. I decided that I'd go with Choice Air because I hoped that if it was booked with Choice Air my travel agent would be able to help in the event something happened since it was with the cruise line.

The reason the prices were so much less on Expedia and Choice Air was because we were booked with different airlines, I assume. I was, however, disappointed that the non-stop from IST to ORD was not available via Choice Air or Expedia, and the flight from ORD to Venice on Turkish Air was not what we wanted.

Anyway, because our air was booked with Choice Air, we didn't get our edocs until 3 weeks before we were to leave. We picked our seats, and they were held, but our flights kept saying they had not had the tickets issued. Then, on the way home there were a couple of issues. Thank goodness we were on Air Canada, because they took care of us. Our flight from Frankfurt was delayed leaving by over an hour, and we didn't make it to US Customs at Toronto before they closed at 9am for the flight that was to leave at 9:45. We'd have made the plane itself, but couldn't because of not clearing. Additionally, Choice Air turned out to have ticketed 3 of us all the way through, but 2 others had only been ticketed from IST to Frankfurt. The Air Canada reps said the seats were reserved, but for some reason the ticket wasn't issued for the last 2 legs. They took care of it, but it was strange.

Next time, I'll likely make my air reservations direct.

When I used Choice Air last fall I got the exact flights that I wanted. I researched the flights and requested those from Choice Air. I used Choice Air because I got $1000 for two us off the cruise price this saved me $500 a ticket over what I could do myself for air. This was a flight to Venice and return from Rome.

Got seat assignments I wanted and mileage and saved $500 a ticket.

We used Choice Air in June 2014 because we were flying into Venice and out of Istanbul. When I looked directly at airline sites, the prices went way up. When I used Expedia, I got prices similar to Choice Air. I decided that I'd go with Choice Air because I hoped that if it was booked with Choice Air my travel agent would be able to help in the event something happened since it was with the cruise line.

 

The reason the prices were so much less on Expedia and Choice Air was because we were booked with different airlines, I assume. I was, however, disappointed that the non-stop from IST to ORD was not available via Choice Air or Expedia, and the flight from ORD to Venice on Turkish Air was not what we wanted.

 

Anyway, because our air was booked with Choice Air, we didn't get our edocs until 3 weeks before we were to leave. We picked our seats, and they were held, but our flights kept saying they had not had the tickets issued. Then, on the way home there were a couple of issues. Thank goodness we were on Air Canada, because they took care of us. Our flight from Frankfurt was delayed leaving by over an hour, and we didn't make it to US Customs at Toronto before they closed at 9am for the flight that was to leave at 9:45. We'd have made the plane itself, but couldn't because of not clearing. Additionally, Choice Air turned out to have ticketed 3 of us all the way through, but 2 others had only been ticketed from IST to Frankfurt. The Air Canada reps said the seats were reserved, but for some reason the ticket wasn't issued for the last 2 legs. They took care of it, but it was strange.

 

Next time, I'll likely make my air reservations direct.

Based on everything you said, it sounds like the CA tickets were cheaper for a lot of different reasons, not simply that you were booked on a multiple airlines per se. You saw a nonstop flight on the airline website, but CA gave you a connecting flight. You didn't want to to fly Turkish Air, but CA threw that in for one segment. All of this put together also sounds like you ended up with perhaps tighter connections than you might have booked otherwise. All of these are factors in supply and demand, which in turn affects the price. (never mind the fact that CA may well have been quoting fares in an entirely different fare bucket than what the airline website was showing you (which means you may have been subject to a whole different set of (less favorable) terms and conditions.

You'll notice that my complaints were that due to using Choice Air, my edocs were delayed in being issued and that Choice a it didn't actually ticket two members of my party of 5, leaving the airline to straighten it out at the airport.

When we made the reservation using CA, we booked connection times of roughly 3 hours. There were a number of other issues in getting home, but the late edocs and last of actual tickets getting home were rather a hassle.