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How does air deviation work exactly?


pacheco18
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I booked my cruise with air and upgrade. First time ever I am using cruise line air.

 

I will need a deviation since we plan to stay in Rio post cruise.

 

1. The deviation was not available at time of booking (cruise is not until 11/2012). When should I expect to be able to add it to my reservation?

 

2. If I pay for the deviation, do I actually choose my air carrier and flights? How much choice do I get? How far in advance of the cruise does my TA advise Regent of those choices.

 

Thanks

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You don't have unfettered choice, but you can pick the flights you'd like, and present them. If Regent doesn't like them, they will suggest an alternative. There are certain carriers that Regent prefers, but can't comment on who they might be from your destination. In my experience the choice is smaller when you're doing a Business upgrade.

 

Not sure about the timing, I'm sure somebody else can comment.

Edited by Wendy The Wanderer
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270 days out.

Additionally, here's a few things I learned and posted on the Regent Roll Call site. Our trip was somewhat convoluted as we were trying to match Regent's air deviation flights to FF Award tickets for the rest of our party. Also, our outbound leg (to Cairo) is not one of the easiest places to get to from Tucson. All that, though, did give us an opportunity to wring out the system.

 

 

-Regent will not book any flights with Egypt Air

-You can get wait listed for flights when using an air deviation

-If the flights you want are "not available" you can pay a bit more to lock in the flights you want

-If you depart from one gateway city (LAX) and return via another (Cuz's return is FRA to SFO to LAX) you pay a "second" air deviation fee (just like I do flying out of TUS (not a Regent Gateway))

-When booking Regent Air you have to stay in one set of "code shares." So the UA flight from LAX to ZUR that could connect to a LX flight ZUR to CAI (getting Cuz and I in an hour before DH) couldn't be booked because the LX continuation did not carry a UA codeshare. There is no req't to stay on one airline's metal but apparently have to have single airline flight codes, if possible.

 

 

Hope that helps.:o

 

 

Greg

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270 days out.

Also, our outbound leg (to Cairo) is not one of the easiest places to get to from Tucson.

Hope that helps.:o

 

 

Greg

 

Very helpful.

We also live in Tucson -- it's not easy to get anywhere form here other than Atlanta. LOL We are going to leave from Phoenix for the Regent cruise. Most of the time when we use FF miles we leave from LAX and pay RT on Southwest. The 200 pp we pay to get to LAX is well worth the free Business Class tickets.

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I did one just a couple of months ago for our Sept Barcelona to Rome cruise. We are flying one of the cheap inter-european airlines to Paris for a few days and flying home from there.

I went to the ITA website (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/) to get information on all the flights that were available on the Paris/Dulles route so I had some specific flights in mind. I used a internet travel agent so I called her and she put me on a conference call with the Regent Air dept. We had a 3 way conversation concerning which flights were available through Regent and we quickly were able to come to a selection which Regent then booked for me. It all went quite smoothly.

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I did one just a couple of months ago for our Sept Barcelona to Rome cruise. We are flying one of the cheap inter-european airlines to Paris for a few days and flying home from there.

I went to the ITA website (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/) to get information on all the flights that were available on the Paris/Dulles route so I had some specific flights in mind. I used a internet travel agent so I called her and she put me on a conference call with the Regent Air dept. We had a 3 way conversation concerning which flights were available through Regent and we quickly were able to come to a selection which Regent then booked for me. It all went quite smoothly.

 

Are you saying that Regent is flying you home from Paris? If so, that's a big change, they didn't used to do that. I.e., fly you in or out of a city that wasn't the embarkation or disembarkation port. We've tried that in the past, and the answer was "no".

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You can request a deviation 270 days prior to the date of your cruise. Here is a link to a site that can help you figure out when that date will be http://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html.

 

Regent's preference is for STAR Alliance. the last time we flew to the U.S. from Rio, we deviated, but, asked for a specific United Flight. While not our favorite airline, they did a good job. Most flights to the U.S. are red-eye so we were asleep on the way home. Haven't yet looked at flights for our November, 2012 cruise. Regent likes to use Lufthansa to Europe. . . so, this will likely be our choice flying to Monte Carlo.

 

When we are near 270 days, we'll email our TA, give them the exact flights (times and flight #'s). We like to give them a second choice as well.

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Yes we are flying Paris/Dulles on United. We paid the $100.00 pp (I think that was the amount of the deviation fee) and we are booked on the flight I wanted. I was not aware that there was even such a policy about not allowing you to fly from a city that is not a emabarkation or disembarkation port.

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We had no problem using deviation (it did cost an extra $1,000). Our cruise ends in Monte Carlo and we are flying back from Paris. I booked our own flights from Nice to Paris and got our tickets back from Paris through Regents. We upgraded to business class and besides the $999/pp each way we paid $1,000 extra because of deviation fares. We fly into Venice (where cruise starts) and back from Paris since we are spending a few days there. It was not cheap but we got the flights we wanted.

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WHy was your deviation charge so much? I know you said you upgraded to business class which would certainly run $999.00 pp each way but then on top of that you paid another $1000.00? My charge was $100.00 per person. We are going home in economy.

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Up in my original posting I had a bullet where I said

"If the flights you want are "not available" you can pay a bit more to lock in the flights you want."

In our case going TUS-CAI in business class on the flights that match our FF Award travel:

-Two of us are currently "wait listed" for the $999 Business upgrade.

-If we "clear" we will pay the $999 upgrade fee to which you refer

-If we don't clear, we can (for $1,000 pp) upgrade to a class of ticket that is eligable for the $999 C ticket.

 

While I do not know the circumstances that led forevertravel to an extra $1000 fee; it is possible that their situation (i.e., wanting very specific flights) is similar to ours.

 

Greg

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We are cruising on the Mariner, Rome to Fort Lauderdale 11/20/2011

and decided to use Regent Air so we could upgrade to business class

going over to Rome.

We fly out of Billings Montana.

It is not a Gateway City so $100 there.

It is not a secondary gate way city so $199 there.

So it cost us an extra $299 per person along with the $999 upgrade.

$1,298.00 is still very reasonable for us to fly business class over and economy

back. It was almost $3,800.00 per person to book it on our own and that also was economy on return flight.

Plus booking with Regent air they will pick you up at the airport and take you to the hotel or ship depending upon your arrival. And they will also get you from the ship to the airport

in Fort Lauderdale.

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Just remember in these calculations that one should include the potential air credit in the total cost of the flights. We just used Regent air for the first time for our Sydney-Beijing cruise, and it worked very well for us on that extremely long-haul itinerary. However, in deciding whether it was worth it to do this, I not only had to count the costs of the business class upgrade and the deviation, but also the $1200 air credit I did not take. We still decided to do it because of the excessive number of miles needed to get FF business class tickets using Delta Skymiles.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Someone mentioned that Regent uses STAR Alliance air lines. Continental is one of the lines in the STAR group. Does that mean that Regent uses Continental?

 

While I can not that they do 100%, I think they do. We are looking at a deviation that includes a Continental flight. . . . but, it is too early to submit it to Regent. It is certainly worth a try. As I've mentioned, it is a good idea to give them a second choice. Let us know how you make out on this.

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Not sure it's still like this, but last time I booked air to Europe with Regent, the baggage allowance on the European leg was the same as the leg across the Atlantic, precisely because it was a connecting flight. Of course, if you take the Business upgrade, that's not a problem.

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  • 8 years later...

Booked on Regent for the first time, and we're getting the free upgrade to business class for the Toronto to Barcelona trip.

 

Our problem is we'd like to avoid a transfer, and there's only a couple of choices for a non-stop flight from YYZ to BCN.

 

So ...

We don't get their choice till 75 days before the trip.

We can ask for a deviation 270 days before the trip.

 

If I wait for the 75 day info, maybe the routing I want isn't available anymore, I'm stuck.

 

What if I ask for a deviation at the 270 day mark, and it possibly ends up being just what they would have chosen as the default.  Will I be charged a deviation fee, when it really wasn't a deviation?  I don't want to pay extra fees for what would have been the default.

 

It's like buying a pig-in-a-poke, I don't know what I'm trying to 'do better' against.

 

Also, If I want to completely handle my own air, how much is the allowance?  I can't find any details on this. 

 

George

 

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