Is Choice Air Reliable

i have a transatlantic celebrity cruise booked departing from

Southampton UK on 11/30/2012 and returns to Miami 15

days later. I need a one way ticket and after finding prices

ranging from $1100 to $1800 i checked with Choice Air.

i was amazed they offered a one way ticket on Virgin Atlantic

Miami to Heathrow nonstop for $388 complete. i plan on

flying to LHR 2 days early to do a little sightseeing and after

reading several bad reviews i am a little concerned about

using Choice Air. their price is amazing but i don't need any

problems.

has anyone here used them recently and has their service

improved any ?

Parish....

Flying in 2 days before gives you a little more flexibility. If you think the cost is worth the risk, go for it.

So, what is the risk? The risk is that a lot of the tickets come with pretty heavy restrictions - you can't always be rerouted or put on another carrier in case something happens to your original flight. You would be on the bottom of the list of priority for accommodation by the airline.

OP- The wording of your posts sounds like you may think Choice Air is an airline, like United or BA. Choice Air is a booking service offered "as a convenience" by the cruiseline. Almost all of the tickets are consolidator tickets, or are not published-fare tickets. They have heavy restrictions and you're bottom of the barrel for re-booking since you are not the airline's customer. In most cases you can't specify and won't know what flights or itenerary you will be on (there are "buy up" options where you can pick).

Read the sticky about cruiseline-arranged air, as well as a fairly recent thread on the topic. If everything goes as planned they can be a good deal...but if something goes amok with your flights, your personal plans change, or the cruiseline cancels the cruise, the troubles begin. And this isn't "what if", there is a "never again" or "what can I do?" thread every few months on the topic. After you study up on the pros and cons, you can make an informed decision.

Welcome to CC. You would be wise to search for other threads about this. One is on the first page and talks about Vayama. There is also a sticky.

You can find consolidators that are not as limited as Choice Air but you probably need to do an extensive online search or use a travel agent. My experience is that the most reputable consolidators deal directly with travel agents since they make their money on volume not each ticket. So they don't monkey with trying to figure out what a passenger really wants. They are basically order takers from travel agents. As I said on that other thread I mentioned, I have seen BA tickets from JFK to LHR for lower than the price that poster quoted, but through more reputable consolidators without all the "ifs and buts" of Choice Air or other online consolidators. Good luck.

OP- The wording of your posts sounds like you may think Choice Air is an airline, like United or BA. Choice Air is a booking service offered "as a convenience" by the cruiseline. Almost all of the tickets are consolidator tickets, or are not published-fare tickets. They have heavy restrictions and you're bottom of the barrel for re-booking since you are not the airline's customer. In most cases you can't specify and won't know what flights or itenerary you will be on (there are "buy up" options where you can pick).

 

Read the sticky about cruiseline-arranged air, as well as a fairly recent thread on the topic. If everything goes as planned they can be a good deal...but if something goes amok with your flights, your personal plans change, or the cruiseline cancels the cruise, the troubles begin. And this isn't "what if", there is a "never again" or "what can I do?" thread every few months on the topic. After you study up on the pros and cons, you can make an informed decision.

OP seems to understand what it is seeing as they say "i checked with Choice Air. i was amazed they offered a one way ticket on Virgin Atlantic Miami to Heathrow"

Just for the fun of it I asked my travel agent. Miami to Heathrow depart 27 November (since you mentioned 2 days early) could be had through a reliable consolidator for about $500 all-in, non-stop. None of the issues of Choice Air, Vayama, Cheapoair, etc. tickets.

Just for the fun of it I asked my travel agent. Miami to Heathrow depart 27 November (since you mentioned 2 days early) could be had through a reliable consolidator for about $500 all-in, non-stop. None of the issues of Choice Air, Vayama, Cheapoair, etc. tickets.

you have a great travel agent, i called several locally and they

were all $1300-$1500 i'm not paying $1000+ for a flight to

go on a $600 cruise.

Choice Air is just a booking tool. RCCL/Celebrity/Azamara is acting as agent. You book through the Choice Air portal (or have your travel agent do it), instead of directly with the airline or another online booking tool or agent.

Reliability depends on which airline you pick.

Btw, we booked through the Choice Air portal for our transatlantic this December as did many on our roll call. At the end of November we are flying SWISS to Europe. We have taken this flight multiple times before and so far they have always been on time. We are paying under $500.00 per person from the US to Rome (FCO).

Just for the fun of it I asked my travel agent. Miami to Heathrow depart 27 November (since you mentioned 2 days early) could be had through a reliable consolidator for about $500 all-in, non-stop. None of the issues of Choice Air, Vayama, Cheapoair, etc. tickets.

What are the issues? Choice Air is just the portal used to book the flights if you are on RCCL/Celebrity/Azamara. You pick your dates, you pick your airline, you pick your times and you decide if you want refundable or non-refundable tickets. We even picked our seats and airline sent us a confirmation.

What are the issues? Choice Air is just the portal used to book the flights if you are on RCCL/Celebrity/Azamara. You pick your dates, you pick your airline, you pick your times and you decide if you want refundable or non-refundable tickets. We even picked our seats and airline sent us a confirmation.

I can go to checkmytrip (dot) com in Amadeus and check my reservation, flight status, and just had the itinerary emailed to me. I also just went to the SWISS website and was able to pull my reservation, as well as send it to my calendar on my MacBook.

What are the issues? Choice Air is just the portal used to book the flights if you are on RCCL/Celebrity/Azamara. You pick your dates, you pick your airline, you pick your times and you decide if you want refundable or non-refundable tickets. We even picked our seats and airline sent us a confirmation.

The issues are that if you are buying a super discounted fare through Choice Air, it almost certainly has a host of restrictions attached to it. If the flights go smoothly, no problem. If you have flight disruptions, you may be stuck... unable to be rerouted, unable to have your ticket endorsed to another airline, .....

I can go to checkmytrip (dot) com in Amadeus and check my reservation, flight status, and just had the itinerary emailed to me. I also just went to the SWISS website and was able to pull my reservation, as well as send it to my calendar on my MacBook.

So what? Doesn't mean there aren't a bunch of restrictions attached to your ticket that you're unaware of.

you have a great travel agent, i called several locally and they

were all $1300-$1500 i'm not paying $1000+ for a flight to

go on a $600 cruise.

You have to ask them what fare they are quoting and if they use consolidators. My guess is that the ones you called don't quote consolidator fares and are just quoting you "published" fares. You probably need a travel agent that specializes in international travel and is familiar with consolidators. "Interviewing" your travel agent is more important than just asking for a fare quote.

Since you are planning on flying two days early, you should be fine. Make sure you pack a carry on with a change or two as a just in case, but that is a rule for any major flight!

Enjoy your TA and you inexpensive flight!

What can go wrong? So many things like weather and volcano eruptions or as happened yesterday at Dulles (Washington DC) the Lufthansa jet to Germany clipped the United jet to somewhere and they were still sitting on the tarmac 5 hours later and the airport accident team was not real close to solving the problems let alone the jets could not fly. Many other jets got to wait at the flight gate for hours because they could not get around the two jets with boo boos.

If you have a super cheap ticket from a consolidator, you are the last of the 800 passengers to get rerouted to Germany or somewhere. If you were sitting for a few hours at the flight gate because of a delay that really had nothing to do with your flight but you had to wait anyway, the answer to can I make my connection is probably no. Can I get on another flight? Good luck. According to our local news some of these good folks are spending the night in the airport and as of noon Sat. still not on their way.

Doesn't happen often? Well the same scene at Rome's airport took place on Thursday . Back to basics of backing out guys.

I love to save money as much as anybody but with full planes and many less flights I now consider what plan B is before I buy the tickets in Plan A.