KeithMoon14

Thank You for all the replies. I will have another call with Celebrity and then the Airline as suggested. Am guessing will end up having to pay the cancellation or just leave having the extra days - but can’t understand the logic of having to pay €240 to cancel something that was free, only for the airline to then be able to sell it to someone else and make money that they otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do. Just makes no sense in this case. From what I understand the cancellation fee from the airline’s perspective is normally to cover their costs and allow them to give vouchers or a refund against the original payment, or to transfer to another flight of equivalent value.

Same airline

Hi. I booked a cruise with Celebrity for our family of 4 which was advertised as flights included. However only once booked and paid for were the available flight options given. I found the choice of available flights was very limited, with additional costs for most - and felt the free flights was a bit of a case of false advertising. But got some free flights that were not great times but the best I could find. However have since decided would like to extend our vacation/holiday and have looked into options for doing this. Want to fly back 4 days later form the final destination port and found an ideal flight available direct from the airline website at €900 for all of us. However when I called Celebrity (who answered after a record for me of 3 and a half hours of being held in a queue) to see if it would be possible the to move our free flights (expecting to have pay for this) and they quoted €1150 a person which is more than the airline wanted for all of us - this would be a staggering €4600. And on top of that said would have to pay €60 cancellation fee for each person as the flights have already been ticketed. I know cruise companies can sometimes be poor value with shore excursions etc, but this is just scandalous and a blatant rip-off. It’s frankly unethical. I then said obviously we are not going to pay €4600 for something that I can direct from the airline for €900 for - but what if I just book independently through the airline and then just don’t catch the cruise booked return flight. They said to in order to do this we would still have to cancel the return flights and pay the €60 cancellation fee for each passenger as a no-show counts as a cancellation. I don’t understand the logic of this because how can I be charged a cancellation fee for something that was free? I understand from the airline’s website that you have to pay the cancellation fee in order to get money back or vouchers in lieu to cover the cost, but in this case the flights were free so I don’t care about getting any money back? I have usually found Celebrity customer service to be excellent, but been very disappointed with them over this (understatement). Any thoughts or help would be very greatly appreciated.

Thank You so much for all the replies. Will try posting on Celebrity as suggested. Also will look at the other lines for future - I hadn’t realised that.

Celebrity - have to say am surprised as normally find them to have excellent customer service. But not been at all impressed with them over this.

Hi. I booked a cruise for our family of 4 which was advertised as flights included. However only once booked and paid for I found the choice of available flights was very limited, with additional costs for most - and felt was a bit of a case of false advertising. But got some free flights that were the best I could find. However have since decided would like to extend vacation/holiday and have looked into options for doing this. Want to fly back 4 days later and found the flights available on a specific flight direct from the airline website at €900 for all of us. However when I checked to see if the cruise line would move our free flights (expecting to have pay for this) they quoted €1150 a person which is more than the airline wanted for all of us - this would be €4600. And on top of that said would have to pay €60 cancellation fee for each person as the flights have been ticketed. I know cruise companies can sometimes be poor value with shore excursions etc, but this is just scandalous and a blatant rip-off. It’s frankly unethical to recommend this. I then said obviously we are not going to €4600 for something I can pay €900 for - but what if I just book independently through the airline and then just don’t catch the cruise booked return flight. They said to in order to do this we would still have to cancel the return flights and pay the €60 cancellation fee for each passenger as a no-show counts as a cancellation. I don’t understand the logic of this because how can I be charged a cancellation fee for something that was free? I understand from the airline’s website that you have to pay the cancellation fee to get money back, but in this case the flights were free so I don’t care about getting any money back? Any thoughts or help would be very greatly appreciated.

Hi. We have flights included as part of our cruise but want to extend out our holiday/vacation and stay for a bit in the destination port returning at a later date. When I tried to get the flights changed for the later date the cruise line was charging significantly more than the tickets would cost by buying direct from the airline and on top of that they also wanted a cancellation fee. Would there be any issue with purchasing the tickets independently and then not showing for the return flight booked by the cruise line - could inform the airline we wouldn’t be travelling on the day.