dewey089

Well, thanks for all the comments and clarifications. It will all go well I suppose, if the airlines don't lose our luggage. Five flights in a row they lost them. But never domestically on Southwest.

We have those three days in Lisbon to let the bags catch up to us from Tampa or Washington or Munich.

Once on the boat, I fully expect there will be no issues whatsoever.

When we do another such cruise, I think we'll just find an early way to Europe and wander on our own to the ship. This time we could have had an easy flight from Boston to the Azores, spent some time there, and then gone into Lisbon from there. A better plan.

Nice to find the board. Happy traveling.

Okay, I'll try again.

We could not pay extra and pick our flight for this particular trip. Custom air was not available. We did that when going to France. This time it was not an option if Viking arranged the air.

One complaint is that Viking does not release the route of the air trip until 3 weeks before the flight. Our AAA travel agent managed to get it a bit earlier, so we could get in our heads how long the flight would take. They have known about it for 60 days. Why is it a secret?

And even if we did not have custom air, it seems just common courtesy for Viking to let us know the itinerary before they book it. Then we have options open. So why book the air with Viking in the first place?

If I book directly with an airline, I know where I am going when I book the flight, and I'd have been able to offer this creative alternative before the no change trip was booked.

So, we did not know the flight options before being ticketed. I'm suggesting folks may not want to put themselves in that position.

Once I found out that from Tampa we were flying to Washington, my simple, common sense solution was simply to not be on the first leg of the journey, the leg from Tampa to Washington. We could drive that leg later after the cruise. It costs no one anything. So, maybe that is where the absurdity of the airlines thinking takes over.

We are not allowed to miss the first leg of the journey, all other flight schedules remaining the same. Seems very silly.

So, perhaps you folks are right that it is an airlines issue rather than a Viking issue. However, before booking again I'll want to know where the plane is going. So I won't be doing the booking with Viking when custom air is unavailable.

We will not rebook this particular flight. The airlines will not get any more money. We'll drive the full distance to Tampa and fly in and out of there. It will cost us four more hours of our time in the air. It will cost the airline money to fly us Tampa to Washington, Washington to Tampa when after collecting the same price from us, they could sell that leg of the journey to someone else.

I can understand fees when they amount to rescheduling. Here they just amount to not using what we pay for. I is like suggesting to the waiter that we don't need all four rolls at lunch, but just two.

Id Est: No , you did not understand what I was talking about. And clearly direct flights are not always the cheapest, because looking for the cheapest, Viking did not book us direct from Tampa to Lisbon, but gave us a very roundabout flight through Washington and then Germany to Lisbon. Tampa to Lisbon would have been a treat.

We had a fine trip last year in Southern France. The river boat cruise could not have been better.

So we jumped at a sale to go along the Northern Portugal river in mid-December.

We usually drive to Florida from NY for the winter. We decided to drive down, leave our packed van with friends, fly to Lisbon, have three days there and then a week on the cruise. And then come back for our winter in Florida.

Viking booked the air for us.

But they would not tell us the details of that flight until the last minute.

They knew the details two months ago. We got them yesterday, with some begging.

Here is the Itinerary:

Tampa to Dulles Wash DC to Munich to Lisbon.

Quite a round-a-bout way. It is going to be a long trip.

Well, it is a not open for any negotiation, and I guess I understand that, but get this absurdity.

We could leave our van in Washington DC and just take the Washington DC to Munich and Munich to Lisbon legs. We'd come back to DC and finish the drive to Tampa.

Seems reasonable. No real change in anything except we free up a seat for some other passenger from Tampa to Washington and later from Washington to Tampa. For the same money the airline gets to add a customer on those legs on both the flight over and the flight back. Should be win-win for every one.

Nope!

It would cost us $350 each to make that change. $350 to not fly quite so much.

Nuts, huh?

So next time we'll just wander over to Europe on our own and meet the boat. On the boat, Viking is all about the customer, at least that was our one time experience. But booking air they are all about bureaucratic obscurity and absurdity.

And they seem to want us to spread the good word. Well, we will. We talk to a lot of travelers. I even do a bit of freelance travel writing. So, I'll get this out to a few thousand folks. Starting here.