Regent Air Travel Scheduling

[ariannasstuff]

Reading many posts and wondering how Regent schedules the flights. Is it by convenience to passengers or cost? We are taking a cruise that begins in Venice. We would be flying out of Houston. There are many flights out on Air Canada/Contin/etc that would get us out during the day and put us in Venice that next early afternoon. Then, there are some "cheapy" flights, they would get out us in the evening and get us in Venice the next evening. P.S. The ship has it's first overnight in Venice. Although such a flight would get us there in time, we would miss the whole late afternoon in Venice. Is there a way to suggest they route us during the day?

 

Any advice or words of wisdom would help.

[Travelcat2]

Regent has contracts with air carriers. These are the ones they prefer to use. They do look at cost -- but, also at what time the flight arrives (if you are planning to board the ship the same day). You can "deviate" for $100/person. If you deviate, you can select your flights from those carriers they contract with. Those who deviate are giving up Regent transportation to and from the ship. This may or may not be an issue -- depending upon how far the ship is docked from the airport.

[Rally]

Regent has contracts with air carriers. These are the ones they prefer to use. They do look at cost -- but, also at what time the flight arrives (if you are planning to board the ship the same day). You can "deviate" for $100/person. If you deviate, you can select your flights from those carriers they contract with. Those who deviate are giving up Regent transportation to and from the ship. This may or may not be an issue -- depending upon how far the ship is docked from the airport.

 

We have frequently used Regent's deviation option and they have always transported us to and from airport/ship. Only when you book your own air, completley seperate from Regent, do you forfeit ground transfers.

[Travelcat2]

We have frequently used Regent's deviation option and they have always transported us to and from airport/ship. Only when you book your own air, completley seperate from Regent, do you forfeit ground transfers.

 

Apparently it depends on how you deviate. We did the Cape Town to Rio sailing on the Voyager in Nov/Dec. 2009. We deviated on the the flights to Cape Town and accepted Regent's choice of flights on the return from Rio. Regent did, in fact, book our British Air flights to Cape Town. We flew in a day early (as most people would on flights that take a day and a half). Our TA told us upfront that we would not have Regent transfers from the airport in Cape Town. We did have transfers in Rio.

[jhp]

I think TC and Rally are saying the same thing? Come in a day early, OR book your own air, you don't get transfers TO the ship?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Well I think you take your chances with Regent air, but I doubt if they will get you to Venice the first evening of your cruise. They would try to get you in in the morning or early afternoon (just my guess.)

 

What several are suggesting is that you should seriously consider deviating and coming in a day early. If you do this, and pay the fee, you can find out what itinerary you will get, and probably request some changes.

 

In my experience, if you deviate in one direction, you lose the transfer for that direction.

[Rally]

Well I think you take your chances with Regent air, but I doubt if they will get you to Venice the first evening of your cruise. They would try to get you in in the morning or early afternoon (just my guess.)

 

What several are suggesting is that you should seriously consider deviating and coming in a day early. If you do this, and pay the fee, you can find out what itinerary you will get, and probably request some changes.

 

In my experience, if you deviate in one direction, you lose the transfer for that direction.

In our experience the key is to do your homework before you talk to Regent Air. The cost is $100/passenger/per deviation, so if you deviate (what a terrible workd!) once and then decide the next day that you want to change, it is another $100.00. We have always done our own research, with the help of our TA, and when we have finalized on our objective, called Regent and worked it out with them. Only once, when we did something really weird (like coming in 2 weeks early) did they decline the ground transfers.

[ChatKat in Ca.]

I have deviated and the ground wan't inlcuded using Regent Air.

 

As for overnighting that 1st night, Oceania does that - they fly you in and because your sailing time is the next day, you might not board until after dinner time. We always deviate to Europe (or most destinations) so that we arrive early so not to miss the boat! By docking overnight they don't need to put passengers up in a hotel. They are able to use more redeye flights too and it's easier on the staff because the guests are staggered time wise. They downside is that you really do miss the first real day and the days are long for the staff too.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Ooh, "deviate", it's a great word! Yes, you have to do your homework first. And have a good TA. We managed to arm-wrestle Regent into changing a business-class upgrade flight thru Frankfurt that had a barely-possible connection time to an earlier one where we could relax a little (Frankfurt is an impossible airport.)

 

We always deviate. In fact, I think coming in a day early is something that Regent should allow without deviation. So many people do it, transfers would be just as easy, but wouldn't mind if we had to relinquish that. The $100 is just a stupid cash-grab.

[hondorner]

I've never minded paying the deviation fee (first $75, now $100). It's one thing for the staff to arrange flights for a gaggle of folks all arriving on the same day, and another to search through all of the flights on an individual basis and come up with best plan. I have found that the biggest difference is that when they are working on a deviation, they have the luxury of finding the best possible combination of flights for the best possible price. In every case, when we requested a deviation, the flights they proposed were the best possible flights for that day to that destination, and they have always been at a lower total cost, including the deviation, than we could have obtained on our own.

 

In a couple of cases, we have gone back and forth (through our travel agent) several times, checking routes on different days and using different airports (we live close enough to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa that it makes no difference to us). On an upcoming flight home from Rome, we went through 12 different scenarios, then were able to pick the best one. It made a difference. Booking ourselves, it made a difference whether the flight originated on a Friday or a Saturday, the latter being more expensive. Booking through a deviation, we were able to stay until Saturday for the same cost as Friday.

 

The deviation fee has always been worth it, in my opinion.

 

I need to add a couple of qualifiers. First, these flights were for Oceania, but I am fairly sure that Regent and Oceania are using the same staff and procedures for booking air. Second, all of these flights were economy; we do not spend extra money for business class. And, finally, all of my experience was using cash for the airfare; we have not traded in miles.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Good point, if you want to use points, you have to book your own.

 

My point about flying in the day before was that, if Regent gave people that flexibility, of flying in the day of the cruise or the day before, the amount of work booking staff would do would be the same, although perhaps easier because the pax would be spread out over two days. And because they would be spread over two days, arranging transfers would work too.

 

Of course if someone wanted to explore scenarios, then the deviation fee would still apply.

[poss]

This is the first time we've wanted to use Regent air. Decided to splurge for business upgrade since it's a special occasion trip. (All cruises with Regent have been special occasions, actually.) In some ways it's been a good experience (so far-- our cruise isn't til end of June), in some ways not.

The air office has been absolutely terrific about trying to work with me to get a good flight. They've been patient with my multiple calls to them (I did plenty of homework first of course) , and were willing to make changes for no additional fee (after the original "deviation" cost). So that part's been good. The very disappointing thing is that there's been very little choice of flights. I look on Travelocity, etc and I see all sorts of terrific times and carriers for us (to Istanbul). I'm told over and over that Regent has no contract with these good flights. So the best I can do is get in quite late (early evening I think it is) the day of boarding (it overnights in Istanbul) which gives us no time at all in the city and will make for big-time jetlagging and thus no doubt pretty much missing the the next day as well. It's also a near five hour layover in Frankfurt. We dread this as it adds all those hours to traveling time-- time which we'd much prefer to be strolling Istanbul.

But many others have had great luck with getting good flights. And I repeat: the air reservation folks have been good to work with.

[Travelcat2]

It can be difficult to find flights that Regent will accept due to the contract issue. . . and, things seem to change alot. Regent booked us on British Air in September to Heathrow. Two months later they booked us on Luftansa with a 14 hour layover in Frankfurt. We asked to deviate and go with BA. This was only doable with an additional $600 fee (in this particular case, it was worth it).

[Jim B]

We have sometimes used Regent air.

Problem is the $199.00 "Gateway City", (325 mile drive one way), and the no extra charge "Gateway City", (500 miles drive one way), does not work for us so always have to pay the $299.00 deviation fee which irks me. (And we still have a 145 mile drive one way).

Normally the flight schedule they want to give us is ridicules and bounces us all over the place. Our wonderful TA has sent a "suggested" flight schedule we prefer and Regent has accepted that since we have such a expensive deviation in the first place.

 

Now when we have used Regent Air the thing I do like is if you have to go to destination a day early, or can't get back the same day returning, the transportation from airport is included as well as the hotel you spend the night. Next day transportation is included to the ship from the hotel.

So far these have been really nice hotels and have enjoyed that.

We do our home work and after checking hotel, airfare, and transportation then decide

which is best way to go.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Poss, since you "deviated" already, did this include a request to fly in the day before the cruise? Can't they do this for you, or do you not wish to do that?

[poss]

Ah, Wendy-- I dearly wish we could have some extra days in Istanbul, a city we enjoyed very much last time around. We're taking 3 extra days in Rome at the end, and the cruise itself is a nice 12-days. I could keep going for weeks and weeks, but my husband's tolerance for being away from home is lessening. (He never enjoyed traveling as much as I did, and in these years, less and less so-- though he truly does love our cruises and our winter Caribbean snorkeling.)

 

The most frustrating thing about the Regent flights is that they can use any of the Star Alliance partners-- but not in combination with each other. I.e. one can fly Swiss Air or Turkish Air or Us Airways or Lufthansa-- but not, say, Lufthansa to Zurich and Swiss Air over to Istanbul; or LH to Frankfurt and Turkish Air over to Istanbul. If we could do that we'd get into Ist. nice and early and have that whole day, with plenty of hours to walk off jet-lag so that we'd be bright-eyed and busy-tailed for the hours the next day before disembarkation. With getting in late (and the awful traffic at that time of day), I'm afraid we'll be pretty much zombies for a while.

[ShopperSissy]

Don't have any help for you, we are on the Mariner cruise 4/17/2010 Venice to Rome. Had Regent book us a day early, but of course we lose our free transfers from airport to the embarkation dock. Since this is our first cruise, we wanted to be certain we were there plenty early.