Reasons not to book cruise air through cruise lines

[slidergirl]

This sounds to me like ChoiceAir is saying their low price Guarantee can not be compared with these other types of tickets in terms of have to drop their price in order to abide by their promise of being the lowest fare. In other words, these types of fares are not competitors in the "lowest fare" race.

 

It doesn't appear to be saying that ChoiceAir is not any of these types of tickets.

 

Exactly. This paragraph has nothing to do with the types of tickets they BUY, but has to do with their low price Guarantee. It's just like a hotel chain's Best Rate Guarantee - they won't allow a challenge against a rate from a 3rd party opaque site (Expedia, Priceline, Orbitz), a "bid" site (Hotwire, Priceline), group bulk rate… And, if you buy from one of these services rather than directly from the hotel, trust me, you won't be able to deal directly with the hotel if you have issues - you have to go through your 3rd party. I hate it when I have to tell someone I can't help them and they have to call that 3rd party and then the 3rd party has to call Reservations to try to get what you need/want done…

[Kamloops50]

Any tickets that I have bought from EzAir are normal airline tickets. I actually have to go to the airlines site to print my tickets and boarding pass.

[Shorex]

Bah humbug to you too! :D

 

May you enjoy a wonderful holiday season and a joyous and happy new year. :)

[boogs]

Here is a thread from July 2011 that people might find interesting. It is a discussion that CC Host Andy had with Troy Martin, Director of Travel Services for Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. It was considered so helpful that CC management made it a "sticky" for the Celebrity and Azamara forums:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1449882

 

In the first post, under the COMPETITIVE FARES paragraph, are a few sentences that might provide useful information for people interested in the ChoiceAir program and are wondering if they are consolidator fares:

 

"A frequent topic on Cruise Critic is the value and challenges with Consolidator tickets/fares. Those are not available through ChoiceAir. All ChoiceAir fares carry the standard airline rules, and even the contracted ones are similar. The travelers have all of the airline and RCCL services available to them, and are subject to the airlines rules and restrictions. Troy specifically emphasized that RCCL does not use consolidator-type fares."

 

Also look at post #18 for more details that again explains that consolidator fares are not used: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=29904378&postcount=18

 

And then make up your own mind as to whether to believe Cruise Critic's Host Andy, who has earned a high level of respect from Celebrity forum readers, and Royal Caribbean's Director of Travel Services, Troy Martin.

 

There are dozens of postings on this thread from CC members that have had positive results with this program, and have been quite happy with it.

Edited December 16, 2013 by boogs

[RickT]

There is lots of debate about whether or not Choice Air is better/worse than buying it on your own. My experience has been good, but I research all my options and then make my decision once I have all the info/facts.

 

If you are docking at Ft. Lauderdale, you can look at flights out of FLL at 11:00 (noon is better) and out of MIA at noon (1:00 is better). Use ITA Matrix http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ to see what your flight options and costs are by booking directly with the airlines. Once you have found flights/prices that suit your needs, compare this to what Choice Air offers.

 

While I cannot say for sure that Choice Air doesn't use Consolidator tickets... I can say that my last 3 flights booked with Choice Air definitely did not... and as long as the routing/times/prices are good, your risk even if the tickets are consolidator are minimal.

 

Flying on a consolidator ticket is only an issue if your flight is cancelled or you miss your flight. Once on board the plane it doesn't know if you paid full fare or are on a cheap/consolidator ticket.

[Teeara]

Although I prefer to do all my own travel booking, if I ever do a TA I would be willing to try Choice Air with RCI. I prefer to fly in a day or two (or three) early and stay after a day or two (or three). I prefer being in control of all aspects of my vacation.

[ducklite]

I book my own so I have control over the reservation including selecting my seat at the time of booking, and earn the miles. I have yet to see a compelling reason to do otherwise.

 

 

Autocorrect responsible for most typos...

[ducklite]

Once we retire we will likely take a TA to Europe in the spring and then spend the entire summer in Europe before taking a TA back to the Western Hemisphere. No airfare needed.

 

 

Autocorrect responsible for most typos...

Edited December 17, 2013 by ducklite

[Shak]

I have been cruising for over 20 years now and I have had cruise air 3 times and Choice Air once. Fortunately all have gone without a problem. I understand both sides of this debate but for me what it comes down to is the risks. Lets face it every time we get behind the wheel of a car there are risks but we all know them and accept them. To assess the risks of air travel for myself I once asked the pundits on the air board how many people actually miss their cruise due to having cruise air. None of them had an answer. If it was rampant I would think we would all know. If you look at the bottom of the Cruise Critic Forum Page you will find there are 1,058,527 members of Cruise Critic and after 11 years on these boards I am pretty sure if there was a flagrante problem with cruise line air we all would know about it. Yes I know that cruise air doesn't always go as one would like but most things in life don't either but the bigger picture is it worth the savings to have cruise air?

 

I do have some first hand information about a positive story about cruise air. In 2007 while returning to San Diego we had a medical emergency 12 hours out of Oahu and the Serenade turned around to return to Oahu. While that maneuver saved person life it did cause most to miss their flights. There was an announcement that those with cruise air had to nothing because their flights were being arranged by the cruise line. Others like us that purchased our one air had to make our own arrangements. Not an easy task in the middle of the Pacific I might add. To RCI credit they offered free telephone service but it was rationed because not everyone could do it at the same time.

 

My advice is if you do purchase air through the cruise line is to have as much cushion as you can with time. On our transatlantic with Choice Air we built in a two day cushion and as we always do is to buy trip insurance.

 

Shak

[gooch47]

We used to get our air fare exclusively through the cruiselines. I thought it was a form of insurance. In one case it did help because our cruise got back so late everyone missed their flights. But since we had booked ours thru Princess, they rescheduled it for us.

 

But lately we do our own. I've never totally understood Princess's program but it seemed that they weren't responsible for much except getting you a flight, any flight.

 

Now it may be things have improved.

 

But we even started booking our own international flights, too, and found it wasn't all that scary.

[SantaFeFan]

Regarding RCI's ChoiceAir program, I have read many posts from people reporting that the ChoiceAir tickets they purchased were NOT consolidator tickets. I have never read a post from someone who reported that their ticket was. This leads me to believe that they are not consolidator tickets as some "expert, experienced, knowledgeable" posters on these threads claim. If they were indeed consolidator tickets, why can't these "experts" prove it?

Edited December 17, 2013 by SantaFeFan

[CruiserBruce]

Regarding RCI's ChoiceAir program, I have read many posts from people reporting that the ChoiceAir tickets they purchased were NOT consolidator tickets. I have never read a post from someone who reported that their ticket was. This leads me to believe that they are not consolidator tickets as some "expert, experienced, knowledgeable" posters on these threads claim. If they were indeed consolidator tickets, why can't these "experts" prove it?

 

How many people know what a consolidator ticket is? Based on the questions here on Cruise Critic, not very many...

 

Consolidator tickets look just like most other tickets...it is all about the codes on the ticket, which define the restrictions, which result can result in major headaches if your flight is delayed or canceled.

Edited December 17, 2013 by CruiserBruce

[swsfrail]

How many people know what a consolidator ticket is? Based on the questions here on Cruise Critic, not very many...

 

Consolidator tickets look just like most other tickets...it is all about the codes on the ticket, which define the restrictions, which result can result in major headaches if your flight is delayed or canceled.

 

More posturing by the self proclaimed "expert" crowd. Amazing how they refuse to accept the facts that ChoiceAir does not use consolidator tickets.

 

No need to let annoying facts overshadow their carefully guarded opinions. :D

Edited December 18, 2013 by swsfrail

[KKB]

We have booked through the cruise line only twice....Disney & Princess. MIL booked Disney & one Princess cruise we booked with friends who could only fly out the day of the cruise & the cruise flight times/prices were better than booking ourselves. Both times we flew in by 1 or 2 o'clock, and all went off without a hitch.

 

We prefer to always fly in the day before--then if there are delays, more than likely it won't affect the cruise.

 

Our upcoming cruise has me a tad nervous. We were rebooking our SWA tickets originally booked for Vegas, and the latest Friday night flight wasn't late enough (work has been testy lately about taking time off before scheduled breaks). SO our only choice is early morning Saturday getting into FLL at 1:15. Ship departs 4:30. Certainly not ideal. Considered some other options as well as insurance to cover a potential delay. BUT the next day we are in Key West--we can rent a car for $100 & be there in 4 hours. Guess that is our insurance;)

Edited December 18, 2013 by KKB

[BullDawg91]

We have booked through the cruise line only twice....Disney & Princess. MIL booked Disney & one Princess cruise we booked with friends who could only fly out the day of the cruise & the cruise flight times/prices were better than booking ourselves. Both times we flew in by 1 or 2 o'clock, and all went off without a hitch.

 

We prefer to always fly in the day before--then if there are delays, more than likely it won't affect the cruise.

 

Our upcoming cruise has me a tad nervous. We were rebooking our SWA tickets originally booked for Vegas, and the latest Friday night flight wasn't late enough (work has been testy lately about taking time off before scheduled breaks). SO our only choice is early morning Saturday getting into FLL at 1:15. Ship departs 4:30. Certainly not ideal. Considered some other options as well as insurance to cover a potential delay. BUT the next day we are in Key West--we can rent a car for $100 & be there in 4 hours. Guess that is our insurance;)

 

 

Warning: I read on another msg board about a person who missed their original embarkation and thought they could pick up the cruise at Key West. It turns out it's not that simple. I can't quote the specs, but you might want to check into that scenario just in case.

[CruiserBruce]

More posturing by the self proclaimed "expert" crowd. Amazing how they refuse to accept the facts that ChoiceAir does not use consolidator tickets.

 

No need to let annoying facts overshadow their carefully guarded opinions. :D

 

 

Do you know what a consolidator ticket looks like? I do. I just told you in my post.

[swsfrail]

Do you know what a consolidator ticket looks like? I do. I just told you in my post.

 

Yes I do. My daughter-in-law is a travel agent for AAA. She books us consolidator tickets when appropriate. She also confirms that ChoiceAir does not use consolidator ticketing. Who better than a real live, honest to goodness, professional travel agent for a large, well established, highly respected travel agency to know the facts? I prefer to believe her than the opinion of an anonymous poster on CC.

 

As Sergent Joe Friday from the old Dragnet TV series famously said: "Just the facts, ma'am" :D

[greatam]

 

"A frequent topic on Cruise Critic is the value and challenges with Consolidator tickets/fares. Those are not available through ChoiceAir. All ChoiceAir fares carry the standard airline rules, and even the contracted ones are similar. The travelers have all of the airline and RCCL services available to them, and are subject to the airlines rules and restrictions. Troy specifically emphasized that RCCL does not use consolidator-type fares."

.

 

Do you realize there are TWO types of consolidators? One type is the "bucket shop" which generally specialize in a certain area-ethnic areas generally have a consolidator/TA in the area that sells space at a discount to home countries. Garden Grove CA (Little Saigon) has 3 that specialize in CHEAP fares to Vietnam. They are given heavy discounts by certain airlines because of VOLUME to a certain area. But they don't get much discount (if any) to Europe because they sell few tickets to Europe. Those discounted fares to specific foreign countries are bought on an individual basis in real time.

 

The other type are the bulk purchase/contracted/"specially negotiated" (Choice Air's wording) fares. Those tickets are purchased a year or more in advance, ON CONTRACT by cruise lines, travel packagers, event planners, etc. etc. And it works like this-purchaser needs 200 tickets on July 1, 2015 from NYC to Rome. They put out the request for proposal to the airlines.

 

Airlines respond-let's just say Delta says OK, we will give you 200 tickets for $400 each. BUT these are the rules: 1. Non refundable 2. NON ENDORSABLE 3. NON RE-ROUTABLE 4. NON TRANSFERABLE 5. Change fee will be $300 6. Cancellation fee will be $500 7. You will pay us within 90 days 8. YOU are now the owner of the tickets, not the end user. We will not deal with YOUR customer other than in the most minimal way. 9. WE pick the flights that will be available for your heavily discounted tickets.

 

Cruise line, travel packager or whoever is buying the bulk purchase tickets either agrees to the rules or not. But the point is-those rules can be ANYTHING the airlines and the original purchaser agree to. They are generally NOT standard airline rules, primarily due to the non endorsability and non re-routable rules against those practices.

 

And regarding Choice Air-how do you KNOW what the RULES are? You can't read them. When you purchase an airline ticket direct from an airline and even generally from the big three travel agents, you can click a link and the ENTIRE fare rules governing your flight will appear. Doesn't happen with Choice Air on the cheapest tickets. So whether they call them "specially negotiated" or "contracted", how do you know what you are buying?

 

You really have no idea until you can read the ENTIRE fare rules which can often be 2 or more pages in length with lots of small print and confusing terms. Just because you have the same flight number, have a letter code for your fare category(S, O, H, L, N, etc. etc) and pick your own seats DOES NOT mean you don't have a "call it whatever you want" type of ticket.

 

And I really like the weasel words published above-"even the contracted ones are similar". What does that mean? How do you know what it means? And those two little features-endorsabilty and re-routing possibilities on most "normal" airline tickets are the biggies that can totally trash your vacation when they are missing or specifically prohibited by the "contract".

[SantaFeFan]

Do you realize there are TWO types of consolidators? One type is the "bucket shop" which generally specialize in a certain area-ethnic areas generally have a consolidator/TA in the area that sells space at a discount to home countries. Garden Grove CA (Little Saigon) has 3 that specialize in CHEAP fares to Vietnam. They are given heavy discounts by certain airlines because of VOLUME to a certain area. But they don't get much discount (if any) to Europe because they sell few tickets to Europe. Those discounted fares to specific foreign countries are bought on an individual basis in real time.

 

The other type are the bulk purchase/contracted/"specially negotiated" (Choice Air's wording) fares. Those tickets are purchased a year or more in advance, ON CONTRACT by cruise lines, travel packagers, event planners, etc. etc. And it works like this-purchaser needs 200 tickets on July 1, 2015 from NYC to Rome. They put out the request for proposal to the airlines.

 

Airlines respond-let's just say Delta says OK, we will give you 200 tickets for $400 each. BUT these are the rules: 1. Non refundable 2. NON ENDORSABLE 3. NON RE-ROUTABLE 4. NON TRANSFERABLE 5. Change fee will be $300 6. Cancellation fee will be $500 7. You will pay us within 90 days 8. YOU are now the owner of the tickets, not the end user. We will not deal with YOUR customer other than in the most minimal way. 9. WE pick the flights that will be available for your heavily discounted tickets.

 

Cruise line, travel packager or whoever is buying the bulk purchase tickets either agrees to the rules or not. But the point is-those rules can be ANYTHING the airlines and the original purchaser agree to. They are generally NOT standard airline rules, primarily due to the non endorsability and non re-routable rules against those practices.

 

And regarding Choice Air-how do you KNOW what the RULES are? You can't read them. When you purchase an airline ticket direct from an airline and even generally from the big three travel agents, you can click a link and the ENTIRE fare rules governing your flight will appear. Doesn't happen with Choice Air on the cheapest tickets. So whether they call them "specially negotiated" or "contracted", how do you know what you are buying?

 

You really have no idea until you can read the ENTIRE fare rules which can often be 2 or more pages in length with lots of small print and confusing terms. Just because you have the same flight number, have a letter code for your fare category(S, O, H, L, N, etc. etc) and pick your own seats DOES NOT mean you don't have a "call it whatever you want" type of ticket.

 

And I really like the weasel words published above-"even the contracted ones are similar". What does that mean? How do you know what it means? And those two little features-endorsabilty and re-routing possibilities on most "normal" airline tickets are the biggies that can totally trash your vacation when they are missing or specifically prohibited by the "contract".

 

Have you ever purchased tickets from ChoiceAir?

[fortinweb]

Not sure if this helps, but here is the reservation page for ChoiceAir:

 

 

 

Note that there are three different types of ticket that the purchaser can reserve - Lowest, Refundable, and FlexFare. This is almost identical to the options available when making the same reservation on the United Airlines website:

 

 

 

It appears that the purchaser can select the type of ticket he/she wants. The choices are the same as directly from the airlines. We have always used the Refundable option and the tickets appeared to be identical to what I purchase for non-cruise travel.

Edited December 18, 2013 by fortinweb

[slidergirl]

Here's what I would like to see, rather than see the sniping going on. I don't care if you think you are an expert, or your great-great-great-grandson is the lead TA for a crooked agency selling tickets from Bagdad to Hanoi…I want to see the hard code.

 

Someone who has used Choice Air/whatever other cruise line-purchased air: please type in the EXACT coding on your ticket. Give us a pointer to the T&Cs associated with the ticket. The little code may be something like "TKPX"…the big code that has all the taxes, etc., would look something like "LAX SU X/MOW SU ROM 350.00TKPX SU X/MOW SU LAX 550.00LKEX NUC 900.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 5.50YC 7.00XY 5.00XA 34.40US 2.50AY 2.80EX 10.30HB 26.10IT 1.20MJ 3.40VT 371.60YQ 20.40YR 4.50XF LAX4.50."

I just happened to look for the lowest price fare on ITA from LAX-FCO for 2 days next June - it came up with Aeroflot!!! With all this in hand, and that T&C is a CRUCIAL part of this, we can help decipher the good and bad.

Remember, a cruiseline-purchased ticket may be all well and good and have happy, satisfied customers when all goes as planned - at that point, you wouldn't care how things were coded - you got where you wanted to as "promised." It's when things go sideways that it will absolutely matter!!!!!! People will blame the airline for not moving them/bumping them, when it's the cruise line who negotiated the T&Cs for the tickets who should be receiving the wrath...

Edited December 18, 2013 by slidergirl

[fortinweb]

Here's what I would like to see, rather than see the sniping going on. I don't care if you think you are an expert, or your great-great-great-grandson is the lead TA for a crooked agency selling tickets from Bagdad to Hanoi…I want to see the hard code.

 

Someone who has used Choice Air/whatever other cruise line-purchased air: please type in the EXACT coding on your ticket. Give us a pointer to the T&Cs associated with the ticket. The little code may be something like "TKPX"…the big code that has all the taxes, etc., would look something like "LAX SU X/MOW SU ROM 350.00TKPX SU X/MOW SU LAX 550.00LKEX NUC 900.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 5.50YC 7.00XY 5.00XA 34.40US 2.50AY 2.80EX 10.30HB 26.10IT 1.20MJ 3.40VT 371.60YQ 20.40YR 4.50XF LAX4.50."

I just happened to look for the lowest price fare on ITA from LAX-FCO for 2 days next June - it came up with Aeroflot!!! With all this in hand, and that T&C is a CRUCIAL part of this, we can help decipher the good and bad.

Remember, a cruiseline-purchased ticket may be all well and good and have happy, satisfied customers when all goes as planned - at that point, you wouldn't care how things were coded - you got where you wanted to as "promised." It's when things go sideways that it will absolutely matter!!!!!! People will blame the airline for not moving them/bumping them, when it's the cruise line who negotiated the T&Cs for the tickets who should be receiving the wrath...

 

Here is my ticket purchased through ChoiceAir for my Med cruise last year. Does this help?

 

[greatam]

Here is my ticket purchased through ChoiceAir for my Med cruise last year. Does this help?

 

 

All that shows is you are booked in economy in L category. Means absolutely NOTHING.

 

It is the numbers/letters AFTER the L that contain the RULES of your ticket.

 

As Slidergirl also posted, the full ticket info where it shows taxes also contains coding info which explains what type of ticket you have.

 

You generally have to get that info from ITA, KVS, SABRE or another GDS which is NOT available on anything I have ever seen from Choice Air.

 

The request to put the ENTIRE fare code or post the RULES of your ticket has been repeatedly asked by myself, Kenish, Flyertalker, Cruiser Bruce and others who frequent the cruise air board. It has never been provided IN FULL because it is generally NOT available.

 

We are all still waiting to see the FULL coding on Choice Air CHEAPEST tickets. Some of the higher priced tickets do include more info BUT those are "published fare" tickets available directly from the airline at generally the same price.

[taglovestocruise]

Do you realize there are TWO types of consolidators? One type is the "bucket shop" which generally specialize in a certain area-ethnic areas generally have a consolidator/TA in the area that sells space at a discount to home countries. Garden Grove CA (Little Saigon) has 3 that specialize in CHEAP fares to Vietnam. They are given heavy discounts by certain airlines because of VOLUME to a certain area. But they don't get much discount (if any) to Europe because they sell few tickets to Europe. Those discounted fares to specific foreign countries are bought on an individual basis in real time.

 

The other type are the bulk purchase/contracted/"specially negotiated" (Choice Air's wording) fares. Those tickets are purchased a year or more in advance, ON CONTRACT by cruise lines, travel packagers, event planners, etc. etc. And it works like this-purchaser needs 200 tickets on July 1, 2015 from NYC to Rome. They put out the request for proposal to the airlines.

 

Airlines respond-let's just say Delta says OK, we will give you 200 tickets for $400 each. BUT these are the rules: 1. Non refundable 2. NON ENDORSABLE 3. NON RE-ROUTABLE 4. NON TRANSFERABLE 5. Change fee will be $300 6. Cancellation fee will be $500 7. You will pay us within 90 days 8. YOU are now the owner of the tickets, not the end user. We will not deal with YOUR customer other than in the most minimal way. 9. WE pick the flights that will be available for your heavily discounted tickets.

 

Cruise line, travel packager or whoever is buying the bulk purchase tickets either agrees to the rules or not. But the point is-those rules can be ANYTHING the airlines and the original purchaser agree to. They are generally NOT standard airline rules, primarily due to the non endorsability and non re-routable rules against those practices.

 

And regarding Choice Air-how do you KNOW what the RULES are? You can't read them. When you purchase an airline ticket direct from an airline and even generally from the big three travel agents, you can click a link and the ENTIRE fare rules governing your flight will appear. Doesn't happen with Choice Air on the cheapest tickets. So whether they call them "specially negotiated" or "contracted", how do you know what you are buying?

 

You really have no idea until you can read the ENTIRE fare rules which can often be 2 or more pages in length with lots of small print and confusing terms. Just because you have the same flight number, have a letter code for your fare category(S, O, H, L, N, etc. etc) and pick your own seats DOES NOT mean you don't have a "call it whatever you want" type of ticket.

 

And I really like the weasel words published above-"even the contracted ones are similar". What does that mean? How do you know what it means? And those two little features-endorsabilty and re-routing possibilities on most "normal" airline tickets are the biggies that can totally trash your vacation when they are missing or specifically prohibited by the "contract".

 

You really don't know what you are talking about..

[YubaSutter]

On our first Alaskan cruise, HAL booked our air as part of a package. The flight would have arrived at Vancouver at 1:30 pm. I called and had them change the flight to the day before. The original flight was held up and those in that flight just made it into the ship at 3:30 for a 5 pm sail away. I won't let the cruise book the flights ever again.