Flight Ease ? Re: flight to a private tour 2 weeks in advance of cruise

[janmcn]

Scenario: We are flying to Zurich to take a 2-week tour of Switzerland. Then, flying to Copenhagen to pick up the Zuiderdam for 24-day cruise back to Boston.

The 1-way flight to Zurich (Business Class) is horribly expensive. Any way that Flight Ease would work for us to use it for our flight to Zurich...then get to Copenhagen on our own?

[richwmn]

I asked about this two years ago, so things might have changed, and at the time I was told they could only arrange flights from your "home city" to the port of embarkation. I was trying to get from Lisbon to Montreal for a cruise. I ended up finding a very reasonable fare by playing around a bit with how the flights were booked, based on a thread on the flights section of cruise critics.

[suspaul]

Have you tried one of the online flight sites, I just did a dummy booking on kayak, don’t know your US starting city or dates, but I did a multi city flight, Chicago to Zurich on October 9 then Zurich to Copenhagen on October 24 and it stayed calculating and pulling up flights. If you have a chance and interest take a look. Hope this helps.

 

 

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[boulders]

You can check through the HAL website to see if it will let you do it. Go to manage my booking and then travel planning. When I look at Flight Ease for my upcoming cruise to New Zealand and Australia, it will let me choose flights into other other cities in NZ and Australia, but not other places in the world.

[kazu]

If you can't do your scenario, I would try this.

 

Book your flight with flight ease (assuming you like the price) to your port city that your cruise leaves from and book on your own to Zurich. I find flights in Europe quite reasonable as long as you don't have a lot of baggage that needs to be checked. Just another option to try :)

[janmcn]

I like the suggestions of doing Flight Ease from Austin to Copenhagen and then on our own get from there to Zurich...might work.

 

 

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[mfanderso]

I know each cruise line handles air differently, but a few years ago I was doing a transatlantic on RCCL, leaving out of Harwich UK which meant I would need to fly into London. We wanted to go to Paris first and spend a few days. We were able to book a flight to Paris using cruise air and then we took the train from Paris to London where we spent a few days before riding the train to Harwich.

 

You might try to go on-line the HAL site and see if it will let you book the air to Zurich.

[TAD2005]

HAL's Flight Ease has great one-way international flights, thousands cheaper in business class. Setup a Flight Ease one-way to CPH, which is all HAL will allow you to do, and then take a train to ZRH, and then return the same way. It's 12-1/2 hours on the train and you see some pretty fantastic scenery on the way. Why stare down at Europe from 35,000 feet ? European trains are clean, on-time, comfortable, great food, and easier compared to flying. Because you are just doing a round-trip CPH-ZRH-CPH on the train, a Eurail pass wouldn't work out as well as just a round trip ticket.

[*Miss G*]

I am able to choose my starting point on Flight Ease with no problem. As an example: I live in the US but will be flying from Canada. My sister lives in England but will be flying from Canada. I can book us both from Toronto, but not from Buffalo. I have also changed the origin airport for other cruises with no problem. You just need to play with your choices online.

 

I also like Kazu's solution. I do that often.

[bEwAbG]

HAL's Flight Ease has great one-way international flights, thousands cheaper in business class. Setup a Flight Ease one-way to CPH, which is all HAL will allow you to do, and then take a train to ZRH, and then return the same way. It's 12-1/2 hours on the train and you see some pretty fantastic scenery on the way. Why stare down at Europe from 35,000 feet ? European trains are clean, on-time, comfortable, great food, and easier compared to flying. Because you are just doing a round-trip CPH-ZRH-CPH on the train, a Eurail pass wouldn't work out as well as just a round trip ticket.

 

A one-way flight is a little less than 2 hours! While the trains are pleasant, I cannot imagine spending that much time on one, especially knowing you'd have to spend that much time getting back!

[janmcn]

Thank you ALL for the help! Yes, I’ll try the Austin to Copenhagen one way on Flight Ease ( it’s not available yet) and do my other flights on our own (no time for train)...I think that should work! Appreciate the experiences!

 

 

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[Globehoppers]

This Spring we did this scenario on Princess except in reverse: TA Port Everglades to Copenhagen, flight to ZRH, then travel around Switzerland by train with return to FLL from ZRH booked via Princess EZAir which is the same company as Flight Ease (all owned by Carnival Corp). After much research I booked the CPH-ZRH leg direct with Swiss, and on checkout they offered an upgrade to business for $75 which I jumped on. Trans-Atlantic flight ZRH-FLL (where we left the car) was booked through EZAir which as surprisingly $500 less pp from ZRH on Delta Business than from MUC, FRA or GVA. I looked at other options to include returning to MIA, MCO, TPA and even ATL, but the ZRH-FLL flight (stop at JFK) was the lowest price. Purchased the Swiss Rail Pass for travel around Switzerland to include the Glacier Express. Worked perfectly. Great trip.

[Reading54]

Thank you ALL for the help! Yes, I’ll try the Austin to Copenhagen one way on Flight Ease ( it’s not available yet) and do my other flights on our own (no time for train)...I think that should work! Appreciate the experiences!

Hi Jan,

If fly to CPH on a HAL ticket and connect to a CPH to ZRH flight purchased on your own in a separate ticket, make sure you have padded enough time in CPH to allow for any delay of the first flight. Since they are on separate ticket (different reservation number) you are not protected on your second flight if the first flight is late coming in.

[janmcn]

Thanks for everyone's advice...yes, as an experienced traveler I've tried all the various permutations of assorted flight engines, etc. Flight Ease isn't allowing me to "see" anything at the moment...not sure if it's a HAL problem, but I think it's more likely that the trip is June '19...too early. Yes, no train option...have to be ready for our tour in Switzerland by the afternoon of the 21st and meet the tour bus at the airport in Zurich the 21st. Shall keep working on it. Yes, know all the problems with all the various airports in Europe...and delays...and delays...and security, etc. (Frankfurt comes to mind, especially!)

[TAD2005]

Flight Ease will not let you see any flights more than 330 days out from your last flight. We just booked a R/T with Flight Ease for a March 9, 2019 cruise, returning on April 6. We could not book until about May 25.

You can change your departure city all you want with Flight Ease. You cannot change the final arrival city. It must be the city where the associated cruise departs from. This is to prevent people using Flight Ease for personal trips or business trips to totally different cities, before their cruise, that are not anyway near your cruise departure city.