Adding Flights to Princess Air

[theZsatsea]

Awhile back, I reserved outgoing flights for an upcoming cruise tour to Alaska.  I now want to reserve return flights but I cannot find a way on the Princess Air site to accomplish that.  I do not want to cancel the outgoing flights as they are now more expensive in order to reserve a roundtrip itinerary.  Can someone offer a suggestion as to how I might be able to do this.  Thanks

[Hlitner]

You have run into a long standing limitation with the online software.  The solution is to call Princess where they can work around this online limitation.  Even if you booked through a cruise/travel agent, Princess will directly work with you although they sometimes will request that you obtain permission from your cruise/travel agent.   If you did not book direct with Princess I would suggest first calling Princess to find out their current policy (how to get them to deal directly with you on the air).  If necessary you would simply need to call your cruise/travel agent and ask them to notify Princess that they have no objection to the direct help with your air.

 

One more thing :).  While the Princess reservation folks can often handle the air changes they are not real experts when it comes to air.  If you need more "professonal" help you can ask the Princess reservations staff (they are the ones who answer the phone) if they would please transfer you to the air office.  We have done this in the past and while there may be some resistance, it can often be overcome with some "nudging."  When you get to the air reservations folks you are getting some true experts on airline reservations  (these folks also handle Seabourn, HAL, and Cunard).

 

Hank

[Buckeye10640]

6 hours ago, Hlitner said:

You have run into a long standing limitation with the online software.  The solution is to call Princess where they can work around this online limitation.  Even if you booked through a cruise/travel agent, Princess will directly work with you although they sometimes will request that you obtain permission from your cruise/travel agent.   If you did not book direct with Princess I would suggest first calling Princess to find out their current policy (how to get them to deal directly with you on the air).  If necessary you would simply need to call your cruise/travel agent and ask them to notify Princess that they have no objection to the direct help with your air.

 

One more thing :).  While the Princess reservation folks can often handle the air changes they are not real experts when it comes to air.  If you need more "professonal" help you can ask the Princess reservations staff (they are the ones who answer the phone) if they would please transfer you to the air office.  We have done this in the past and while there may be some resistance, it can often be overcome with some "nudging."  When you get to the air reservations folks you are getting some true experts on airline reservations  (these folks also handle Seabourn, HAL, and Cunard).

 

Hank

I too have dealt with this and it makes no sense to me that you cannot book each way independently.  

[Hlitner]

1 hour ago, Buckeye10640 said:

I too have dealt with this and it makes no sense to me that you cannot book each way independently.  

We did ask about this and were told it is simply a software limitation.  For what it's worth the same situation exists with HAL, Seabourn and apparently Cunard (we have never used the air booking engine with a Cunard cruise).  On the plus side there is no extra cost involved in calling the cruise line and getting their assistance.  Compare this to Oceania who charges $175 per person to ask for any kind of personalized help/deviation.

 

Hank

[Buckeye10640]

49 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

We did ask about this and were told it is simply a software limitation.  For what it's worth the same situation exists with HAL, Seabourn and apparently Cunard (we have never used the air booking engine with a Cunard cruise).  On the plus side there is no extra cost involved in calling the cruise line and getting their assistance.  Compare this to Oceania who charges $175 per person to ask for any kind of personalized help/deviation.

 

Hank

$175 pp for any assistance. Wow!

 

And yeah I understand from the agent perspective its a software limitation. From my perspective (as an IT professional) its poorly designed software....

[Hlitner]

1 hour ago, Buckeye10640 said:

$175 pp for any assistance. Wow!

 

And yeah I understand from the agent perspective its a software limitation. From my perspective (as an IT professional) its poorly designed software....

We could probably start an entire blog about poorly designed cruise line software.  For some reason it seems to be a requirement that every cruise line have awful software and web sites.  We cruise on many different lines and mostly do our own thing...so we have learned how to work with each line's software...and it is truly a challenge.  

 

Hank

[Coffeeluvr05]

Logic would dictate that one could just add a separate flight, but having dealt with Princess EZ Air was not so EZ when making changes in my experience.  It was like we were speaking two different languages.  I will say, the prices are fantastic when you book and you get it right the first time.  We have flown first class for a very nice price from California to Europe and I just don't think I can fly any other way when flying that far now.  

 

I do hope you get someone on the line who can get things fixed for you!

[theZsatsea]

Thanks to all of you for your replies.  I ended up calling and, after an hour-plus hold, ended up booking a roundtrip which kept the total price in line with what I could have done on my own by booking separate flights.  I'll keep watching and hope that in the next several months the prices will come down a bit.

Thanks again.

[jimbo1683]

4 minutes ago, theZsatsea said:

Thanks to all of you for your replies.  I ended up calling and, after an hour-plus hold, ended up booking a roundtrip which kept the total price in line with what I could have done on my own by booking separate flights.  I'll keep watching and hope that in the next several months the prices will come down a bit.

Thanks again.

What was the point then?