NCL Air - Business Class?

[Seafan22]

I have a few NCL flight questions:

 

When booking flights with NCL, can you request an upgrade to Business Class (particularly US to Europe)?  and how do their prices compare to booking directly?

 

Can you book the flights for a few days prior to the ship's embarkation?

 

Thanks

[hallux]

Are you booking using the Free-at-sea BOGO offer or NCL's Premium Air?

 

BOGO - you can upgrade at your cost once the flight is ticketed, IF the airline allows it with the fare that was negotiated.  Deviations to arrive or depart up to 2 days before and after the cruise are allowed.  Here is the T&C's that cover the BOGO - https://www.ncl.com/termsandconditions/promotions

 

Premium Air - the wording appears ambiguous but it MAY be allowed.  right from this page - https://www.ncl.com/freestyle-cruise/premium-air

The types of customized flight itinerary requests handled by the Premium Air Service Desk are date deviations, nonstop service, specific airline, specific flights or specific departure time, stopovers, upgrades to business or first class and gateways not offered in the Air Sea program.

Edited May 24, 2022 by hallux

[Seafan22]

Since it does not seem that this type of upgrade can be booked ahead - like I think can been done on some other cruise lines - with the short window of trying to do it after getting the flight notifications fron NCL it may be tough going.

 

Has anyone been able to get an upgrade like this?  An what has been your experience?

 

[hallux]

14 minutes ago, Seafan22 said:

Has anyone been able to get an upgrade like this?  An what has been your experience?

You didn't answer the question as to which way the flights were being booked but I'm going to assume it's the BOGO.  With the BOGO flights you have ZERO control, except for the date of the flights.  There are MANY threads on this forum discussing the perk airfare and what can/can't be done.  The first chance you get to choose anything is going to be once the flights are ticketed.  You won't even get to pick your airline and may be booked on two different airlines (I was when I used the offer in 2019 - Delta outbound, American inbound).

[argyll1881]

I have booked a transatlantic in December and provided exact details of the business class flight I wanted to get home - airline, times.  My NCL rep booked it for me and it saved me about £1k.

[hallux]

2 hours ago, argyll1881 said:

I have booked a transatlantic in December and provided exact details of the business class flight I wanted to get home - airline, times.  My NCL rep booked it for me and it saved me about £1k.

and I presume this was with NCL's Premium Air service, right?  This NEEDS to be specified as the type of arrangement you got is not possible with the free-at-sea perk.

[argyll1881]

I've no idea.  I just said to the chap that I wanted a flight back home.

[ljrfrm]

We used NCL's free air a few years ago and easily upgraded directly through the airline once we got our flight information from NCL about 45 days out.  We used a mixture of points/money one direction on United and all money on Lufthansa on the way home.

[NoahtheRed]

17 minutes ago, ljrfrm said:

We used NCL's free air a few years ago and easily upgraded directly through the airline once we got our flight information from NCL about 45 days out.  We used a mixture of points/money one direction on United and all money on Lufthansa on the way home.

Yup, upgraded to business in our Alaskan flight from Vegas to Seattle without any issue whatesover. Folks, check your airlines and see if they'll let you upgrade. They probably will. 

[schmoopie17]

For our Mediterranean cruise in 2020, we took advantage of the NCL air deal. Got booked on American going and British Airways returning. Once the reservations were made we were able to pick seats and upgrade on both flights,

 

Unfortunately, being 2020, the cruise ended up being canceled, and the air along with it.

[Harratine]

On 5/24/2022 at 11:55 AM, Seafan22 said:

Since it does not seem that this type of upgrade can be booked ahead - like I think can been done on some other cruise lines - with the short window of trying to do it after getting the flight notifications fron NCL it may be tough going.

 

Has anyone been able to get an upgrade like this?  An what has been your experience?

 

We did on our upcoming Barcelona B2B for the red eye leg. We had a direct flight from IAD Dulles in Washington DC area to Barcelona through the NCL Air program.  This was Friday 6/3.  After we got the final flight information, I jumped in my United account to select seats.   We upgraded to Polaris class for the flight on the United app.  Easy to do.  United did change the plane from a 767 which has the 2-2-2 arrangement to a 777 with a 1-2-1 layout and upgraded seating on the 6th, which makes me very happy as everyone will be on an aisle and I no longer have to Tarzan over the other person in the 2-2-2 layout.