Dont use Air2Sea!

[snellbaker]

We booked an Alaskan cruise and have been counting the days for months. On May 25 (we depart on July 17) we were advised that our flight home on July 24, 2022 was be rescheduled for departure from 2:00PM to 7:00AM. The ship arrives in Vancouver at 7:00 AM so no way we were going to make that flight. My travel agent contacted Air2Sea(A2S) that same day and asked for assistance in finding a new flight. The agent has checked and there is a flight out of Vancouver the night of the 24th (redeye uhg) but we couldn't book as we had gone through A2S. Repeated calls and emails to A2S have been met with "we are working on it" I have called three times this weel alone and have been told each time that it would be resolved within 24-48 hours. Needless to say, it has not been. I spoke with a supervisor today and now I'm being told that the airlines have up to 5 business days to make the changes. That puts us 6 days before departure, and we still do not have a confirmed flight home. I will never use A2S again and I would suggest that no one else does either. When something goes haywire with the airline only 
A2S can set it right. If I had booked direct, I could have made the flight change with no problem. Because A2S was the booking source only they can make the change. The only thing worse than their service was their continued "we will get back to you" dialogue. 

[ARandomTraveler]

😡 Sounds extremely frustrating, especially when you try to plan everything in advance only to have very important details left un-arranged a week before your vacation. 

[smokeybandit]

I've had flight changes with Air2Sea and they always fixed it right then and there with a confirmation from the airline by the end of the day

[flamingos]

I think that the airlines are in a world of hurt right now and nothing is working quite as it should.

 

I'm thinking some CEO heads should roll, because someone authorized the scheduling of more planes than they seem to have pilots for.  

[Tlbecker1]

We have also had several changes to flights, but they always make it right for us.  I am so sorry that this happened to you and I hope you are able to get it all sorted out, so that you can enjoy your cruise.😀

[texmex.ferr]

I sympathise with you with your change of flight and having to wait so long to get a resolution, but there are so many flight cancellations ongoing at present, that Air2Sea may also be struggling to try to reschedule your homeward flight, because of lack of available flights.    I know you mention you've seen a late flight that your could book, but where is the guarantee that that flight may not cancel between now and July 24.

I'm sure Air2Sea will get back to you once they have a resolution, and they are probably processing flight changes in date order.

[publicpersona]

OP’s experience is not necessarily due to recent airline issues. A similar issue happen with me last year. I talked directly to American who said because they changed the flight times, they’d be happy to book me on a different flight at no cost .. but .. wait .. I went through Air2Sea. So they couldn’t help me. Then the days ticked away waiting for Air2Sea to fix it. After a couple weeks of Air2Sea being unable to do anything in real time (take a phone call, look at the schedule, change a flight, etc.), I gave up and cancelled the Air2Sea arrangement, for which they charged me $400. Then I booked my two $150 flights myself in seconds.

[grandgeezer]

We had this happen to us years ago. Instead of calling Air2Sea, or whatever it was called then, we called American Airlines and they switched us to a flight that worked, at no extra charge.

[klfrodo]

Unfortunately, Air2Sea is nothing more than a consolidator. Could very well be that the restrictions on the ticket when negotiated don’t allow much wiggle room for changes.

Air2Sea air travel tickets are NOT the same as a ticket you would buy direct from the airline. In fact if you buy more than 1 ticket, each ticket could have different restrictions.

99% of the time, you’ll never know the difference. But, sometimes, when flight operations go TU,,,,, problems.

Of course a good marketing plan will never tell you this.

[fpcruiser]

Last year American cancelled our flight home on our second last day of the cruise. Fortunately, we had free 24 hour internet and saw the email. They had rescheduled us for 2 days after the cruise was over on the red eye( this was during a period when hundreds of flights were being cancelled). I went to Guest Services since we had booked through Air to Sea and by that evening, they had us rescheduled on an airline they don't usually use (yeah no baggage fees). We were also home before or original flight was even supposed  to take off. I will use AIR to Sea whenever possible.

[CruisingHogFan]

Air2Sea will lie and blame the airlines. We had a horrible experience last year when our original flight was canceled. There were several options for around the same time frame when I looked but more expensive. Air2Sea put us on a late flight (cheaper than the original flight) and said it was our option even though the other flights were available and blamed the airline for it. I finally had enough and called American myself and the agent pulled the booking from air/sea and turned it into a direct booking so I could make changes. We then changed the flight to what I wanted for no charges.

[John&LaLa]

Air2Sea saved our butts in Barcelona when Covid locked the world down on March 13, 2020. Made one call, they handled it all. Got us back to Miami a day early

 

Doubt I'll ever use any other way to book overseas cruise flights again

 

Sorry the OP is in a bind

Edited July 3, 2022 by John&LaLa

[Bruin Steve]

It's pretty much the airlines.  With the pandemic and all, they have been canceling and changing flights at a record pace.  Air2Sea is merely a "consolidator"--a booking service.  We have used them (and Flights by Celebrity--which is actually the same operation) several times now.  Often, like everyone else in the travel business right now (INCLUDING AIRLINES) they can be tough to get through to...but we have found them to be very good--especially if you approach them calmly and kindly and escalate to a supervisor if necessary (it often is).

 

For our upcoming "side to side" cruises next month, we used Air2Sea for a complicated set of flights.  We are cruising on Vision of the Seas from Barcelona for 8 nights, then, six days later, Celebrity Summit for 12 nights, Reykjavik to Boston...So, we needed flights LAX-BCN, BCN-KEF and BOS-LAX.  Air2Sea booked all three legs (we did all of this about 10 months ago).  At various times after the initial booking EVERY original flight went through cancelations and/or schedule changes.  And EVERY time, Air2Sea worked with us to get new flights...even changing our BCN-KEF leg to be on a different airline (KLM instead of SAS).  We actually ended up with some even better flight times--arriving in KEF at 6:45 pm rather than our original 12:15 am.  Only on one leg, BOS-LAX did we end up having to move to a different day to avoid a 6:00 am departure and it ended up costing us an additional $50--but we saved a night in a Boston hotel going from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm the preceding night...We wouldn't have gotten much use out of that hotel anyway if we needed to be at Logan by around 4 am to check in!

 

The only issue we really had with Air2Sea is they gave us an unreasonable time frame to reschedule one of the legs after a flight was canceled--but asking to get connected to a supervisor solved that.  Sometimes those first agents you speak with don't know all that much...but somebody at Air2Sea will.  Just don't settle for an "it can't be done" answer.

[snellbaker]

Well, here it is 4 days before departure, and I still have no confirmed flight home.  A2S keeps saying they are waiting for "approval" from the airlines and I'm getting ulcers. They did promise that if we got stuck in Vancouver they would get us home on the first available flight and book us into a hotel room until that happened. I'm hanging my hat on that promise and hoping for the best. What a crummy way to count down the days until a cruise! 

[ARandomTraveler]

6 hours ago, snellbaker said:

Well, here it is 4 days before departure, and I still have no confirmed flight home.  A2S keeps saying they are waiting for "approval" from the airlines and I'm getting ulcers. They did promise that if we got stuck in Vancouver they would get us home on the first available flight and book us into a hotel room until that happened. I'm hanging my hat on that promise and hoping for the best. What a crummy way to count down the days until a cruise! 

🤬

[the penguins]

9 hours ago, snellbaker said:

Well, here it is 4 days before departure, and I still have no confirmed flight home.  A2S keeps saying they are waiting for "approval" from the airlines and I'm getting ulcers. They did promise that if we got stuck in Vancouver they would get us home on the first available flight and book us into a hotel room until that happened. I'm hanging my hat on that promise and hoping for the best. What a crummy way to count down the days until a cruise! 

Hope you got that promise in writing (email).

[Big_G]

[MommaBear55]

14 hours ago, snellbaker said:

Well, here it is 4 days before departure, and I still have no confirmed flight home.  A2S keeps saying they are waiting for "approval" from the airlines and I'm getting ulcers. They did promise that if we got stuck in Vancouver they would get us home on the first available flight and book us into a hotel room until that happened. I'm hanging my hat on that promise and hoping for the best. What a crummy way to count down the days until a cruise! 

How frustrating. I would be quite wound up if that happened to me. I hope it all comes together in the next 3 days so you can enjoy your flights and your cruise

[Jimbo]

What a crock of BS you are dealing with. Can it get anymore poorly run then this?

[Travel R]

I needed to fly into port the day of the cruise so I used Air2Sea, and happy I scheduled the flights through them (for the first time).  I just posted the story in my review (Post #58):

 

 

 

 

[Cruise a holic]

Never had a problem with Air2sea on celebrity or royal.  We book first class and we can change the flight- Hope that not being able to modify isn't the policy going foward!  We have a December and January b/2/b cruise and like the policy of not paying air until final payment for the cruise is due.  Of course if no flights are available- we would have to fly out the next day and unfortunately pay for a hotel.  Airlines today are so unreliable-change and canceling flights-due to staffing issues.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Cruise a holic

[Orbmis]

My experience with Royal's Air2Sea service is...... absolutely horrible!!! I had booked flights thru A2S, but our outbound flight was cancelled due to weather. After staying on the phone with them for 2 hours, response was 'sorry, there is nothing we can do'. So we rented a car and drove 14 hours to Orlando. 

Upon our return home after the cruise, we have been waiting 2 months to get a refund. Every time I call RCCL, the response is 'we are waiting'. I have asked for a copy of the email that was sent to the airline, and was told, 'we cannot do that'

I am at a point where I don't think I will ever see the refund. Conclusion: if everything goes well with the flight, terrific.. If there is a problem, do not expect to get a refund!. A2S is just a rip-off. Never again book thru A2S. Royal Caribbean should be ashamed.

 

orbmis

Edited January 30, 2023 by Orbmis

[klfrodo]

But hey, they saved money .

[jencruzin]

Fortunately for us, never had any issues using Air2Sea yet, but OP's experiences are genuine. We've heard similar stories like this.

 

To the OP, do you have the airline's flight reservation booking number? If not, try to obtain that, because you'd be able to try and also work things out directly with the airline on your own without Air2Sea and even your TA, who does sound as if they're on it. 

 

 

[time4u2go]

56 minutes ago, jencruzin said:

Fortunately for us, never had any issues using Air2Sea yet, but OP's experiences are genuine. We've heard similar stories like this.

 

To the OP, do you have the airline's flight reservation booking number? If not, try to obtain that, because you'd be able to try and also work things out directly with the airline on your own without Air2Sea and even your TA, who does sound as if they're on it. 

 

 

OP's cruise was 6 months ago.