Viking Business Class on Domestic Flights for US Cruises

[dwlmg]

If you do the price and build for an Alaska cruise on the Viking site, you are offered a quote for economy and business class airfares. Anyone have any idea what class fare that is. I am not aware of many business class cabins on US domestic flights. Is it premium economy or first class?

[CDNPolar]

Sure there are business class seats on domestic flights.  Many frequent travellers go business class domestically.  They are not available on every flight, but they certainly exist. 

 

Best thing to do is go to GoogleFlights, select "Business" and find the flights you want, then go to SeatGuru and look at the seating maps.  You will see the seating in Business.

Edited August 30, 2022 by CDNPolar
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[SantaFe1]

21 minutes ago, dwlmg said:

If you do the price and build for an Alaska cruise on the Viking site, you are offered a quote for economy and business class airfares. Anyone have any idea what class fare that is. I am not aware of many business class cabins on US domestic flights. Is it premium economy or first class?

Our flights to Alaska on Alaska air going through Seattle are First class. No business class on the plane. 

[oskidunker]

Anyone booked viking air from San Francisco to Bergen? What routing were you given? I am going to try it in Business. Just dont want to have to cross the US then fly to Bergen from east coast. Thats the route we are most afraid. We are paying $150 each extra so maybe we will get something decent. 
 

The flight i like is withSAS  leaving sfo at 9 pm but does not get to Bergen until 6 pm next day. Ship overnights in Bergen 

[FlyerTalker]

For domestic flights, you will find flights listed as "First" and others as "Business".  From an operational standpoint, they are the same thing (with the exception of some AA "three class" transcon flights on A321T aircraft) - domestic F seating.

 

There are several reasons.  They can be tag flights that are continuations of international flight itineraries, so they carry a "business" designation for continuity purposes.  They can be in certain markets where they can take advantage of corporate fliers who can fly "business" but not first".  And they can be just labeled as "business" for internal airline reasons.

 

And these flights are NOT in any way comparable to international lie-flat "business".

[margu1241]

1 hour ago, oskidunker said:

Anyone booked viking air from San Francisco to Bergen? What routing were you given? I am going to try it in Business. Just dont want to have to cross the US then fly to Bergen from east coast. Thats the route we are most afraid. We are paying $150 each extra so maybe we will get something decent. 
 

The flight i like is withSAS  leaving sfo at 9 pm but does not get to Bergen until 6 pm next day. Ship overnights in Bergen 

We didn’t book through Viking this time as we were using miles. We just booked San Francisco to Newark to Bergen.  We would prefer to fly from SFO to Europe and connect there, but this seems like the most efficient way. Leaving SFO early with a 3+ layover in Newark, but can’t beat the overnight flight getting into Bergen by noon. 

Edited August 30, 2022 by margu1241
Reread OP and saw that you were asking if Viking booked air

[oskidunker]

1 hour ago, margu1241 said:

We didn’t book through Viking this time as we were using miles. We just booked San Francisco to Newark to Bergen.  We would prefer to fly from SFO to Europe and connect there, but this seems like the most efficient way. Leaving SFO early with a 3+ layover in Newark, but can’t beat the overnight flight getting into Bergen by noon. 

Coach or Business? On United? How many miles per person?

Edited August 30, 2022 by oskidunker

[Heidi13]

5 hours ago, dwlmg said:

If you do the price and build for an Alaska cruise on the Viking site, you are offered a quote for economy and business class airfares. Anyone have any idea what class fare that is. I am not aware of many business class cabins on US domestic flights. Is it premium economy or first class?

 

When requesting a quote we normally ask for both economy and business flights.

 

In our experience, most US Airlines don't have Business on domestic flights, as it is referred to as First Class. However, the flights we have taken were not lay flat seats, pods, etc. Our last flight with AA, it was standard economy seats with the middle seat empty.

 

On Air Canada, an increasing number of domestic flights have the full Business Class, which is comparable to International Flights. 

[margu1241]

6 hours ago, oskidunker said:

Coach or Business? On United? 

Business on United. 

[oskidunker]

Booked through viking air. Travel agent got business sfo-COP -Bergen. Leaves at 3:15 pm.

return  non stop on British air. $46oo.oo per person.Expensive but about $700 pp less than bookingUnited, which had a 6 hour lay over in Frankfurt.  Its a splurge but as we get older the flights are a big component in enjoying the trip.

 

Also got seat assignments.  Final ticketing wont happen until Dec, 90 days before cruise.Travel agent did a good job.very impressed after reading how difficult Viking Air is to deal with.

[FlyerTalker]

Your travel agent left a ton of money on the table.  You could easily make that trip for under $4000 per person, and in real biz class.  Even more if you took Icelandair in their Saga class.

[oskidunker]

Klm going has lie flat single seats in business. I was looking for shortest trip from sfo.

 

icelandic air does not have lie flat seats. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by oskidunker

[FlyerTalker]

8 hours ago, oskidunker said:

Klm going has lie flat single seats in business. I was looking for shortest trip from sfo.

 

And you paid significantly for that "shortest".

 

8 hours ago, oskidunker said:

icelandic air does not have lie flat seats. 

 

Which is why I specifically mentioned them separately.

[CCWineLover]

On 8/30/2022 at 1:15 PM, oskidunker said:

Anyone booked viking air from San Francisco to Bergen? What routing were you given? I am going to try it in Business. Just dont want to have to cross the US then fly to Bergen from east coast. Thats the route we are most afraid. We are paying $150 each extra so maybe we will get something decent. 
 

The flight i like is withSAS  leaving sfo at 9 pm but does not get to Bergen until 6 pm next day. Ship overnights in Bergen 

oskldunker -

In late April this year, we flew using Viking Air Plus, business class from SFO to get to Bergen (BGO) for our Fjords and Shores cruise on Viking Jupiter.   Our TA worked with Viking to get us Business Class on the SAS A330 flight SFO-CPH (Copenhagen), connecting to CPH-BGO on SAS as well.  It worked quite well.  We were on SK936 leaving SFO at 4:25 PM.  We had a long (and safe) layover in CPH.  Had use of the very nice SAS lounge.  Then a short flight 5:00-6:20 CPH-BGO.   We stayed at the very nice Thon Rosenkrantz Bergen (on our own dime), got a great night's sleep and boarded the ship the next day at 11:00 AM.  The long flight had 1-2-1 seating and lie flat seats.  This may or may not be available for you as airlines have had many changes.  Also, it was a couple hundred more than horrible connections (short) via BA and LHR or LH and FRA.   Although at the time they all were non-stop to Europe (no US East Coast).

[CCWineLover]

On 8/31/2022 at 9:03 AM, oskidunker said:

Booked through viking air. Travel agent got business sfo-COP -Bergen. Leaves at 3:15 pm.

return  non stop on British air. $46oo.oo per person.Expensive but about $700 pp less than bookingUnited, which had a 6 hour lay over in Frankfurt.  Its a splurge but as we get older the flights are a big component in enjoying the trip.

 

Also got seat assignments.  Final ticketing wont happen until Dec, 90 days before cruise.Travel agent did a good job.very impressed after reading how difficult Viking Air is to deal with.

Just read your follow - on post.  I think you did quite well.

We paid $4400 (before gas inflation), as we returned on BA Business via Basel.

All in all we were quite happy with the results.  I am usually not prone to Viking Air, but even though we might have gotten a couple hundred cheaper on our own, we viewed the premium like a COVID insurance.  (This was back when testing was mandatory to go and return).

[oskidunker]

1 hour ago, CCWineLover said:

Just read your follow - on post.  I think you did quite well.

We paid $4400 (before gas inflation), as we returned on BA Business via Basel.

All in all we were quite happy with the results.  I am usually not prone to Viking Air, but even though we might have gotten a couple hundred cheaper on our own, we viewed the premium like a COVID insurance.  (This was back when testing was mandatory to go and return).

Tried to use United miles. Booked an itinerary. United emailed me and said to call and there was a problem.  Sas would not confirm that leg. Spent three hours on the phone with agents in the Philippines, listening to Roosters crow. No help. They were unable to solve problem.  I gave ip. Maybe some day I will be able to use miles. United wanted $5600.00 pp with a six hour lay over in Frankfurt. Never booked cruise line air before. Maybe in this case it was a good devision. Only took travel agent a few hours to get better itinerary . 

[Clay Clayton]

Not trying to hijack this thread but if anyone has experience with paying Viking for Premium Economy on the long haul segments I would like to know whether you got Comfort+/Main Cabin Extra/Economy Plus/extra legroom seats OR did you have to pay extra to select seats?

TIA

[Mitina]

Just reserved Premium Economy flights to Paris with Viking.  Airbus A330-300. Delta calls it Premium Select and we were assigned seats.  Flight’s not till 2023 so anything could change.   We use Air Plus and no charge for seat assignments.

[Clay Clayton]

23 minutes ago, Mitina said:

Just reserved Premium Economy flights to Paris with Viking.  Airbus A330-300. Delta calls it Premium Select and we were assigned seats.  Flight’s not till 2023 so anything could change.   We use Air Plus and no charge for seat assignments.

If that’s a response to me, what compartment are you in for domestic portions, presuming you have any. 

[Mitina]

3 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

If that’s a response to me, what compartment are you in for domestic portions, presuming you have any. 

It was for you.  Direct flight from Boston.

[PGI GUY]

If you are flying Delta in premium  select they usually fly you in comfort plus, the extra leg room seats at no cost until you connect to your over water flight. We have done this several times using Viking air plus.. 

In fact we just did this for a Med cruise in March.

Delta as far as I know is the only airline that does this, it gives you priorty check in at your home airport also.

[FlyerTalker]

33 minutes ago, PGI GUY said:

If you are flying Delta in premium  select they usually fly you in comfort plus, the extra leg room seats at no cost until you connect to your over water flight. We have done this several times using Viking air plus.. 

In fact we just did this for a Med cruise in March.

Delta as far as I know is the only airline that does this, it gives you priorty check in at your home airport also.

 

He's going on the non-stop from BOS to CDG.

[CCWineLover]

1 hour ago, PGI GUY said:

If you are flying Delta in premium  select they usually fly you in comfort plus, the extra leg room seats at no cost until you connect to your over water flight. We have done this several times using Viking air plus.. 

In fact we just did this for a Med cruise in March.

Delta as far as I know is the only airline that does this, it gives you priorty check in at your home airport also.

KLM does this as well (but it is also a code share with Delta).

We did Viking Air and KLM Economy Comfort to Europe with a stop in Amsterdam, non-stop from SFO.  We sat in the Economy Comfort Seats SFO-AMS on the big plane and then the Premium Economy (more leg room, front of plane) on the short 737 flight (with no first class or economy comfort).

And yes - we did priority check in at SFO and also on the return flight (thank goodness!).

[dwlmg]

It sure would be nice to have a secret decoder ring to unravel all these new and unique fare classes. Perhaps I should buy more cracker jacks. Back to the original topic, my agent tells me that Delta and Alaska Air fly the equivalent of business class to Alaska. Of course they do not call it that.

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, dwlmg said:

It sure would be nice to have a secret decoder ring to unravel all these new and unique fare classes. Perhaps I should buy more cracker jacks. Back to the original topic, my agent tells me that Delta and Alaska Air fly the equivalent of business class to Alaska. Of course they do not call it that.

 

Your agent should stick to selling cruises.

 

Considering that AS only flies A320 and 737 aircraft on mainline flights, there is no "business class".  DL only flies 737s to ANC, so ditto there.

 

There are a number of wide-body flights to ANC -- but they are all cargo.