Viking Air suggestions needed - any gurus out there?

[classy_cruiser]

4 minutes ago, farmecologist said:

 

Haha yep, we flew NCL's BOGO air a while back and yeah...you get what you get.

 

Viking is waaaayyyy better than that.  They are a premium cruise line and it shows.  Our original itinerary was quite good ( see posts above ).  However, we decided to extend pre and post cruise if we could.  I was on the line with the Viking air agent for literally an hour and a half, checking different alternatives.  Originally, I was trying to fly us into Amsterdam, have a few days in Amsterdam pre-cruise, and *then* fly into Basel, Switzerland ( our original itinerary had us going straight to Basel ).  The problem was that the flight times didn't work out nearly as well if we would have done that ( very long layovers, etc... ).  So we just decided to fly into Basel a few days early, and then have a few days in Amsterdam after the cruise.     

 

Long story short, the point is that I was very impressed with Viking air Plus...Extremely good service.

 

 

 

Thanks, I went ahead and added the AirPlus. Hopefully they won't charge us any extra for the flights. Trying to get in without any deviation so not having avoidable flight issues would be good 🙂 

[farmecologist]

21 minutes ago, classy_cruiser said:

Thanks, I went ahead and added the AirPlus. Hopefully they won't charge us any extra for the flights. Trying to get in without any deviation so not having avoidable flight issues would be good 🙂 

 

Hmm so what are you looking for the AirPlus to get you?  Usually people add it when they want advanced itineraries and/or pre/post cruise deviations.  I'm not sure you will get a "better" initial flight itinerary just by having AirPlus...  

 

But just to give some context, our initial "free flight" itinerary was a Delta itinerary.  I went to Delta and did a dummy booking for the same itinerary and the flights were extremely expensive.  Viking gets preferred contracted rates, of course, but I was shocked at how much these flights would have been if we would have had to pay for them!  

 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by farmecologist

[classy_cruiser]

21 minutes ago, farmecologist said:

 

Hmm so what are you looking for the AirPlus to get you?  Usually people add it when they want advanced itineraries and/or pre/post cruise deviations.  I'm not sure you will get a "better" initial flight itinerary just by having AirPlus...  

 

But just to give some context, our initial "free flight" itinerary was a Delta itinerary.  I went to Delta and did a dummy booking for the same itinerary and the flights were extremely expensive.  Viking gets preferred contracted rates, of course, but I was shocked at how much these flights would have been if we would have had to pay for them!  

 

 

I'm looking to fly in from Austin, TX to Lyon, France the day before the cruise, so landing the day of the cruise. Yes I know this is not recommended. If there is no good option we could look at leaving 1 day sooner. I'd prefer not to have more than 1 connection and not to run through the airport like a mad person on the layover. I'm not sure what time the ship usually sets sail and how much wiggle room we have on that day. Will they hold the ship if someone is late? Can you catch up with the ship at the next stop?

 

Edit: we have free flights on our booking and it looks like they allocated $1700 each for that benefit. None of the flights available on Google Flights are that cheap. 

 

2nd edit: the cruise is in June and I have the booking on courtesy hold, need to pay tonight. 

Edited April 25, 2023 by classy_cruiser

[classy_cruiser]

Ok I have to say the Viking customer service folks on the online chat are very helpful. Chatted with an agent who helped me realize that there is no sail away time that we need to be on board for, because the ship stays in Lyon the first few days. Which is clearly spelled out in the itinerary but my mind automatically went to regular ocean cruise sailaway planning. Doh. They agreed there is no need for Air Plus or a deviation because the standard air service will make sure we have a good flight to get us there on the day of. And even if we are late it's no big deal. 

[bundtkate]

Just to add some clarity, you can deviate and make as many changes as you'd like without Air Plus. All of that can be done via My Viking Journey (with upcharges if your chosen flights cost more than what Viking picked). The only thing you truly can't do without Air Plus is talk to someone at Viking to help you with flights. If I had my way, I'd never make a single phone call so I'm quite content with the website but would totally understand the folks who want someone to talk to someone.

[farmecologist]

25 minutes ago, bundtkate said:

Just to add some clarity, you can deviate and make as many changes as you'd like without Air Plus. All of that can be done via My Viking Journey (with upcharges if your chosen flights cost more than what Viking picked). The only thing you truly can't do without Air Plus is talk to someone at Viking to help you with flights. If I had my way, I'd never make a single phone call so I'm quite content with the website but would totally understand the folks who want someone to talk to someone.

 

Absolutely NOT true, in my experience.  I couldn't find any acceptable flights through myvikingjourney.com that were acceptable for our pre/post cruise deviations.  Choices were extremely limited, and those that were available were at a substantial upcharge.  It was only when I added air plus, and talked to an agent,  that I was able to find flights...with NO upcharge.

 

As with anything...YMMV, I guess?

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by farmecologist

[classy_cruiser]

Ok I have a new data point to add here! So I finalized the booking and paid last night, this is a last minute booking since the cruise is in June. This afternoon I got an email with the flight itinerary. When I logged into the website it was already ticketed and all I could do was look at seats. The return flight was OK with 1 layover, but the outbound flight had 2 layovers and stopped in a 3rd non-EU country which is not ideal. So I go to lookup the airline booking on the actual airline website and notice that my middle name is listed twice on the ticket for some reason. I called Viking Air to ask about this. The lady I spoke with was so nice, and explained to me since it is within 24 hours of booking she can void the ticket and help me pick a better itinerary. We were able to change to a flight with only 1 layover on the outbound journey. So now my only concern is whether we will arrive on time for dinner since that flight gets in later in the afternoon 🙂

[farmecologist]

2 minutes ago, classy_cruiser said:

Ok I have a new data point to add here! So I finalized the booking and paid last night, this is a last minute booking since the cruise is in June. This afternoon I got an email with the flight itinerary. When I logged into the website it was already ticketed and all I could do was look at seats. The return flight was OK with 1 layover, but the outbound flight had 2 layovers and stopped in a 3rd non-EU country which is not ideal. So I go to lookup the airline booking on the actual airline website and notice that my middle name is listed twice on the ticket for some reason. I called Viking Air to ask about this. The lady I spoke with was so nice, and explained to me since it is within 24 hours of booking she can void the ticket and help me pick a better itinerary. We were able to change to a flight with only 1 layover on the outbound journey. So now my only concern is whether we will arrive on time for dinner since that flight gets in later in the afternoon 🙂

 

Yep, similar to my experience...there are FAR more choices available via AirPlus that are NOT available on myvikingjourney.com.  The agent even admitted to that...

Edited April 26, 2023 by farmecologist

[bundtkate]

41 minutes ago, farmecologist said:

Absolutely NOT true, in my experience. I couldn't find any acceptable flights through myvikingjourney.com that were acceptable for our pre/post cruise deviations.  Choices were extremely limited, and those that were available were at a substantial upcharge.

Curious. We had a lot of options, though I was admittedly looking at them after my deviation was already set up by Viking directly so maybe it's different if you try to do it on your own? I actually was basing my thoughts around what Viking told me when I first got my flights. There was a really tight layover in ORD on our original itinerary (less than an hour, I think?) and MVJ had no alternatives at the time. I asked my TA to call Viking and ask if AirPlus would get me more/different options and they told him no so I decided to tough it out. Thankfully it ended up a non-issue since our flights got changed anyway, but that reply really colored my opinion of Air Plus's value. Perhaps I'll have to reconsider.

 

44 minutes ago, farmecologist said:

As with anything...YMMV, I guess?

Likely so. I do think Viking may still be sorting this system out, too. We booked really early and at the time we booked the Viking FAQ made no mention of changing flights on MVJ. By the time we first got our flights, you could make changes on MVJ (including swapping airports), but you couldn't change dates. It was during this time that we decided to stay a few extra days and we had to pay for a deviation fee of $100/person, which did not include Air Plus (and Air Plus wouldn't allow the deviation without the fee so choosing that instead wasn't a good option). Now, Viking's FAQ says deviations are doable on MVJ and the entire concept of a "deviation" fee is nowhere to be found.

For whatever it may be worth, I did notice that there was a cycle to what MVJ would show you. We'd see a batch of flights for a few weeks, then we'd get a few days of nothing, then new and different flights would appear. Lather, rinse, repeat until maybe 80 days out when they all disappeared. So far they haven't come back. Every line has its mysteries I guess. I'm glad you and @classy_cruiser got flights you like either way. We're pretty happy with ours too and the end that's all that matters. 🙂

[Canal archive]

Ta all so interesting reading your flight machinations I’m just so glad I’ve never had those challenges flying to North America.

[farmecologist]

13 hours ago, bundtkate said:

 

 

Likely so. I do think Viking may still be sorting this system out, too.

For whatever it may be worth, I did notice that there was a cycle to what MVJ would show you. We'd see a batch of flights for a few weeks, then we'd get a few days of nothing, then new and different flights would appear. Lather, rinse, repeat until maybe 80 days out when they all disappeared. So far they haven't come back. Every line has its mysteries I guess. I'm glad you and @classy_cruiser got flights you like either way. We're pretty happy with ours too and the end that's all that matters. 🙂

 

That's what I am thinking as well.  And the agent kind of implied that.  I said it was strange that my viking journey (MVJ) didn't match up with what they were finding.   The agent admitted it is, in fact, different in many cases and 'complex' itineraries are impossible on MVJ. 

 

We were trying to do a pre-cruise deviation in Amsterdam and *then* fly to Basel a few days later to catch the cruse.  LOTS of options were available, and the agent spent a significant amount of time on the line with me looking at many different options, flying into different cities, etc... Unfortunately, while doable, the timing wasn't great ( the Basel flight would have reached Basel pretty late in the day ).  In the end we decided to do a few days in Basel pre-cruise and a few days in Amsterdam post-cruise, with essentially the same flight schedule.  I didn't see any of these options on MVJ, even with AirPlus 'enabled' on our account.  

 

The point, I guess, is I'm grateful we have options.  Viking is a first class operation.  Their agents are some of the best out there, at least in my experience. 👍

 

Edited April 27, 2023 by farmecologist

[tulok]

To answer your question about Basel. We have been there 3 times and there is a lot to do there for a few days. We stay by the train station SBB as it has a major tram stop. You will get a free tram card at check in and we used them to go all over the city. Hop on..hop off. The Red Church is within walking distance. You can take the tram near the French border and there were some great restaurants, as well along the river. We then just took a taxi from the train station taxi stand to Viking.

We have only flew into FRA and ZRH. Both are about approx.  1hr. Straight.

Watch as some of the smaller boutique hotels do not have air.

[farmecologist]

On 4/29/2023 at 8:34 AM, tulok said:

To answer your question about Basel. We have been there 3 times and there is a lot to do there for a few days. We stay by the train station SBB as it has a major tram stop. You will get a free tram card at check in and we used them to go all over the city. Hop on..hop off. The Red Church is within walking distance. You can take the tram near the French border and there were some great restaurants, as well along the river. We then just took a taxi from the train station taxi stand to Viking.

We have only flew into FRA and ZRH. Both are about approx.  1hr. Straight.

Watch as some of the smaller boutique hotels do not have air.

 

Ended up booking the GAIA hotel just next to the SBB station.

 

Any suggestions on restaurants?  

 

 

[tulok]

1 minute ago, farmecologist said:

 

Ended up booking the GAIA hotel just next to the SBB station.

 

Any suggestions on restaurants?  

 

 

You might think this is crazy but my favorite meal was upstairs the train station. A lot of small restaurants and one over looked the tracks and sold pizza, flat breads etc, and I had a caprese flatbread that was delicious. There is a bank in the train station also if you need cash.

Otherwise, across from the old market (i will look up the exact place) there are restaurants with patios on a no vehicle street. I think you will love that area. So convenient.

[tulok]

We stayed in a couple of places but Schweizerhof is our favorite which is right next to your hotel. We were going to eat at the GAIA but wasn’t impressed with the menu. (It is a very nice hotel)That is when we noticed a lot of business locals eating in the train station. 

The patio restaurants were outside city hall area. A lot of choices and the tram stops right there.

[farmecologist]

26 minutes ago, tulok said:

We stayed in a couple of places but Schweizerhof is our favorite which is right next to your hotel. We were going to eat at the GAIA but wasn’t impressed with the menu. (It is a very nice hotel)That is when we noticed a lot of business locals eating in the train station. 

The patio restaurants were outside city hall area. A lot of choices and the tram stops right there.

 

The train station cafe looks like a great tip!  Thanks much!