Uniworld: Pros and cons of booking a year early

[rove312]

After two Uniworld cruises, we're hooked enough to consider a Budapest-Amsterdam cruise in April 2024.  Maybe it's crazy at the price of $15K for two.  They have an offer expiring at the end of May of 10% off, so a decent amount, in addition to the River Heritage Club discount. Do these percentages off show up often, and can we otherwise expect a sale in the future?  And how locked in are the posted dates of the cruise?  It's a fresh enough memory how things changed starting in spring 2020; other than something like that, are we safe enough planning around the currently posted dates?  We'd certainly get insurance.

 

We would usually wait until much later to book a flight from the U.S., but I'm tempted right now by availability on Iberia's Boston-Madrid flight on a Business Class award, which typically doesn't stay available long.  I need to wait some time for opening bonus points on an Amex card, which can convert to Iberia, so these seats may not be available when we can book them, but what do you think about how safe it is to use a booking this early to make the cruise?  I have previous experience with Iberia removing the Boston flight on certain days, and changing the schedule of connecting flights so we needed to spend the night in Madrid, which was o.k. for our return last fall.  If they make a change that makes it a problem to arrive in time for the cruise, do you think we can get an appropriate change, even getting put on their partner British Airways without their extra charges on awards?  We'd be looking at connecting to the one Madrid-Budapest flight per day (nearly six hours to connect under their current schedules), and it would be a matter of our tolerance for risk that it could be cancelled on the day.  On a more direct itinerary, we could consider arriving on the cruise's day 1, getting their airport transfer to the ship, since they're still in Budapest for tours on day 2, but I guess here at a minimum we'd book to arrive the day before 1 and have a hotel stay.

[Gourmet Gal]

This early?  I book my non-cruise vacations 2 years in advance!  Just make sure you’re well-insured.  I wouldn’t think twice especially trying to use an award for flights. But why are you so locked in to Iberia?
 

Never book a flight to arrive on another continent on day 1 of a cruise.  Always come in at least 1 day in advance.  

[rove312]

Thanks. Iberia has  Business Class rewards at some of the fewest points when available, which can be converted from either Chase or Amex.  However, I'll also consider other programs, such as Flying Blue (Air France/KLM), which would have more flights to Budapest, and our return from Amsterdam would likely be on KLM.

[Host Jazzbeau]

There are lots of ways travel plans can go pear-shaped, so I try to minimize the choke points.  Flying through Madrid for Budapest (and especially home from Amsterdam) just seems like asking for trouble.  [Also I don't have the greatest confidence in Iberia.]  I would book Delta or KLM through AMS.  Many more flights to choose from (or switch to), and non-stop home from AMS.

[Roz]

I've found the best and most numerous connections from the US to Eastern Europe are thru Germany, not Spain, Italy, France, etc.

[Got2Cruise]

I learned thru Cruise Critic the best place for connections in Europe is Vienna. Easy Peasy. 

[Roz]

Now that you mention it,  my first river cruise started in Budapest,  and I connected through Vienna.   In any event,  it's not Spain. 

[CPT Trips]

13 hours ago, Got2Cruise said:

I learned thru Cruise Critic the best place for connections in Europe is Vienna. Easy Peasy. 

Not so easy peasy if you aren’t convenient to the few US airports that fly to Vienna nonstop. 

Edited May 22, 2023 by CPT Trips

[Got2Cruise]

3 minutes ago, CPT Trips said:

Not so easy peasy if you aren’t convenient to the few US airports that fly to Vienna nonstop. 

I meant connection wise. The point is do some research as to which is the easiest airport to get thru passport control. 

[Roz]

@CPT Trips, I live in Nashville, so not a major airport like Philly.  I think my flight went something like Nashville to Munich or Frankfurt, then Vienna, and finally Budapest.  It was not a nonstop from Nashville to Vienna.

 

Anyone flying from the US to Eastern Europe has got to understand it's not like flying to common tourist destination cities in Western Europe such as Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Barcelona, etc. 

[Roz]

@rove312, I've always booked my river cruises over a year in advance for a couple of reasons. Helps me to budget/save for the trip, and I travel solo.  Solo fares/spaces are often capacity controlled, so if I really want something, I book it as soon as the solo fares are available.  

[CPT Trips]

2 hours ago, Got2Cruise said:

I meant connection wise. The point is do some research as to which is the easiest airport to get thru passport control. 

 

1 hour ago, Roz said:

@CPT Trips, I live in Nashville, so not a major airport like Philly.  I think my flight went something like Nashville to Munich or Frankfurt, then Vienna, and finally Budapest.  It was not a nonstop from Nashville to Vienna.

 

Anyone flying from the US to Eastern Europe has got to understand it's not like flying to common tourist destination cities in Western Europe such as Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Barcelona, etc. 

 

Why would someone want to go through VIE on this itinerary? If you enter Europe in FRA or MUN, that’s where you do passport control. Both have regular flights to BUD.

PHL doesn’t have a lot of choices for direct flights except to major cities. Even then most are AA with their indifferent employees unless you us LH or BA. 

[UDChE89]

1 hour ago, CPT Trips said:

 

 

Why would someone want to go through VIE on this itinerary? If you enter Europe in FRA or MUN, that’s where you do passport control. Both have regular flights to BUD.

PHL doesn’t have a lot of choices for direct flights except to major cities. Even then most are AA with their indifferent employees unless you us LH or BA. 

Pricing if you can believe it.  There are some Star Allianceitineraries that cost less if you make an additional stop.  Saw this when trying to book a return trip from BUD to EWR for last month.

[Host Jazzbeau]

8 minutes ago, UDChE89 said:

There are some Star Alliance itineraries that cost less if you make an additional stop.  

That would not be worth it to me.  Flying is awful enough with the best itinerary...

[Got2Cruise]

1 hour ago, CPT Trips said:

 

 

Why would someone want to go through VIE on this itinerary? If you enter Europe in FRA or MUN, that’s where you do passport control. Both have regular flights to BUD.

PHL doesn’t have a lot of choices for direct flights except to major cities. Even then most are AA with their indifferent employees unless you us LH or BA. 

I just told you, because it’s a breeze. Lol. We flew Austria Airlines out of EWR. 

[Roz]

I dug through my old records,  and I flew from Nashville to Dulles,  Dulles to Vienna,  and then on to Budapest.  I booked through Uniworld, and the fare was far less than booking on my own.  Going back from Passau, I flew Munich to EWR,  then EWR to Nashville. 

[Roz]

@Got2Cruise, yes, it was Austria Airlines out of Dulles. 

[CPT Trips]

2 hours ago, Got2Cruise said:

I just told you, because it’s a breeze. Lol. We flew Austria Airlines out of EWR. 

EWR and IAD are among of the few US gateways that fly direct to VIE. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

@rove312 hasn't specified where they live and everybody's making assumptions.  The one fact we have to go on is that the cruise ends in Amsterdam.  The other clue is in post #1:  "I'm tempted ... by ... Iberia's Boston-Madrid"

 

So if they are starting in Boston and we know the cruise ends in Amsterdam, the only logical airlines are Delta and KLM.  Changing in AMS for BUD may not be everyone's ideal, but it will get you there with one stop.  And non-stop AMS-BOS is a no-brainer for the return.

[rove312]

Yes, I'm very well-versed on airline bookings and routings.  It's tempting to take Iberia to go transatlantic Business on an affordable number of points, and need to balance it against other drawbacks.  We generally do points bookings as one-ways, so the outbound and return could be on different airlines.  JetBlue is also starting to do AMS-BOS non-stops. 

[gnome12]

3 hours ago, rove312 said:

JetBlue is also starting to do AMS-BOS non-stops. 

I wonder whether that will disappear now that a court has ruled that they can't code share with American Airlines.

[CCJack]

No drawback to booking early except the river cruise line might book the rest of the ship as one group.  This happened to us on Viking, we were the first cabin booked  then they booked every other cabin to a single group.   

 

It worked out OK for us as our TA found out, and thus we moved to another Viking cruise date - 2 weeks from original sail date and  I had not purchased air yet.   If we had purchased air, this would have been a problem.  I do not think travel insurance would consider this a "cancelled cruise" since Viking said we were welcome to keep the original booking and be the only ones not part of a group.  I could not imagine us being the only ones in the dining room not part of the group and having to listen to toasts for " nice job meeting last year's corporate sales goals!"   or toasts to "best luck to the bride and groom" !

 

I would never book the first cabin again, I would wait until 10 or so are booked to be safe.  I think it is not infrequent that river boats are taken by a single group. 

[CastleCritic]

6 hours ago, CCJack said:

No drawback to booking early except the river cruise line might book the rest of the ship as one group.  This happened to us on Viking, we were the first cabin booked  then they booked every other cabin to a single group.   

 

It worked out OK for us as our TA found out, and thus we moved to another Viking cruise date - 2 weeks from original sail date and  I had not purchased air yet.   If we had purchased air, this would have been a problem.  I do not think travel insurance would consider this a "cancelled cruise" since Viking said we were welcome to keep the original booking and be the only ones not part of a group.  I could not imagine us being the only ones in the dining room not part of the group and having to listen to toasts for " nice job meeting last year's corporate sales goals!"   or toasts to "best luck to the bride and groom" !

 

I would never book the first cabin again, I would wait until 10 or so are booked to be safe.  I think it is not infrequent that river boats are taken by a single group. 

I wouldn't say its common at all.  It's true you likely wouldn't know normally.

 

I DID (pretty much) have this happen on AMAWaterways, but I don't know all the details, I just got a call (during the Covid restart in 2021) that they had chartered the ship I had booked (inferred that I couldn't go, they never ACTUALLY said that) and offering me compensation to move to a different date (for a variety of reasons it didn't matter).  

 

I did hear on the cruise I just got off with AMA (the same itinerary as above just 2 and a half years later...like I said its a long story) of two things. 1. we did have a group of about 20 on board (out of 150).  And I heard of an earlier sailing that a large group canceled last minute leaving the ship with only about 50 passengers (they still went, both of the 2021-2022 cruises I did with them were only at about 50 people).  This is the only time of the 5 trips Ive taken that there was a large group present.

 

There is a thread from a few weeks back about a company (backroads) that has tentative charters on a few AMA trips (and blocks on others) that will be sold publicly if they dont meet their target bookings by a certain date.

[LibertyBella]

I am willing to book a cruise one to two years in advance, but the last time I booked air as soon as it was available (almost a year out with miles), by the time the trip was about three or four months out the air had changed SO significantly (non-stop to connections, bad layovers), that I ended up canceling it and just paid cash.

 

On my recent Viking river cruise (late March), we were scheduled from PHL to FRA to MUC, then BUD to FRA to PHL on Lufthansa roundtrip.  Well, about two months before departure, Lufthansa decided they were going to reduce some routes, and our return was one of them!  So we were put on Swissair  from BUD to ZRH, then sent to YYZ  (Toronto) on Air Canada, then returned to PHL from YYZ  also via AC. A much longer and more hectic travel day than what I had originally anticipated months out.

 

Cruising in a few months from Rome to Athens, and I decided to splurge on the nonstops and NOT use miles because some of the mile amounts are outrageous for high season, and I don't want my luggage to go missing.  We are doing both pre-and post-city stays.  I actually booked this cruise almost three years ago, but we were all kicked off months in advance of departure two years ago, as the cruise underwent a whole ship charter! 

 

Occasionally we will drive up to Newark to fly, but we also have to add in the parking cost, so the cost must be significantly better than PHL.  BTW, I happen to LOVE Spain, so I would never be able just to transit through--I would want to stay for a few days or a week at least!

[CastleCritic]

Airfare can’t certainly suck. The saga of the 4 times I booked the Budapest to Bucharest trip was covered in them 

 

1. booked the day it was available in 2019 for October 2020. Rdu-Lhr-bud. Otp-lhr-rdu in business class Just the way I wanted it. Then covid happened and rdu lost its London flights and they rebooked it as jfk-lhr-bud.  Which is an 8 hours drive from home. They finally agreed this wasn’t a legal change and refunded it (and of course the cruise was canceled.)

 

then after I rebooked it for 2021 I got a call that British airways had canceled the flights to Bucharest for the 2 days before and after I needed to be there (so they refunded it again. This was after ama had already moved me off the cruise the week before). I ended up changing the cruise entirely anyway due to romania covid load around that time. 
 

im still thinking of tempting the airline gods and booking my airfare for next may to Cairo as soon as it comes available. 

Edited May 30, 2023 by CastleCritic