Oceania flight deviation request

[Lane412000]

If flights are booked through Oceania for the following cruise and departure out of New Orleans (MSY):

 

MSY - ICN

 

Tokyo - MSY

 

for a cruise Seoul to Tokyo March 9 - March 20:

 

When can I expect Oceania to provide me with my flights?

 

How would I request a deviation to flights that other family members are on that they booked themselves?

 

How much does deviation requests normally cost?

 

Thanks for any answers or suggestions

[Flatbush Flyer]

2 minutes ago, Lane412000 said:

If flights are booked through Oceania for the following cruise and departure out of New Orleans (MSY):

 

MSY - ICN

 

Tokyo - MSY

 

for a cruise Seoul to Tokyo March 9 - March 20:

 

When can I expect Oceania to provide me with my flights?

 

How would I request a deviation to flights that other family members are on that they booked themselves?

 

How much does deviation requests normally cost?

 

Thanks for any answers or suggestions

Don’t do it. Take the air credit and DIY- especially if you want bizclass. 

[LHT28]

You can probably request  flights now

 Give them the flight numbers & dates & see if they can  get them for you

They may or may not have contracts with  the same carriers 

 

You do not pay the deviation fee until both you & Oceania approve the flights

I think it is now  $199 PP non refundable  fee

 

But do check what it would cost to do your own air & compare

If doing BIZ  I would  look at DIY

JMO

[Lane412000]

1 minute ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Don’t do it. Take the air credit and DIY- especially if you want bizclass. 

We have already booked bizclass on our own (2 couples), but the third couple do not have the finances to do this and are using the Oceania flights.

[Flatbush Flyer]

3 minutes ago, Lane412000 said:

We have already booked bizclass on our own (2 couples), but the third couple do not have the finances to do this and are using the Oceania flights.

If they use O for bizclass, they may end up paying more than you do. O’s bizclass quote is on top of the coach fare already in your cruise invoice and you don’t get credit for it!!!

Also, if your friends want O air deviation from what’s offered by O, that’s going to cost several hundred for the deviation fee (unless their O Club status gets a waiver) plus any fare difference for their chosen carrier/route (which may not be O’s contracted carrier)

 

They should use the ITA Matrix website to search the best routing/fares and then take the O air credit and buy tix direct from the airline.

[osandomir]

25 minutes ago, Lane412000 said:

We have already booked bizclass on our own (2 couples), but the third couple do not have the finances to do this and are using the Oceania flights.

If the other couple can fly economy and you know what flights exactly you are on it makes sense to submit deviation request asking for that particular flights. Oceania will notify them wether they can book them on that flights or not and how much is an up charge. Then compare it with DIY options and decide if it worse to pay the deviation fee. Sometimes it may work for your benefit or may not.

[Lane412000]

39 minutes ago, osandomir said:

If the other couple can fly economy and you know what flights exactly you are on it makes sense to submit deviation request asking for that particular flights. Oceania will notify them wether they can book them on that flights or not and how much is an up charge. Then compare it with DIY options and decide if it worse to pay the deviation fee. Sometimes it may work for your benefit or may not.

Thanks for the suggestion. The other couple will fly economy, we are trying to get them on the same flights we are taking so we can do Oceania transfers together to the Oceania hotel.  I will have them contact Oceania to see if flights have been chosen yet and then also submit to Oceania the requested flight deviations to see if those are acceptable to Oceania.

 

Appreciate the suggestions from everyone.....thank you

[osandomir]

7 minutes ago, Lane412000 said:

Thanks for the suggestion. The other couple will fly economy, we are trying to get them on the same flights we are taking so we can do Oceania transfers together to the Oceania hotel.  I will have them contact Oceania to see if flights have been chosen yet and then also submit to Oceania the requested flight deviations to see if those are acceptable to Oceania.

 

Appreciate the suggestions from everyone.....thank you

You are very welcome… but I am a bit confused now. Did you say that you all booked your hotel through Oceania? Im not sure if Oceania provide transfers to that hotel unless you also book your air with them. In any case, are you aware that booking Oceania hotel is always a more expensive option as you pay the price per person but not per room. The “free transfer” is a very little advantage even if you get it when you book your air tickets yourself.

 

I’d suggest you better call Oceania to ask about that and get a confirmation from them.

[Lane412000]

14 minutes ago, osandomir said:

You are very welcome… but I am a bit confused now. Did you say that you all booked your hotel through Oceania? Im not sure if Oceania provide transfers to that hotel unless you also book your air with them.

Yes, we have in the past booked our own air and then booked the Oceania hotels. The hotels come with transfers from the airport upon arrival and then to the port on the day of the cruise.

 

We can book the hotel and transfers on our own, but the previous seven cruises have proven to work great for us, so I guess we will ride the wave as long as it continues to work. 😀

[FlyerTalker]

47 minutes ago, Lane412000 said:

We can book the hotel and transfers on our own, but the previous seven cruises have proven to work great for us, so I guess we will ride the wave as long as it continues to work. 😀

 

Hope that you have seriously crunched the numbers.  I've never seen where cruiseline hotel and transfers are a better deal than booking on your own.

 

 

[osandomir]

1 hour ago, Lane412000 said:

Yes, we have in the past booked our own air and then booked the Oceania hotels. The hotels come with transfers from the airport upon arrival and then to the port on the day of the cruise.

 

We can book the hotel and transfers on our own, but the previous seven cruises have proven to work great for us, so I guess we will ride the wave as long as it continues to work. 😀

Even if it’s not the “best deal” it’s great and more important if it’s what works best for you. I never got to know all the details about Oceania hotels as we normally have enough different hotels points through our credit cards spending to book any hotel we want.

[Flatbush Flyer]

2 hours ago, Lane412000 said:

Thanks for the suggestion. The other couple will fly economy, we are trying to get them on the same flights we are taking so we can do Oceania transfers together to the Oceania hotel.  I will have them contact Oceania to see if flights have been chosen yet and then also submit to Oceania the requested flight deviations to see if those are acceptable to Oceania.

 

Appreciate the suggestions from everyone.....thank you

Just remember that O Air is treated like a TA by air carriers. If there’s a problem requiring rebooking due to delays, missed connections, etc. folks who have used O air will need to connect with O air to make changes. Try that in the middle of the late night with long distance calls to O on US time.

 

[FlyerTalker]

That's not really the big issue.  If there is a need for rebooking, the airline should be your first point of contact to try to fix the problem.  But the issue may be that your ticket will not allow it to be endorsed over to another carrier.  Or that you must follow the same routing, and/or same flight number.  Or any number of "gotchas" in the fare rules.  All because cruiseline tickets are not the same as tickets bought directly from the carrier.

 

The big problem with working through the cruiseline, whomever it may be, is that you are introducing another layer into the resolution.  I have heard too many people who just wanted to rely on the cruiseline to handle any issues.  And they waited.  And waited.  All the while, they could have been working directly with the airline to solve the problem.

 

There is this belief that if I buy my air through the cruiseline, all my issues will be handled by them and I will be able to just sit back and let others handle it.  Well, if that's your goal, go for it.  But know that it's a big, dangerous assumption to take yourself out of the loop.

 

 

[osandomir]

We used to book our own air using airline miles for BIZclass. Unfortunately, it has become more and more difficult to find saver award tickets. Since Oceania introduced Premium Economy to Europe we booked their air whenever we couldn’t find our own. 
 

One time BA cancelled our flight to London two days prior to departure due to the strike. No other BA flight was available. I called my TA and when she checked with Oceania they informed her that we had been already rebooked on another airline with a good routing for the last minute flight change. Oceania had no obligation to do so per their contract, and I don’t think that I would be able to do it myself. We were relieved and very impressed.

 

We’ll continue to book with Oceania if they offer PE at a reasonable price on the flights to Europe. So far I wasn’t able to find one way PE tickets on my own at their price point. At the same time we’ll be saving airline miles for long haul flights in BIZ to Asia etc… where we won’t be offered or satisfied with PE anyway.

Edited August 27, 2023 by osandomir

[FlyerTalker]

5 hours ago, osandomir said:

One time BA cancelled our flight to London two days prior to departure due to the strike. No other BA flight was available. I called my TA and when she checked with Oceania they informed her that we had been already rebooked on another airline with a good routing for the last minute flight change. Oceania had no obligation to do so per their contract, and I don’t think that I would be able to do it myself. We were relieved and very impressed.

 

How do you know it was Oceania that made the change?  BA could very well have proactively rebooked people who were impacted by their strike.

 

 

[osandomir]

5 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

How do you know it was Oceania that made the change?  BA could very well have proactively rebooked people who were impacted by their strike.

 

 

I doubt BA would book everyone affected with a different airline. They offered us nothing. Similar to all that flight cancellations last year. You know when people were stuck in airports for days without any help.

[Flatbush Flyer]

9 minutes ago, osandomir said:

I doubt BA would book everyone affected with a different airline. They offered us nothing. Similar to all that flight cancellations last year. You know when people were stuck in airports for days without any help.

The certainly could assign tix to consortium partners (I think they’re in “One World”).

[FlyerTalker]

6 minutes ago, osandomir said:

I doubt BA would book everyone affected with a different airline. They offered us nothing. Similar to all that flight cancellations last year. You know when people were stuck in airports for days without any help.

 

Airlines will book with other carriers, especially when it is something that is known, like a strike.   And BA has done that in the past.

 

For your information, your BA ticket could not be changed to another carrier without the approval and action of BA.  The carrier needs to endorse the ticket over.

 

But go ahead and believe what you will.

 

 

 

[osandomir]

Just now, FlyerTalker said:

 

Airlines will book with other carriers, especially when it is something that is known, like a strike.   And BA has done that in the past.

 

For your information, your BA ticket could not be changed to another carrier without the approval and action of BA.  The carrier needs to endorse the ticket over.

 

But go ahead and believe what you will.

 

 

 

I appreciate your expertise, but in our case the tickets weren’t changed - the flight was cancelled. We received new tickets with the completely different PNR.

 

And you can continue to trust anyone but Oceania to do the right things.