Experience with NCL air please

[catbro]

I am considering booking a cruise from Lisbon to Canary Islands and Morocco for Oct 25. The free airfare option for second traveler comes to $1300 for both travelers from PHL or $1200 from EWR, both doable from our home. Google flights looks to be about $830 per person so a bit of a savings. 

 

What has been your experiences with this option. We would want to travel to Lisbon minimum of 2 days prior to embarkation and preferably 3. Can they deny such a request and then you're stuck with the flights? How far in advance are you notified of your flights. The booking also shows $150 for ground transportation is this from the airport to the cruise terminal on arrival and can they remove that if we are arriving two days early. 

 

Would love to hear your experiences good, bad and ugly. Thanks.

[cruiseny4life]

Do a search for "BOGO"...you'll get results. Lots of results. Here are just a few of the dozens of results.

 

The Bad: 

Mostly good (including my experiences): 

Again, mostly good and look at the poll at the top. Lots of people happy!

Another thread: 

 

Specific to deviations:

 

 

If you do book NCL BOGO Air, do yourself a huge favor and read (and understand) the details: https://www.ncl.com/air-service-standards

 

[DCGuy64]

10 minutes ago, catbro said:

I am considering booking a cruise from Lisbon to Canary Islands and Morocco for Oct 25. The free airfare option for second traveler comes to $1300 for both travelers from PHL or $1200 from EWR, both doable from our home. Google flights looks to be about $830 per person so a bit of a savings. 

 

What has been your experiences with this option. We would want to travel to Lisbon minimum of 2 days prior to embarkation and preferably 3. Can they deny such a request and then you're stuck with the flights? How far in advance are you notified of your flights. The booking also shows $150 for ground transportation is this from the airport to the cruise terminal on arrival and can they remove that if we are arriving two days early. 

 

Would love to hear your experiences good, bad and ugly. Thanks.

We had a great experience and are doing it again. Yes, they'll remove the transfer fees, not only if you do the deviation (maximum 2 days, BTW), but even if you don't. Since they won't allow you to do more than 2 days, I'd look at the cost savings and decide whether it's worth it to you versus flying in 3 days early. That is something only you can decide.

[Sailing12Away]

The most you can do is a 2 day deviation. If you request a deviation they give you a $50 credit because it makes it easier for them to find flights that won't cause you to miss the cruise.

 

Just look at the types of flight options you have on your own first. If there's a nice direct flight for $1000/pp or a less ideal flight with 1-2 layovers and changes it from an 8hr flight to 12+ hours - you can almost bet money that NCL will be putting you on that cheaper and less desirable flight.

 

It honestly depends on what you're comfortable with. We've done the B1G1 free airfare a half dozen times and up until the most recent have never had a problem. In all but one flight we were able to pay extra to the airline when we got our record locator number and upgrade to comfort plus seats. The last trip was our longest, flying home to NY from London so an ~8.5 hr flight - and that one we couldn't upgrade at all.

 

So the rules about picking your seats, being able to upgrade or not - it all depends on the specific air carrier the flight is booked with. You have no say in that. You have no say in the time of the flight or how many layovers (they'll limit it to <2). You can't change your mind and say no if you don't like them once assigned. If you're equidistant to both PHL or EWR, you technically don't have a say in that either as they can put you out of either one if they're within I believe 50 miles of your preference. 

 

If you don't care about where you sit, when you fly, having extra legroom (or butt room for those of us fluffier travelers), or anything else - then yes, go ahead and cash in on those savings. In your case the savings isn't big enough for me to take that chance on an international flight based on our recent trip. Domestic, yes, I'll keep using them. But for long haul trips - nope, I want control of that going forward.

[ontheweb]

Know this about the transfers they add on, (I'm assuming it's the same as we had for London), they will only transfer from the airport to the cruise, not from the city itself. 

 

So, your options if you keep their transfers are to get a hotel near the airport (which we did), or go back to the airport from your hotel to get the transfer bus.

[victory2020]

I fly from LA to Europe & have always had good flights.

[itsnotjustme]

For a price difference of just around $400, I would not consider NCL air.

 

I like being in control of flight times, airlines, seat, etc.

[mistertomatoe]

A few hours before my flight NCL sent a confirmation with the wrong flight time!  Maybe it's a JetBlue thing but I guess I should double and triple check everything and do it often. Having a middleman isn't always a good thing.

 

[schmoopie17]

19 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

If you're equidistant to both PHL or EWR, you technically don't have a say in that either as they can put you out of either one if they're within I believe 50 miles of your preference. 

Are you sure about that? For example, we're equidistant between ORD and MKE. When we book NCL BOGO, they always ask which airport we want. We choose ORD, since there are far more choices of direct or non-stop flights, especially overseas. They always assign ORD...even though it would probably be cheaper for them to put you on flights with worse times and with more connections out of MKE.

 

 

Edited April 27 by schmoopie17

[julig22]

3 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

Are you sure about that? For example, we're equidistant between ORD and MKE. When we book NCL BOGO, they always ask which airport we want. We choose ORD, since there are far more choices of direct or non-stop flights, especially overseas. They always assign ORD...even though it would probably be cheaper for them to put you on flights with worse times and with more connections out of MKE.

 

 

Yes, when you choose the flight option and your gateway, you choose the city. In the past, the terms did say they could substitute if there was another airport within 50 miles, but I no longer see that in the terms.

But you don't get a choice of destination airports.

[Sailing12Away]

3 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

Are you sure about that? For example, we're equidistant between ORD and MKE. When we book NCL BOGO, they always ask which airport we want. We choose ORD, since there are far more choices of direct or non-stop flights, especially overseas. They always assign ORD...even though it would probably be cheaper for them to put you on flights with worse times and with more connections out of MKE.

 

 

Yup. Since you're near a fairly big airport you probably don't have an issue. But when I put down JFK, they can technically make me go out of Newark if they wanted to. It's again part of the risk of using the discount program.