Using Custom Air? (How to avoid bad experience next time)

[tchix]

Hi folks,

 

We've never sailed X before, but it came highly recommended by friends. We booked a 14 night holiday sailing from Auckland to Sydney. Because we live on the East Coast of the US (making it a 22-24 hour trip at best) and are traveling with 2 toddlers, I really wanted an air deviation to make sure we had one connection (for example DC to LA to Auckland) and did not have long layovers.

 

So I started calling Custom Air in Jan of this year. I was told they could definitely help me, but that they would have to wait until the 2009 rates were loaded into their system. So sometime in February, I emailed them to ask if the rates were in and what they could offer me. They offered me flights to AND from Sydney (cruise leaves out of Auckland) for an additional supplement money. I called to figure this out, and I was told that they had no idea why I'd be booked into Sydney and it would be early March before they had their NZ rates- I waited a few weeks, and when I called back at the beginning of March, I was told the end of March. they also told me to make an email request with the flights I wanted, and those requests would be handled on a first-come, first-serve basis once the 2009 rates were loaded.

 

So I did (email them with specific flights and a note saying please proces this after rates are loaded). I received an email back saying NZ 005 is not in their rates, so my custom request was declined. Sigh. I emailed them back asking them to hold it until after the rates were in. No response. About a week later, my traveling companions (on different reservations) called and were able to get the exact flights I had asked for with no extra cost (beyond the $75 fee). I was on a cruise ship (ironically), and wasn't going to pay ship to shore rates to call them (in hindsight I should have) but was able to send them an email within hours noting that my travelling companions had gotten the exact flights I had asked for so it looked like the rates were finally loaded and could we be booked on them too. By the time I checked my email the next day, I received the exact same response I had before- that Flight 005 was not in their contracted rates. AUGH! By this time I knew it was- my friends were on it! (they weren't saying it was sold out, just repeating what they had said earlier when the rates weren't yet loaded).

 

So when I got home from the cruise 3 days later, I called and spoke to someone who said that flight 005 was fine- they could book me on that flight, but they couldn't book our return because they could not find any seats in the rate classes that they use, and that must mean that

they haven't opened the seats up yet or they were sold out. I told them about my friends, and they said that maybe they had grabbed the only open seats in that rate class. She said she would keep looking and call me back. 2 days later, she called back and said she still couldn't find any seats for us to fly back. In desperation, i had gotten my friends' confirmation number and asked the agent to look up what had been done for them. She looked and said "oh, they used a different rate class. I didnt look for that one. Let me check." So she checks and says "oh there ARE seats. But they are now an extra 800 per person." Um, no. And up until yesterday, when we cancelled our cruise, they did not have anything they could book me on with just one stop. To top it off, another of our traveling companions who did not use custom air was able to get the desired flights through her regular travel agent for about the same price as the cruise add-on air. Sigh.

 

Now

I know this has turned into a rant, and I'm sorry. It was just soooooo frustrating, especially when the agent clearly just retyped what she had written earlier and did not even check to see if things were different. And when they first tried to book me into a city 5 hours away by air from where we were actually sailing from. And then the second agent, who didn't even know how to check all the rate classes- maybe my traveling companions got the last seats, but I doubt it, since seats were still available when they finally checked the right place a week later...

 

Anyway, sorry about the rant. I was so excited about the cruise, but I just couldn't pay more for air than I did for the actual 2 week cruise (700pp might not seem like much, but 3100 is alot). I've heard great things about celebrity and still really look forward to trying them soon. I just wanted to know if anyone else had had issues with custom air, whether this kind of thing is typical, and if anyone had any tips for making the process go more smoothly when i next tr to sail on X. i thought I was doing the right thing by checking in regularly, being knowledgeable about the flights I wanted etc- what else should i do? And does anyone know if there is a place where I can write a letter to inform celebrity of my experience? I don't expect them to do anything about it now, but I do think they should know that the whether you are successful with the custom air service seems to depend so heavily on what agent you get...

[Lsimon]

Try using a TA.

 

We use a travel agent with lots of experience dealing with Celebrity. On our first Celebrity Air booking for our upcoming trans Atlantic, we gave our TA a list of flights we wanted. She did all the contact and back and forth with Celebrity for us. The flights we wanted ended were not available at a reasonable up charge from them, but she came back with a few similar flights for no additional charge and we took one of those. Now I don't know if this would have helped in your situation or not but you might want to consider it in the future.

[tchix]

Thanks! I'm a bit new to the custom air thing (we usually do our own thing because it tends to be cheaper- but when traveling at the holidays, it isn't). I didn't realize that we could use custom air AND a travel agent- that's good to know! I ended up using a TA that specializes in cruises to book our "replacement" cruise, so maybe we'll do that with X too! Thanks!!!

[Lsimon]

Thanks! I'm a bit new to the custom air thing (we usually do our own thing because it tends to be cheaper

 

Same for us - this upcoming cruise is our first using cruise air - seemed like the best idea for the Trans Atlantic cruise although we'll re-evaluate as the cruise gets closer.

[junglejane]

Tchix: I tried to use Celebrity Custom Air for our Venice to Barcelona cruise and gave up in frustration. We too are traveling with young children and I felt it was essential to have only one connection. I knew from doing my own online research that there were basically only three ways to get to my destination (PHX-VCE) with only one connection. Celebrity kept stalling and stalling on giving me a quote, so I finally booked my own air. I was going through a TA, too.

 

There's a very helpful "sticky" at the top of the Cruise Air forum that tells you a lot about cruise air deviation and the pitfalls of using it. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=530322. I'm sure it can work out sometimes, especially with a transatlantic, but it seems that more often than not you're better off on your own. For our upcoming British Isles cruise, I booked Princess air as a "back up" but will also check out booking directly when fares for July 2009 come out from the airlines.

 

--Junglejane

[greatam]

A couple of things:

 

Most cruise lines book blocks of tickets a year in advance-generally 330 days pre flight. The airline MAY ONLY allow the cruise line to book XXX seats on YYY flight at ZZZ price. Your traveling companions most likely did get some of the few seats available on YYY flight. At that point in time, any additional seats requested by the cruise line will be in a higher fare class-generally a MUCH higher fare class.

 

Please be aware that "cruise air/air deviation" (those with NO upcharge to fare) tickets are booked in Consolidator Class. What it means to you: IF there is a problem-doesn't matter what-and you miss your flight or mis connect, your tickets are NON ENDORSABLE-they have NO value to another carrier. You cannot use your cruise air tickets to board another carrier. You are essentially STUCK while the originating carrier finds space available seating for you. Could be within a few hours or could be a couple of days.

 

Read through the first part of this thread. It will explain a lot of the mysteries of cruise air and why some people report fabulous experiences and some people are left waiting at the dock.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=530322

 

 

 

To the OP:

 

IF you decide to do the Australia/New Zealand cruise, you MAY be able to save quite a bit of money booking a SEPARATE ticket from the East Coast to Los Angeles/San Francisco. Then a ticket to Australia/New Zealand. And with two toddlers, I would recommend AirPacific. The plane stops for about 4 hours in Fiji. Gives the kids just enough time to get off the plane early in the morning, stretch their legs and gear up for the last few hours to Australia or New Zealand. If this is of interest or for your replacement cruise, please go to the Cruise Air board, post your departing airport, destination, times and dates. You will get a lot of help.

[Jade13]

Hi folks,

 

quote]

 

Yes, we had a bad experiance with the custom air department, and it was included in a letter I sent off to Celebrity yesterday. In the end we booked our own air and did pay more for the air than the cruise. I would not have written just about that but we had an overall poor customer service experiance and I just wanted Celebrity to know. There were good things about our cruise but the pre-cruise customer service experiance was the pits.

 

Just a note that if flights aren't available, they aren't available, but we were e-mailed exactly what we wanted (to fly into Miami a day early), confirmed by e-mail (with the note they needed to add my DH), and when we followed up days later when I did not hear back nothing at all was available to fly in a day early (with any number of connections).

 

If I ever get a chance to finish and post my review I will, and my custom air experiance will be noted.

 

If people do not write, Celebrity will never know of these issues.

 

Btw, I used Custom Air to Alaska with HAL, and got exactly what I wanted (saved a little from booking on my own - but more importantly air is covered under HAL's cancel for any reason Vacation Protection Plan at no additional cost) and without any agravation.

[wrk2cruise]

We tend to book cruise air as a backup for things like Aus/NZ or T/A as we generally book way in advance sometimes before the air opens up and we want to lock in the upper bounds on prices.

 

Our travel agent then tries custom air and her other ties her agency is associated with. For both Aus/NZ and our up coming T/A she has been able to get the best fare and flights getting an "Air/Sea" rate from her association with these other agencies.

 

This is where a good travel agent provides their value. I'll give up a couple hundred $$ OBC used by some on-line agencies to lure clients to have a local agent who can save me $1000 on the air I want while I sit in her office.

 

I agree with the previous post about combining a separate domestic ticket to get to the west coast with a LA or San Fransisco to NZ/Aus round trip. That's where we were able to get the deal on the air/sea.

[tchix]

Thanks everyone for your advice. It seems like custom air is generally hit or miss, and that a TA is a good in conjunction.

 

Also, Just wanted to say (meant to in my first post) that I am not upset that they did not have the flights- i know that especially for that time of year it's a possibility that they might not have what I wanted or that they would go quickly. What I'm upset about is that I'll never know if the flights were available or not because one agent didnt even bother to check, and the other agent didn't know what they were supposed to be checking. That and that I got a different answer every time I called! :)

[LunaSeaRetreat]

Perhaps I was more successful because I didn't have a specific flight I wanted. I just knew what I didn't want.

I usually book cruise air when I make my reservations and then look around for better air prices and connections. This is only our second Celebrity cruise so I’ve never used their custom air before. We are flying out of Philadelphia. At first they wanted to send us on Delta to JFK and then on to BCN. Since we are going two days early, that would have meant flying into JFK on the busiest travel day of the year. I told the agent I wanted to go straight overseas. I ended up on British Air. We leave at 7 PM and after a plane change in LHR we arrive in BCN at 12:30 PM the next day. There was no additional charge to the original price. I was very pleased. I didn’t bother with the SJU-PHL on December 13 because I didn’t care, but when the confirmation came through they had booked me on a direct flight with British Air leaving San Juan at 1:50 PM. I don’t see how I could have picked a better flight. The only potential problem is that I don't have seat assignments on the flight to BCN. I have to check in on line no more than 24 hours in advance to get my seats.

[Spender Nui]

Don't apologize for the rant. I think you're entitled.