Choice Air

[reunion cruiser]

Choice Air ? Good or bad experience?

[suec12]

I called and got a price for my upcoming Oct. trip but it was no better than I can book on my own and not as convenient or on my airline of choice. I was trying to use the website but seemed to have trouble getting my dates to pull up flights, there did not seem to be many choices. They were very helpful on the phone tho.

[Ms Understood]

I booked our flights for our upcoming Nov cruise using FF miles. My sister used Choice Air bec of the $500 credit being offered. She is booked on the same flights as me so nothing to complain about as same flights we would have booked anyway and the $500 pp is a gift!

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Helen

[tgg]

I tried to use Choice Air, but their pricing did not include flights from the airport in my city. By the time I added a connecting flight, I found that I could do better pricewise on my own. I was also able to choose better flight times. Choice Air didn't offer many choices.

[YoHoHo]

When I price out vacations I want to include air fare in the calculations.

 

Other cruise lines I have looked at I can price with and without air or get an indication of the amount of a credit if their 'free air' is not taken.

 

How can I do this with Azamara? It looks to me that I cannot get a price from their Choice Air web site until after I have booked.

 

A while back I was close to making a booking but the air fare part really confused. Cruise A did not offer air at all but Cruise B did while Cruise C offered air but in that case not from my nearest gateway, etc.

 

I know how I can get get pricing if purchasing my own flights but if there is an offer such as '$500 off air fare' for an Azamara cruise, how can I tell what the discount will be deducted from if I cannot view the offerings on Choice Air?

[schmidlapp]

Well, here's my choice air experience..

Last winter we booked a back to back on the Journey for Sept 2010 thru an online agency at what we thought was a great price. As most of you know, Azamara then came out with the $500 choice air promo and $500 shipboard credit. After calculating the price with the credits, we decided to cancel our online agency booking and re book with a local agency that said yes we could get the choice air $500 pp air credit for each segment of the b2b. (the online agency said it could not be done) We put our money down and found out that choice air is limited choice air. We had a hard time getting the flights we wanted that showed up all the time on sites like Kayak. We were also told by one choice air reservation agent we could not get the second $500 credit.

To make a long story short, our agent stepped in and re confirmed what was told her about the credit, and we almost got the flights we wanted.

in order to get the second $500 pp choice air credit we had to book 2 one way tickets which gave very limited flight choices for similar money to a round trip ticket.

Bottom line is if you have a simple normal booking they may be ok,

but they are not well trained as the b2b threw them for a loop.

We now have the same option for our Jan 2011 Asia trip on the Quest as Azamara came out with a choice air and shipboard credit for these sailings too.

We decided not to change to their new promo as we

got business class air thru our local agent for about 40% less than what it was pricing out a choice air. This difference ate up more than the new promo would have saved us, especially since we booked our balcony at

$2,699 pp and now it is pricing at over $4000.00 pp. but of course with the promo being offererd. We really are learing to crunch the numbers as

sometimes promos can be a savings and sometimes they are like a shell game...

[Jade13]

We now have the same option for our Jan 2011 Asia trip on the Quest as Azamara came out with a choice air and shipboard credit for these sailings too.

We decided not to change to their new promo as we

got business class air thru our local agent for about 40% less than what it was pricing out a choice air. This difference ate up more than the new promo would have saved us, especially since we booked our balcony at

$2,699 pp and now it is pricing at over $4000.00 pp. but of course with the promo being offererd. We really are learing to crunch the numbers as

sometimes promos can be a savings and sometimes they are like a shell game...

 

I would have guessed a promo with $500.00 OBC would have been for new rates only (did you get the $500.00 OBC with the old pricing?), but they should encourage you to use their air if they still make a profit.

 

It sounds like the Choice Air promo needs to notate it is one $500.00 discount (or whatever) for one round trip, not that you get double off if you are doing a btb, because the cost of your air is the same (whether or not it is open jaw).

[schmidlapp]

Yes, we had to cancel at the old rate and book at the new higher rate.

Thats why getting the $500pp air credit applied to both of the b2b's was critical or there would have been no savings to switch.

We ended up with about a $500 bottom line savings by switching.

If we only got the $500pp on one leg we would have spent an extra $500.

We were a bit nervous after cancelling when one Choice Air agent told us we would get only one credit not the 2 that were promised our local travel agent. Luckily she documented everything and got us the promised credits. We also got the $500 onboard per cabin per segment credit too.

One thing I am hoping to find out is if we can carry any of the first weeks

$500 over to the second if there is any left?

Our total credits ended up for the b2b of $2000 for air and $1000 shipboard.

[Jade13]

Yes, we had to cancel at the old rate and book at the new higher rate.

Thats why getting the $500pp air credit applied to both of the b2b's was critical or there would have been no savings to switch.

We ended up with about a $500 bottom line savings by switching.

If we only got the $500pp on one leg we would have spent an extra $500.

We were a bit nervous after cancelling when one Choice Air agent told us we would get only one credit not the 2 that were promised our local travel agent. Luckily she documented everything and got us the promised credits. We also got the $500 onboard per cabin per segment credit too.

One thing I am hoping to find out is if we can carry any of the first weeks

$500 over to the second if there is any left?

Our total credits ended up for the b2b of $2000 for air and $1000 shipboard.

 

Interesting. One thing to also mention is to look at the non "Choice Air" rate. Azamara's negotiated rate to Dubai and return from Athens (middle east and open jaw) from the US for their April cruise is rock bottom (I'm told by the experts on the Cruise Air Section of this board) at $1,300.00pp. We went ahead and booked our own at not that much less for the one round trip which had to be coordinated with one free ticket using FFmiles. I think the costs will be going up but the cruise lines negotiated rate will remain.

 

We also needed air for a HAL cruise in August (Canada) and their flight was the same price we could get on our own. Short story is we purchased the flights ourselves but with hindsight might have gone through the cruise line because we ended up getting our insurance through HAL when they changed their policy earlier this year and Platinum Plan can be paid at final payment AND includes pre-existing conditions AND includes cancel for any reason up until 24 hours and get back 90% on your credit card. Our air is not purchased through them is not insured.

[schmidlapp]

The whole deal was pretty interesting as I was on Kayak checking out independent air, then having the TA check out what choice air wanted before we switched. Our Choice Air one ways ended up at $550pp from ORD to FCO (Rome) and then about $620pp from IST to ORD. This ended up very close to what we could get on Kayak as a multicity fare. As I said before we did have limited return flights from Istanbul to choose from, a 6:30 am departure instead of the 8:30 am using Turkish air and United. We still get back to Chicago within a half hour of what we wanted. The 6:30 am will not be fun.... One other thing our TA got us that the online agency did not was the $300 discount for B2B which Mr Pimental was talking about a while back.

It turns out we had to ask for this discount as if I remember it was not automatically applied.

I guess you really have to do legwork and homework if you are thinking of using the Choice Air promos....