Princess Air vs. Booking Your Own

[High C's]

Does anyone have any suggestions when booking flights for repositioning cruises? I am specifically interested in flights TO Vancouver and FROM Fort Lauderdale in September. If you go directly to airlines, they consider these "one way flights" and charge an additional fee. Just wondered if it would be better in this instance to book directly through Princess.

 

Any suggestions???? Thanks:)

[spongerob]

We've been in this boat, so to speak. You can book Princess air now, and continue to look for better deals. There are times, however, that Princess provides the best price. You might be looking at pot luck for schedules unless you are willing to pay a deviation fee of $75 pp.

 

It might even be worthwhile looking into a multiple destination (three-leg roundtrip) ticket to make it round trip. Just a thought, I'm not even sure if that would fly.

[parody]

The type of open-jaw or "multi-segment" flights that you need are generally not as costly as they once were because many of the new carriers sell flights on a one-way basis and this forces the legacy airlines to make modifications to the policies that they once followed. Thus, the basic steps still apply. Use an airfare search engine such as itasoftware.com and look for multi-segment flights. Do not go to an airline's website as the first step. Once you have settled on a fare and a particular set of flights that meet your requirements, make a comparison with what the cruiseline is charging for the same type of tickets. Coming from Canada it probably doesn't apply to you, but one may also need to check the Southwest Airline's website as their flights no longer show up on any search engine that I am aware of.

[cruiseryyc]

We are doing the reverse in April, flying into Ft. Lauderdale and home from Vancouver. We booked American Airlines to Ft. L. and WestJet from Vancouver, managed to get seat sales on both flights. Much cheaper than using Princess air.

[High C's]

We are doing the reverse in April, flying into Ft. Lauderdale and home from Vancouver. We booked American Airlines to Ft. L. and WestJet from Vancouver, managed to get seat sales on both flights. Much cheaper than using Princess air.

 

Thanks. It seems from the responses that it won't be the problem that I anticipated. I just know from booking flights last year in Europe, "one way" trips were significantly more $$$. That is why we switched to RCCL for Europe - it offered round trip from Barcelona.

 

I guess I'm just nervous about flights, as we were stranded when we came off of the Caribbean Princess just over a week ago (Mar 12) and found we had no flight home - yes we were on JetsGo!!!!:mad:

[thesaintjim]

Well, we are booking our own flight from pit to lax which was 239 a person compared to princess's quote of nearly 600 per person. We are going down a day earlier just to play safe and enjoy the rest of the day!

[High C's]

Great idea. We have sailed from Fort Lauderdale (except when we did Europe obviously!!:o ) and have always flown in a day ahead. Like you said, it gives you time to unwind from travel and get excited for what lays ahead.

 

Have a great trip!

[iancal]

Any time that we have checked on cruise air it was considerably more money than arranging our own air. In fact, we typically save enough money to pay for a two night hotel pre-cruise stay. My other issue is routing. I want to choose the route-not the cruise line. I don't like paying high fares and ending up on milk run flights or inconvenient hours. I hear that sometimes the cruise fare is great, but this is not our experience. We normally fly a fair distance so the fare savings add up.

[FredS]

You still need to check Princess air costs. Depending on the cruise they can be less that commercial flights. We are on the Manaus, Brazil to Rome, Royal cruise next month and there was no way we could get a lower air fare than what Princess air was going to cost. This was flying out of LAX to Manaus and Rome back to LAX.

[Pam in CA]

Like Fred, I'm on the Manaus to Rome cruise and the airfare from Boston to Manaus and then Rome to Boston would have been prohibitive. Actually, I kind of like the idea of starting the cruise the day before as we all meet at the hotel the night before and get on the Princess charter flights to Manaus.

 

A couple of years ago, we did an Alaskan cruise and using the Princess air was less expensive than booking on our own. We were going Boston to Fairbanks / Vancouver to Boston.

 

For my Sapphire cruise this coming December, I've booked the air through Princess (MHT to LAX) but since I don't have to pay for the cruise until early October, this gives me the flexibility to find something cheaper. If we can't find anything, we know we'll have air.

[maxfield]

We are booked on a transatlantic in April. PCL saved us approximately $600 compared to anything I could find on my own. It's best to check both.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

[parody]

It's best to check both.

 

I'm glad to see that you were able to follow my advice exactly as I posted it above.

[emeyers]

We are booked on the Diamond Princess for a cruise in Australia and New Zealand, plus a 3 night hotel package offered by Princesss in Sydney. The total air portion by Princess from Orlando is $1707. Because we would be flying to Los Angeles on January 27, 2006, and continuing on to Sydney, and we would want direct flights to and from Los Angeles to eliminate change of planes in Chicago or Denver, we requested air deviation and direct flights, expecting just the $75 per person deviation charge. We could book on our own for the total air to Sydney and from Auckland, N.Z. for $1866 per person. Imagine my reaction when Princess asked for $2101, total deviation charges of $394 p.p. They would not listen to reason, quoting higher class of air as they contract for lowest possible classes. As a note, we would be using United Airlines, and Princess would probably be using the same flights to and from the cruise cities.

 

Ellis

[maxfield]

I'm glad to see that you were able to follow my advice exactly as I posted it above.

 

I have never gone with PCL on any of our previous cruises without a thorough search of the internet and working with my TA. I don't like to pay more than I have to!

[iancal]

I also find the cruise line pre cruise hotel rates very high-especially Princess. We can usually save 40 percent and often more by booking the same or similar hotel direct, on the web, or through Priceline. Last month in FLA, we got three nights at the Mariiott for the less that the price that Princess was charging for one night..

[WAVTAM]

I agree that comparsion is the way to go. We mostly do are own air but Princess actually beat any Kayak,Sidestep, etc, when booking Lax to Syndey on Quantas by $100. We also paid no air deviation fee. WAVTAM

[Richard Stein]

If the cruise leave and arrives at the same city I do my own. I usually pay half what they want, get there a day early and use the extra money on a motel. Otherwise I use them. I like Celebrity because they do a free custom air for Captain Club members, Princess charges $75 for the same thing.

[MCManders99]

Check with Princess to see what price they charge. I am going this May from Cleveland to Vancouver then from Anchorage to Vegas to Cleveland. Princess quoted me about $750pp. I went onto Orbitz for Multi-City and got that same exact itinerary for $590pp. Much cheaper on my own. You just have to shop all the different websites.