Princess eZAir

[Cruiseboy86]

If you live in the upper mid west, Princess eZAir ain't that easy. We are doing a Tahiti cruise on the Ocean Princess next Feb. Some days the eZAir site can't even find us any flights and when it does the connections are lousy and and the prices are literally thousands of dollars more than booking on our own. I know...I know...this is not a huge problem in the big scheme of things, Princess can only offer what the airlines contract with them, and I should go ahead and book our own flights. I do worry about the possibility of winter weather delaying our flights. I sometimes hate where I live because it really impairs my ability to cruise.

[timetravler]

I used EZ air once with no problems other then the fact that the flight was a red eye, but I did choose it, so I certainly do not fault Princess. But I most likely will not use EZ air again as your correct about pricing. You can do better by booking your flight on your own if you know where to look. It does take some computer time to research flight best for you. BTW, if I am doing a cruise in the wintertime, I would certainly worry about flight delays and would make sure I arrive at the port city at least one day in advance, maybe two days. More then once I have seen people flying from places like Colorado not make their cruise because of bad weather. I don't take any chances anymore. In fact even when flying during any time of the year, I still go the day before unless the flight is like a one hour flight.

[highheel girl]

We have found that booking air on our own is alot cheaper then using Princess air, not to mention finding the better connections if necessary. :)

[biker1972]

What about delays and booking yourself bothers you? Those flight through EzAir would be delayed as well. If you are thinking that Princess will guarantee getting you to the ship, watch out. They may work with an airline to get you on a flight, but they may not be able to get you on the next flight with a different airline because the ticket you have is non-endorsable. You are better on your own. Check the Cruise Air board for more info and help.

[Cruisedreamer1]

I tried booking on the Princess site and had problems so I called Princess and with their help found a better flight. Then yesterday I got an email advising me that my flight departure time had been changed from 8 am to 10:40 am which makes it better for our arrival to LAX.

[OhioDogLover]

We always book out own flights. However, I was wondering if anyone had used EZAir to Europe. Are the prices competitive/better than what I can get? Europe flights have become really high, although there are some pretty good deals advertised recently.

Thanks,

Ohiodoglover

[Matcodixon]

We always book out own flights. However, I was wondering if anyone had used EZAir to Europe. Are the prices competitive/better than what I can get? Europe flights have become really high, although there are some pretty good deals advertised recently.

Thanks,

Ohiodoglover

I searched every website I could to try to get the best rate for our trip to Europe for our Grand Mediterranean cruise out of Venice in August. We return from Barcelona so this created a couple of very expensive one ways. I even looked at the possibility of taking a short flight or a train to a major airport in Europe to avoid the one way pricing. We booked with eZair and saved over $1000. We have great flights with a single stop in Philadelphia to change planes. We are flying from San Francisco.

 

Regarding Tahiti. When we did that cruise we flew via Tahitian airlines from LAX. This was a great experience, and a great airline. They go very few places. Getting to LAX is easy from most places in the US, so I would advise possibly coming in the day before and spending the night at a hotel by the airport. We drove from wine country and as we were traveling as a group of 4 it was cheaper to do that than to fly. We got a park and fly deal from the hotel in LA.

 

Have a great time in the Polynesian Islands. Have a Bloody Mary at Bloody Mary's on Bora Bora. :cool:

[highheel girl]

I searched every website I could to try to get the best rate for our trip to Europe for our Grand Mediterranean cruise out of Venice in August. We return from Barcelona so this created a couple of very expensive one ways. I even looked at the possibility of taking a short flight or a train to a major airport in Europe to avoid the one way pricing. We booked with eZair and saved over $1000. We have great flights with a single stop in Philadelphia to change planes. We are flying from San Francisco.

 

 

I agree 100%.

I forgot to mention that any overseas cruise would be a situation that I would seriously look into booking the air through Princess. ;)

[shipsealand]

I agree that Princess Air (EZAir) is much better when looking at flying into one city and leaving on another. Especially for Europe. The prices are way too high if booking on your own one way each way. With the newer version of Princess Air, you can pick your flight time vs cost. This is much improved over the older version where you only knew your flight details way to late and there was not much you could do about it if not to your liking.

[jff50]

I agree that Princess Air (EZAir) is much better when looking at flying into one city and leaving on another. Especially for Europe. The prices are way too high if booking on your own one way each way. With the newer version of Princess Air, you can pick your flight time vs cost. This is much improved over the older version where you only knew your flight details way to late and there was not much you could do about it if not to your liking.

Do you look at 2 separate one-way bookings, or do you look at a muti city booking?

Two one way bookings are much more expensive than one multi city booking for the same itinerary. I suspect that an independent multi city booking would generate a lower price than Princess EZ air. I'll be looking at it both ways for my sailing from Buenos Aires to Santiago next year.

[Bowie MeMe]

If you live in the upper mid west, Princess eZAir ain't that easy. We are doing a Tahiti cruise on the Ocean Princess next Feb. Some days the eZAir site can't even find us any flights and when it does the connections are lousy and and the prices are literally thousands of dollars more than booking on our own. I know...I know...this is not a huge problem in the big scheme of things, Princess can only offer what the airlines contract with them, and I should go ahead and book our own flights. I do worry about the possibility of winter weather delaying our flights. I sometimes hate where I live because it really impairs my ability to cruise.

 

I love where I live because there are 3 huge airports (DCA -the best because Congress type folks have to get home;IAD major hub for international; BWI because it is a major east coast hub for Southwest thus prices are/used to be cheaper).

 

I find that sometimes breaking things up to separate legs really works to my advantage. Fly from home area or drive to nearest "hub" perhaps stay overnight in hotel and park and fly deal. Then get cheapest to west coast. That is a late night flight (or it was when I took it many years ago) and there are only a few that fly into that airport. It is not so major!

 

Google ITA software and see all the various possiblities that you can put together. TA used to do this for you now it is a DIY job but very fun. Read the sticky on EZ air on the Cruise air section for eye opening opinions on EZ air. I would be shocked if you can not book your own tickets at a lower price and matching your needs better than EZ air. Don't forget to add to your travel insurance amount to cover your airfare. If you are hesitant, post your flight plans on the board and OP's that fly so much they have sprouted wings will let you know if your plans will fly. Good Luck.

[go sea]

I'm taking the CORAL from San Petro to Ft Lauderdale and live in Cincinnati. To fly Delta none stop to LAX ,then non stop from Fll back to Cincinnati with Delta cost over $1000.00. The EZ Air from Princess is just over $500.00 for the same flights. Over 1/2 price !

[go sea]

I forgot to add the the flight times were 9am and 12:35pm

[Cruiseboy86]

Thanks for all of the input. We've decided to book air on our own. Just to give you a couple of examples of what we were facing, flights out of Minneapolis were $3800 per person and out of Des Moines it was $5388 per person...that's insane.

[SPARKLE10]

Hi:):

 

We live in Des Moines and we've been on 65 cruises over the past 25 years; and a lot of times, our flights are more expensive than our cruises.:confused:

 

We cruise mostly with Princess and RCCL; after trying Carnival, NCL, and once on Disney.

 

We keep saying we're going to move to Florida to just be near one of their 5 cruise ports....we're still thinking about it.

 

It's always been very expensive to fly out of Des Moines. We took an Hawaiian cruise on RCCL last September and flew from here to MN I think it was and then onto Vancouver (I know we didn't have a direct flight to Vancouver, but I can't remember for sure if it was MN) anyway, we took the ship over to Hawaii and then flew back to Des Moines from there, and our airfare was more than our 11 day cruise. I would love to live in Florida where we could cruise even more than we do now.:D

 

Good luck finding good air fare. :rolleyes:

Happy Cruising....Sparkle 10 (Anita)

[jeno]

We are on the Emerald TA from Ft Lauderdale to Copenhagen. We live in Florida so only needed the one way return. The flights were $2800 to $3800 on our own. We got them for about $750 through EZ Air. We got the tickets that could be changed until 40 or 45 days out. We kept tweaking our flights and prices as they became available and really are happy with the end result.