AirFlight Issues

[EACPAG]

I have the "free" airfare with an upcoming Oceania Cruise.

The flights provided by Oceania are over-night flights.

The flight returning home doesn't leave Miami until 5:40PM.

It's a 10 hour flight (2 hour layover) to SFO.

 

I've spoken to my TA and they have spoken to the Oceania

supervisor for the flight arrangements.

Oceania won't change the flights unless we pay the flight deviation fee.

 

Anyone know of anyway to have Oceania book us better departing times?

I know there are much better flight times available from Miami to SFO.

I don't feel Oceania is giving us very good customer service on this issue.

 

Thanks for any comments on this issue.

[neepawa]

When we have used Oceania Air, we gave our TA our preferred airline, dates and routing. In most cases, we got what we asked for. In other cases when we wanted to arrive a day early or stay a few days post-cruise, we paid the deviation fee and again got what we wanted.

It would help if you indicated where you are flying to and returning from.

Cheers,

Don

[ORV]

 

 

Anyone know of anyway to have Oceania book us better departing times?

 

Not trying to be a smart aleck but it looks like to get what you want you'll have to pay the deviation fee. We all know going in that you could be assigned any flight with any routing. To get the route you want it costs extra, it's pretty simple.

[YoHoHo]

Without more information I am making a few assumptions here. It is unfortunate that your TA did not tell you that unless you request certain flights or want to review them before having them booked you need to request the deviation and pay the fee for that service. Otherwise you will of course, get whatever is assigned to you.

 

The problem now of course is that it's getting close to when your cruise sails. Not a lot of time left to book airline seats. That had nothing to do with O but with the airline's availability. I am assuming that being as you have your flights assigned you've made final payment and so are less then 90 days away from sailing. So that would be somewhere the beginning of January and that might work in your favour with having some flights with available seats.

 

That said, consider what you're getting and what you're wanting. We are also on the West Coast and our return flights out of Miami unfortunately always involve a stopover. Also you have to consider there is a three-hour time difference when you're speaking of your 'overnight' flight.

 

If you're leaving at 17:45 and it's a 10 hour trip you'd be arriving at 03:45. That means to not be an 'overnight' flight you have to leave four hours earlier. And at that would be a fine line whether arriving at midnight is still part of that 'overnight' definition so let's say you need to leave five hours earlier to arrive at 22:45 and it not be an overnight flight.

 

Assuming the same ten hours travel time that means your flight out of Miami would leave that 12:45 and so you would need to be at the airport by 10:45. Based on my experience with the Miami cruise terminal I wouldn't want a flight any earlier.

 

So my suggestion is you contact your TA or do the flight research yourself at a user-friendly site such as kayak.com and see what is available in that 5 hour window between 12:45 and your already assigned 17:45. You can then get an idea of what is available and decide if paying the deviation plus any flight differential less any airfare credit from O (if still given at this point) and decide if it's worth requesting a deviation to that flight.

 

As I said it's unfortunate that your TA didn't communicate this better to you or you could have done this research ahead of time so you would know your options rather than suffering the disappointment at this late date.

[Hawaiidan]

Pay the $150pp for the air devation fee if you want to pick flights.

 

Be aware too that the flights you pick may also require you to pay an additional fare if it exceeds what Oceania got the flight for.

 

There is no free lunch.;)

[EACPAG]

The flight is from Miami to SFO on Jan. 3.

Just very unsatisfied with Oceania's flights.

The flight they scheduled on doesn't leave Miami until 5:40PM

and then gets into SFO at 12:15AM.

I've been on Oceania before and received much better flying times.

So, I expected that when I booked this cruise the flights would

be about the same to last time.

[Tansy Mews]

We paid the air deviation fee. A small price to pay, we thought. No other charges were made and we got reasonable timelines.

 

Lots of recent discussion of air deviation on this board -

use Search This Thread and look for air deviation.

 

As for finding good flights, another source is the ITA Matrix Airfare Search.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com

Remember to look for one-way if this is the case for your cruise.

We were restricted to certain airlines for our itinerary. It was a dialogue between us, our TA and Oceania.

[Benita]

Jet Blue and Virgin America both have nonstops between Ft. Lauderdale and San Francisco. Ft. Lauderdale airport is a similar distance from the pier as the Miami airport.

[Tansy Mews]

Jet Blue and Virgin America both have nonstops between Ft. Lauderdale and San Francisco. Ft. Lauderdale airport is a similar distance from the pier as the Miami airport.

It is always possible that Oceania might still give you some money and you could arrange and pay for your own flights. Usually you would do this much earlier in the game though.