Booking FlightEase on your own?

[tartanmum]

Just back from a lovely 2 week Panama Cruise and looking into booking another HAL cruise for the Fall. Although we have always just booked on our own through the Holland America website, this past trip we used one of HAL's PCC and were very disappointed with the service we received. Many small errors that added up and just poor customer service overall. Even the PCC on the most recent cruise was completely useless and seemed to have little desire to help us when we went to book another cruise.

 

Looking ahead to a Fall cruise I would be happy to just sign into the website and do it all on my own but I do want to use HAL's FlightEase service. I played around a bit online yesterday but it doesn't seem that I can even access flight information and prices without talking to a PCC. Is this correct? Are you able to book the cruise now and then just phone a PCC closer to the travel date to arrange flights through FlightEase. Depending on work/school schedules we may be able to add more extra nights before/after cruise but we won't know this until 6 - 8 weeks before the cruise leaves.

[Dietemann]

 

Looking ahead to a Fall cruise I would be happy to just sign into the website and do it all on my own but I do want to use HAL's FlightEase service. I played around a bit online yesterday but it doesn't seem that I can even access flight information and prices without talking to a PCC. Is this correct? Are you able to book the cruise now and then just phone a PCC closer to the travel date to arrange flights through FlightEase. Depending on work/school schedules we may be able to add more extra nights before/after cruise but we won't know this until 6 - 8 weeks before the cruise leaves.

I just asked a HAL reservationist that question. You will have to talk to someone at HAL to book your flight, or if you have a travel agent they will have to talk to HAL for you. Check with airline websites for flights that will work for you and then see if HAL has them in their system.

Not as convenient as Princess where you can do it all yourself. Maybe HAL will change in the future to make it easier for folks who like the do-it-yourself approach.

[Marion B]

You are correct; you can't access Flight Ease through your PCC (or even your TA). We have had to have our TA access it and give us a list of available flights, airlines, prices, etc. That is the downside.

For us, the upside on two bookings was that we saved a good amount of money ($500 for two people on our Alaska cruise and $1200 for two people on our Med cruise). These were savings on the exact same flights I had priced out on my own. You do get FF mileage and the chance to purchase economy plus type seating, but you can't access the actual reservation until about 6 weeks before the flights to do this.

In one case, we booked the air a day after the initial deposit, and another time a few weeks later, when we were not happy with the airfare prices we were finding.

Good luck,

Marion

[Mary Ellen]

I love how easy it is with Princess to check their air online. It doesn't matter if booked thru a TA or directly with Princess. Because of HAL's extremely non-user friendly policy regarding air, I do have our HAL cruise for next year currently booked directly with HAL. I was able to check the HAL flights myself online. It was so nice to be able to play around with dates for our pre/post cruise stays and look at all the options for connecting airports before deciding on flights. However, now that I have selected our flights, I can no longer continue to monitor options - unlike on Princess.

 

This cruise involves inter-continental flights at both ends and I must say that HAL did offer us very nice Business class pricing with only one connection from our home airport.

 

Now that our air has been taken care of, I can transfer our booking to our TA. No more sitting on hold with HAL whenever I need to check something. :rolleyes:

[iancal]

Celebrity and RCI have a very user friendly syste. You can book yourself, you can see air prices to/from various cities prior to even booking.

 

One of the reasons we selected RCI for a late booking Med cruise was the price/availability/routing of a One way flight home. We were able to shop for air and select the best dates for us. Based on the way we travel this is a competitive advantage for the RCI group. Also like the ability to see multiple offerings from different airlines for the same day.

 

The big surprise, though it should not be, was that a return flight was sometimes less expensive/better routing by booking each separately as one ways,