Should I use Celebrity choice air or just book with the airline?

[OnTheJourney]

Changed my mind about the flights. I talked to choice air, and also Delta. I didn't book yet but need to very soon - probably tomorrow - since the comfort+ seats are limited on at least one of the flights. Instead of the nonstop with Argentine Airlines (I read too many bad reviews about them), I'm opting for 1 stop through Atlanta out of Newark. JFK has the same flight itinerary but Newark is closer to us and thus a bit cheaper transportation cost to airport. I did price Business on the Delta flights but the total cost came to like 12-13k. I just can't make myself do it for that price. So now hopefully choice air can book everything without any problems.

[cawags]

Changed my mind about the flights. I talked to choice air, and also Delta. I didn't book yet but need to very soon - probably tomorrow - since the comfort+ seats are limited on at least one of the flights. Instead of the nonstop with Argentine Airlines (I read too many bad reviews about them), I'm opting for 1 stop through Atlanta out of Newark. JFK has the same flight itinerary but Newark is closer to us and thus a bit cheaper transportation cost to airport. I did price Business on the Delta flights but the total cost came to like 12-13k. I just can't make myself do it for that price. So now hopefully choice air can book everything without any problems.

 

Boy am I glad I booked our flights to BA when I did! Business class 12-13k! So about 6k one way. My $3,500 for 2 one way was a bargain! LOL.

As far as Argentine Air you must have read the same reviews I did. Didn't give me a warm and fuzzy even after I talked to friends who flew them. That was one of the things that made me check on flying from Harrisburg. Saves us from having to hire a car service to the airport.

Good luck getting them booked.

 

Carol

[gw2fll]

We found a really good deal with ChoiceAir - even better than we first thought.

 

We used ChoiceAir for our Med cruise in October 2015. This being our first trip to Europe, we decided to splurge and book Business Class. The fares were about the same (using the same flights) between American and ChoiceAir - so we went with ChoiceAir. (We booked about 6 months out.)

 

About 3 months out from sailing, American reduced the business class fares by about half for a week. We were upset regretting not waiting, until we called ChoiceAir. What we failed to realize is we had a fully refundable fare, so ChoiceAir just canceled the reservation and rebooked us. (Guess it pays to read the fine print on all those screens that pop-up when booking something.)

 

We had a really good experience and continue to compare ChoiceAir to the airlines to see which has the better deal. For domestic flights we often find direct with the airline is better. For international if they are close we will probably go ChoiceAir just for the support given.

 

Just our opinion.

[Islandgirl4242]

We're using Choice Air for the 1st time for our Oct. Med cruise. I checked individual airlines and also the airfare search websites for pricing, number of stops, and how many hours to destination. When I called Choice Air I had a good idea of cost and the flights that I hoped to book. Choice Air saved us $400 on the exact flights that I wanted...did a Happy Dance!! ~~Judy

Edited August 4, 2016 by Islandgirl4242

[OnTheJourney]

Boy am I glad I booked our flights to BA when I did! Business class 12-13k! So about 6k one way. My $3,500 for 2 one way was a bargain! LOL.

As far as Argentine Air you must have read the same reviews I did. Didn't give me a warm and fuzzy even after I talked to friends who flew them. That was one of the things that made me check on flying from Harrisburg. Saves us from having to hire a car service to the airport.

Good luck getting them booked.

 

Carol

 

Actually, after several phone calls with Delta, Choice Air, and Aerolinas Argentina (not to mention literally an entire day wrangling over all this with my wife and I deciding which option we wanted to go with), I wound up going back to the nonstop with Aerolineas Argentina. The nonstop schedule was my preference from the beginning, but then I got hung up thinking about getting premium economy seats. Choice air seems to only deal with regular economy, first, or business class. That is what they told me at least.

 

Since the reviews of AA (Argentine Airlines) are indeed not very positive - at least for economy, we went with roundtrip business class since the price was only $5300 for 2 (for both nonstop flights between JFK and BA). So it actually comes out to $1325 pp per flight. So...like you...I think I did really well. We figure...how bad can business class be with them? We saw a youtube video that a guy took in business class with AA, and it looks good to me. So far my dealings with AA have been fine. The website is user friendly, and the agent I talked to seemed very helpful. So I guess we'll see what happens. Even if there is a delay - as is often reported with them - at least we don't have to worry about making any connections. If we get down to BA a few hours later, frankly I don't care since the flight is scheduled to arrive at 4:20 a.m.! I do need to check on the carry-on allowance since their website only says 1 piece, but I would think that a small personal item is also allowed as is typically the case with any flights.

 

We really debated on the Delta connection through Atlanta, but figured..why spend an extra 9 hours? There is still the 10+ hour flight from JFK to BA, plus we'd be adding another 2 hour flight from JFK to ATL and back, plus a 2.5 hour layover going both ways. Doesn't make sense somehow to add all that extra time and wind up paying 3k for comfort+ seats. For the extra $2300 we got business class and might actually get some sleep at least on the way back.

 

I'm just glad it is booked and done. Did it through choiceair. I had to really be a bit persuasive to get them to do what I wanted, since initially they gave me some grief about not being able to book comfort + seats (had we gone with Delta), but then magically after she put me on hold for awhile she came back and said they could do it, but then of course we opted out of using that flight schedule anyway. The whole thing with the Delta flight being codeshared with Argentina airlines seems to create some issues since the flight is on an Argentina plane, so as a result it's impossible for either I or choice air to even call up a seat map. I will not book any long haul flights without knowing right away what seats I have. I had to go into the AA website and basically register for the flight up to the point where payment was requested and THEN I was able to check out the seats. When I saw that the business class section was nearly filled, we decided enough was enough and so called choiceair again and booked it. She still couldn't give me seats - so I was actually about to change my mind one more time but then suddenly she indicated that the seat assignments came through. I was rather relieved at that point, since I really did spend an entire day on the whole thing.

 

Still not done though. I found out that X does not provide for any transfers between the airport and hotel if arriving prior to embarkation day. I have to contact the hotel directly. I don't understand why they can't build this transfer into their pre-cruise packages, especially since we're using one of the hotels they work with. Oh well...that should be much easier than deciding on flights. This whole trip had better work as planned after all this! A nice relaxing (non-flying) cruise to Bermuda is looking better and better! As I get older, I'm starting to like travel arrangements to be simpler and less complicated. This trip is neither, at least thus far.

[OnTheJourney]

We're using Choice Air for the 1st time for our Oct. Med cruise. I checked individual airlines and also the airfare search websites for pricing, number of stops, and how many hours to destination. When I called Choice Air I had a good idea of cost and the flights that I hoped to book. Choice Air saved us $400 on the exact flights that I wanted...did a Happy Dance!! ~~Judy

 

You did well. I did not find choice air to be cheaper on ANY flights that I compared with the airlines' costs. Actually, CA charged me an extra hundred bucks compared to if I had booked directly with Argentine Airlines. So if something does screw up with the winter weather and impacts on flight schedules, they had better come through with making alternate arrangements as they claim they do. Otherwise I will be loath to use them again.

Edited August 8, 2016 by three4rd

[cawags]

Actually, after several phone calls with Delta, Choice Air, and Aerolinas Argentina (not to mention literally an entire day wrangling over all this with my wife and I deciding which option we wanted to go with), I wound up going back to the nonstop with Aerolineas Argentina. The nonstop schedule was my preference from the beginning, but then I got hung up thinking about getting premium economy seats. Choice air seems to only deal with regular economy, first, or business class. That is what they told me at least.

 

Since the reviews of AA (Argentine Airlines) are indeed not very positive - at least for economy, we went with roundtrip business class since the price was only $5300 for 2 (for both nonstop flights between JFK and BA). So it actually comes out to $1325 pp per flight. So...like you...I think I did really well. We figure...how bad can business class be with them? We saw a youtube video that a guy took in business class with AA, and it looks good to me. So far my dealings with AA have been fine. The website is user friendly, and the agent I talked to seemed very helpful. So I guess we'll see what happens. Even if there is a delay - as is often reported with them - at least we don't have to worry about making any connections. If we get down to BA a few hours later, frankly I don't care since the flight is scheduled to arrive at 4:20 a.m.! I do need to check on the carry-on allowance since their website only says 1 piece, but I would think that a small personal item is also allowed as is typically the case with any flights.

 

We really debated on the Delta connection through Atlanta, but figured..why spend an extra 9 hours? There is still the 10+ hour flight from JFK to BA, plus we'd be adding another 2 hour flight from JFK to ATL and back, plus a 2.5 hour layover going both ways. Doesn't make sense somehow to add all that extra time and wind up paying 3k for comfort+ seats. For the extra $2300 we got business class and might actually get some sleep at least on the way back.

 

I'm just glad it is booked and done. Did it through choiceair. I had to really be a bit persuasive to get them to do what I wanted, since initially they gave me some grief about not being able to book comfort + seats (had we gone with Delta), but then magically after she put me on hold for awhile she came back and said they could do it, but then of course we opted out of using that flight schedule anyway. The whole thing with the Delta flight being codeshared with Argentina airlines seems to create some issues since the flight is on an Argentina plane, so as a result it's impossible for either I or choice air to even call up a seat map. I will not book any long haul flights without knowing right away what seats I have. I had to go into the AA website and basically register for the flight up to the point where payment was requested and THEN I was able to check out the seats. When I saw that the business class section was nearly filled, we decided enough was enough and so called choiceair again and booked it. She still couldn't give me seats - so I was actually about to change my mind one more time but then suddenly she indicated that the seat assignments came through. I was rather relieved at that point, since I really did spend an entire day on the whole thing.

 

Still not done though. I found out that X does not provide for any transfers between the airport and hotel if arriving prior to embarkation day. I have to contact the hotel directly. I don't understand why they can't build this transfer into their pre-cruise packages, especially since we're using one of the hotels they work with. Oh well...that should be much easier than deciding on flights. This whole trip had better work as planned after all this! A nice relaxing (non-flying) cruise to Bermuda is looking better and better! As I get older, I'm starting to like travel arrangements to be simpler and less complicated. This trip is neither, at least thus far.

 

Glad you worked it out. I've been thinking about you. We aren't big on layovers or changing planes, but for this trip and the price we got out of Harrisburg we will chance it. A little concerned about our 65 minute layover in Atlanta but it should work or ChoiceAir will be getting us there since we booked through them. 😉😉 We still need to work out the transfer to our hotel in Buenos Aires. We are staying at the Hilton.

As far as a Bermuda cruise, driving to New Jersey was nice but we find 7 nights to short a time. Felt like it was over as soon as it started. LOL.

 

Carol

[OnTheJourney]

Glad you worked it out. I've been thinking about you. We aren't big on layovers or changing planes, but for this trip and the price we got out of Harrisburg we will chance it. A little concerned about our 65 minute layover in Atlanta but it should work or ChoiceAir will be getting us there since we booked through them. 😉😉 We still need to work out the transfer to our hotel in Buenos Aires. We are staying at the Hilton.

As far as a Bermuda cruise, driving to New Jersey was nice but we find 7 nights to short a time. Felt like it was over as soon as it started. LOL.

 

Carol

 

I'd do the Bermuda out of Bayonne as a B2B...that allows 6 days in Bermuda. We've never been there. X seems to be the only line that stays there 3 days.What concerned me about coming into ATL is that, since that is our point of departure for an international flight, it is probably best to be there even earlier than 2+ hours. If our first flight would be late, we could be in trouble.

[cawags]

I'd do the Bermuda out of Bayonne as a B2B...that allows 6 days in Bermuda. We've never been there. X seems to be the only line that stays there 3 days.What concerned me about coming into ATL is that, since that is our point of departure for an international flight, it is probably best to be there even earlier than 2+ hours. If our first flight would be late, we could be in trouble.

 

They tell us it's fine. We shall see. Glad it wasn't yesterday. LOL.

Only concern is distance between gates.

 

Carol

[easyboy]

We're using Choice Air for the 1st time for our Oct. Med cruise. I checked individual airlines and also the airfare search websites for pricing, number of stops, and how many hours to destination. When I called Choice Air I had a good idea of cost and the flights that I hoped to book. Choice Air saved us $400 on the exact flights that I wanted...did a Happy Dance!! ~~Judy

Good for you. More $$$ for onboard spending.

[OnTheJourney]

They tell us it's fine. We shall see. Glad it wasn't yesterday. LOL.

Only concern is distance between gates.

 

Carol

 

Distance between gates should not be a problem either with an hour layover. The few times we've gone through ATL have been very smooth connections. They have a great inter-terminal transportation system also.

[cawags]

Distance between gates should not be a problem either with an hour layover. The few times we've gone through ATL have been very smooth connections. They have a great inter-terminal transportation system also.

 

Being in row 1 should help also. LOL. David and I have a really good system getting off planes. One we keep our stuff organized. Grab and go! Just so the big bags make it. I really don't want to shop for clothes in BA. A month is a long time! 😉 We have only been through Atlanta once and they had a fire in one of the areas we had to pass! Interesting first impression.

 

Carol

[OnTheJourney]

This is with Delta, right? ATL is the largest Delta hub in the country. We had heard so many horror stories, but then found it very quick and efficient every time we used it. And, like you said, being in business class will expedite matters significantly. Is there a business class lounge there?

Edited August 12, 2016 by three4rd

[cawags]

This is with Delta, right? ATL is the largest Delta hub in the country. We had heard so many horror stories, but then found it very quick and efficient every time we used it. And, like you said, being in business class will expedite matters significantly. Is there a business class lounge there?

 

They should have a great lounge. We will find out on the way home. Even with the fire going on connection was OK. We have friends who worked for Northwest , now Delta. As long as we aren't held up leaving PA should be fine if my old legs can make it. 😉 As far as horror stories. You usually only hear from the b#^>£€#s. 😉

 

Carol

[waterbug123]

Hi,

 

The big issue would appear to be their guarantee to get you to the ship in the event of flight delays, etc.

 

Except that they don't actually guarantee that. Read the fine print. It sounds like a guarantee but it isn't. They will attempt to "work with the airlines" to find a "reasonable" alternative. But if flights are booked, they can't manufacture an empty seat. If they CAN rebook you, you still run the risk of missing several days of your cruise.

 

Every time I've tried that it says on the Delta website that the seat maps are not available - that seats will be assigned at check-in.

 

Any chance you have booked a Delta "basic E" or "basic economy" fare? Those are usually the cheapest fares and do not include advance seat selection.

[waterbug123]

You did well. I did not find choice air to be cheaper on ANY flights that I compared with the airlines' costs. Actually, CA charged me an extra hundred bucks compared to if I had booked directly with Argentine Airlines. So if something does screw up with the winter weather and impacts on flight schedules, they had better come through with making alternate arrangements as they claim they do. Otherwise I will be loath to use them again.

 

Sometimes CA is cheaper and sometimes it's not. Really depends on what sort of tickets CA has or has not pre-purchased from the airline.

As for them coming through for you on game day, anecdotal reports from other pax vary widely. Some sing their praises; others report not even being able to get through to them. YMMV

 

This is with Delta, right? ATL is the largest Delta hub in the country. We had heard so many horror stories, but then found it very quick and efficient every time we used it. And, like you said, being in business class will expedite matters significantly. Is there a business class lounge there?

 

Delta has 9 Sky Clubs (biz lounges) at ATL. There are 2 each in concourses A & B, and 1 each in T, C, D, E and F. If you are waiting for an international departure, you'll likely be leaving from either E or F. The F club also has an outdoor Sky Deck area.

[dodger1964]

Except that they don't actually guarantee that. Read the fine print. It sounds like a guarantee but it isn't. They will attempt to "work with the airlines" to find a "reasonable" alternative. But if flights are booked, they can't manufacture an empty seat. If they CAN rebook you, you still run the risk of missing several days of your cruise...

 

You think an airline direct booked flight would be any better? Airlines are VERY reluctant to explore other airline options ...Choice Air would be able to do that much more willingly.

[DDT414]

This week I finally booked our flights for our Asia cruise in Dec 2016 and did use choice air. When i did a Alaska cruise in July I just booked my own.

With the Asia flights it was YYC (Calgary, AB) to SIN (Singapore) the one way and HKG (Hong Kong, to YYC back. I tried all methods to the best value on my 4 business class tickets and choice air was always the cheapest and offered the same flights. I ended up with United to (just under 22 hrs) and Air Canada back (just over 15 hrs)

I did find that the best method was to just book the flights on their website as I tried to call once and by the time they had them loaded the price had changed.

Between the credit card I use and Choice Air's policies I should be covered for the unexpected....

[Hlitner]

We have used Celebrity air on two occasions, and they were both bad experiences. On one of the bookings, Celebrity actually booked our return air (from Italy) 10 days before our ship even got to Italy! When we noticed the error, Celebrity initially wanted us to pay the higher costs (because the price had increased since our original booking) which only happened because of Celebrity's own error. It took 3 phone calls and elevating the issue to a key supervisor to get Celebrity air to fix their mistake and eat the extra cost! On another cruise we used Celebrity air to Buenos Aires...which included a hotel package and transfers. Upon arriving at BA, the transfer company told us we would have to wait nearly 90 min at the airport since they were going to wait for another delayed flight before they did the transfer to the hotel. At that point we simply grabbed a taxi to the hotel (Celebrity never reimbursed us). We checked in our hotel, want out for a nice breakfast, and when we returned to our hotel about 2 hours later.....our transfer van had just arrived at the hotel. Yuck! To make matters worse, after our cruise (which also ended in BA) that same transfer company took our group (about 25 souls) to our post cruise hotel and managed to lose everyone's luggage (it was only a few blocks from port to hotel). The Celebrity rep did little to help....and our hotel Concierge took pity and started making phone calls. A few hours later the Concierge located all the luggage at the airport (we were staying at the BA hotel for 2 nights) and had no success getting the transfer company to retrieve our luggage. The luggage finally arrived at our hotel around 11pm (we arrived at the hotel 14 hours earlier). So the hotel made arrangements to get the luggage (at hotel expense). Would we use Celebrity's Air or hotel packages in the future? Perhaps in another lifetime :(

 

Hank

Edited August 12, 2016 by Hlitner

[easyboy]

We have used Celebrity air on two occasions, and they were both bad experiences. On one of the bookings, Celebrity actually booked our return air (from Italy) 10 days before our ship even got to Italy! When we noticed the error, Celebrity initially wanted us to pay the higher costs (because the price had increased since our original booking) which only happened because of Celebrity's own error. It took 3 phone calls and elevating the issue to a key supervisor to get Celebrity air to fix their mistake and eat the extra cost!

 

Hank

This was really unfair and most unfortunate. Making you pay for their mistake. Glad they came to their senses after.

Thanks for sharing.

[grandgeezer]

We have used Celebrity air on two occasions, and they were both bad experiences. On one of the bookings, Celebrity actually booked our return air (from Italy) 10 days before our ship even got to Italy! When we noticed the error, Celebrity initially wanted us to pay the higher costs (because the price had increased since our original booking) which only happened because of Celebrity's own error. It took 3 phone calls and elevating the issue to a key supervisor to get Celebrity air to fix their mistake and eat the extra cost! On another cruise we used Celebrity air to Buenos Aires...which included a hotel package and transfers. Upon arriving at BA, the transfer company told us we would have to wait nearly 90 min at the airport since they were going to wait for another delayed flight before they did the transfer to the hotel. At that point we simply grabbed a taxi to the hotel (Celebrity never reimbursed us). We checked in our hotel, want out for a nice breakfast, and when we returned to our hotel about 2 hours later.....our transfer van had just arrived at the hotel. Yuck! To make matters worse, after our cruise (which also ended in BA) that same transfer company took our group (about 25 souls) to our post cruise hotel and managed to lose everyone's luggage (it was only a few blocks from port to hotel). The Celebrity rep did little to help....and our hotel Concierge took pity and started making phone calls. A few hours later the Concierge located all the luggage at the airport (we were staying at the BA hotel for 2 nights) and had no success getting the transfer company to retrieve our luggage. The luggage finally arrived at our hotel around 11pm (we arrived at the hotel 14 hours earlier). So the hotel made arrangements to get the luggage (at hotel expense). Would we use Celebrity's Air or hotel packages in the future? Perhaps in another lifetime :(

 

Hank

 

I've used choiceair.com eight times and every time I picked out my own air line and flight times. It looks like, since you had a hotel too, they handled the whole thing. We book our own air, hotel and transfers and have never had a problem.

[riclop]

We book with the airlines.

[Hlitner]

I've used choiceair.com eight times and every time I picked out my own air line and flight times. It looks like, since you had a hotel too, they handled the whole thing. We book our own air, hotel and transfers and have never had a problem.

 

We also picked our flights. But in the case of BA, Celebrity offered a pretty decent hotel package (we usually do our own hotels and transfers) so we took advantage (live and learn). As to the total screw up with the return flight from Italy, we did choose the flights....but the Celebrity air folks made an error when entering the date in the booking. We did not initially pay any attention to the confirming e-mail....and it was several weeks until we carefully reviewed all the trip plans and noticed the date error. We should add that in more then 100 cruises (with 14 cruise lines) we have only used cruise line air 4 times. We generally get better prices on our own, and rather then messing around with cruise line procedures it only takes us a few minutes to price-out all airline options (for international flights we can easily use 3 different airports). As for domestic, the cruise lines generally do not work with the highest rated airlines (Southwest and Jetblue) since they do not generally pay them commissions.

 

We should also mention that there are times we like to take advantage of certain perks when booking. For example, on some of our flights to or from Europe we have used Aer Lingus...because they offer decent one-way fares and allow a free stop-over (for multiple weeks) in Ireland. Hard to resist stopping in Ireland for no additional air cost...and spending some time in the country. And it is the same with Iceland...where Icelandic Air (not generally used by cruise lines) offers free stop-overs in Iceland. Some cruise lines (especially HAL) do not even have decent computer booking systems...so one must spend too much time on the phone with their reps as opposed to a few clicks of the computer.

 

Hank

Edited August 13, 2016 by Hlitner

[OnTheJourney]

Except that they don't actually guarantee that. Read the fine print. It sounds like a guarantee but it isn't. They will attempt to "work with the airlines" to find a "reasonable" alternative. But if flights are booked, they can't manufacture an empty seat. If they CAN rebook you, you still run the risk of missing several days of your cruise.

 

 

 

Any chance you have booked a Delta "basic E" or "basic economy" fare? Those are usually the cheapest fares and do not include advance seat selection.

 

I actually wound up not booking with Delta at all. I went with Aerolinas Argentina (a Delta codeshared flight) and booked business class.

[waterbug123]

You think an airline direct booked flight would be any better? Airlines are VERY reluctant to explore other airline options ...Choice Air would be able to do that much more willingly.

 

The difference is that the airlines don't post an ambiguous "assurance" statement on their website, that makes it sound like they guarantee something which, in fact, they do not guarantee. Choice Air uses verbiage that sounds very much like "we guarantee to get you to the ship" and a lot of people misunderstand that.

 

And contrary to what many seem to believe, if you book directly with an airline and your flight is canceled or severely delayed, the airline WILL work with you to get your rebooked. As with Choice Air, it depends on seat availability, but they don't just say "sorry we canceled your flight but you're on your own now." Many people seem to misunderstand that, too.