Understand the Rules

[CZEE]

I should have talked to EZ Air before booking or given a bit of thought.  I only booked a one way fare, anticipating I could add the return flight later.  Apparently, this is against the rules. You must cancel the one-way fare you already bought to add the second leg.  In my case, this is to add the return flight.  Certainly this is operating like the airlines and had I thought about it, I would have booked a return.  Unfortunately, the nonstops from FLL to DEN changed for the airlines that we normally used, after I'd booked the departure flight and the departure flight has doubled in price. Cancelling to re-fare is not a good option.  I can book he return flight with the airlines for the same price as Princess' EZAir.  The flexibility would have been nice.  So be it.

 

Know the rules, or at least ask.

[Zach1213]

I guess I don’t understand the harm in having two one-ways tickets? For domestic flights there is rarely a difference between a round trip and two one-ways, price wise. 

[Globaliser]

33 minutes ago, CZEE said:

The flexibility would have been nice. 

 

10 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

I guess I don’t understand the harm in having two one-ways tickets?

 

As I read the OP's post, what they've lost is the flexibility that comes of having an EZ Air booking. I don't know the details, but I can see in principle why that might exist.

[CZEE]

8 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

 

As I read the OP's post, what they've lost is the flexibility that comes of having an EZ Air booking. I don't know the details, but I can see in principle why that might exist.

The flexibility would be the ability to cancel the flights with the cruise, if necessary before final payment date.  I've been watching the fares go up on the airlines' websites for the fare I'd like.  It's unlikely that we'd cancel the cruise, but you never know what will come up.  Insurance might not cover it.  

 

I have booked two one-way fares in the US and internationally, when it suits.  I'm surprised that Princess doesn't offer the option. So be it.  My bad.

[FlyerTalker]

You want the flexibility to cancel your flights without penalty.  That comes with a "cost".

 

TANSTAAFL

[cjpj]

So does this apply if your departure and return flight are to and from different cities? In this case you have to book two different one way flights.

[sumiandkage]

6 hours ago, cjpj said:

So does this apply if your departure and return flight are to and from different cities? In this case you have to book two different one way flights.

 

Often more economical to book those kind of routes as multicity route tickets since some of the cheapest fare classes can still require a Saturday night stayover, especially for international flights. 

[Globaliser]

15 hours ago, CZEE said:

I have booked two one-way fares in the US and internationally, when it suits.  I'm surprised that Princess doesn't offer the option. So be it.

 

But you may now have saved some money, if booking the entire itinerary through EZ Air meant you couldn't have booked any flights at all until both directions became available and by then the price of the outbound flight had already gone up. So although what's happened is frustrating, maybe you have some consolation through this.

[waterbug123]

12 hours ago, cjpj said:

So does this apply if your departure and return flight are to and from different cities? In this case you have to book two different one way flights.

 

No you don't.  You can book a single "multi city" ticket.   You fly into one city, and then leave from a different one to fly back home.  People frequently do this for one-way cruises, or if traveling around on a land-based tour after arriving at the original destination.  It's all one ticket, unlike two one way tickets.  Look on virtually any airline booking site...you'll see three options:  one way, round trip, and multi-city.  In fact, you can actually link together, on that one ticket, 3 or 4 flight segments.  People traveling for business often do this when trying to hit several different client sites during a single trip.

[sumiandkage]

5 hours ago, waterbug123 said:

 

No you don't.  You can book a single "multi city" ticket.   You fly into one city, and then leave from a different one to fly back home.  People frequently do this for one-way cruises, or if traveling around on a land-based tour after arriving at the original destination.  It's all one ticket, unlike two one way tickets.  Look on virtually any airline booking site...you'll see three options:  one way, round trip, and multi-city.  In fact, you can actually link together, on that one ticket, 3 or 4 flight segments.  People traveling for business often do this when trying to hit several different client sites during a single trip.

 

We're doing our first river cruise this year, and the usual flight booking is to go into Basel, Switzerland and home from Amsterdam on one ticket or vice versa. It's a perfectly ordinary sort of multicity booking the river cruise air divisions  use all the time. 

 

Once you start adding legs, it's good to price out the route in different ways because the price differences can be pretty huge depending on how different tickets get constructed. When we did a big European trip a few years back, it was about $1500 cheaper per person to have one ticket be a Home-Edinburgh and  Paris-Home ticket on Delta and partner airlines and fill in the 'jaw' with some one way flights from Edinburgh to London and London to Munich (BA has some cheap one way fares in order to compete with European low cost carriers but you have to book directly with BA) and then high speed rail between Munich and Paris (we wanted to have the European train experience) instead of putting the whole route on a single ticket. 

 

I'm actually one of those people who find vacation planning to be a lot of fun so didn't regard the extra effort in putting that together as 'work'. 

[jagoffee]

On 2/7/2019 at 11:41 AM, CZEE said:

I should have talked to EZ Air before booking or given a bit of thought.  I only booked a one way fare, anticipating I could add the return flight later.  Apparently, this is against the rules. You must cancel the one-way fare you already bought to add the second leg.  In my case, this is to add the return flight.  Certainly this is operating like the airlines and had I thought about it, I would have booked a return.  Unfortunately, the nonstops from FLL to DEN changed for the airlines that we normally used, after I'd booked the departure flight and the departure flight has doubled in price. Cancelling to re-fare is not a good option.  I can book he return flight with the airlines for the same price as Princess' EZAir.  The flexibility would have been nice.  So be it.

 

Know the rules, or at least ask.

You are correct.  The same thing happened to me when booking flights for a one way Alaska cruise.  I booked the return from Vancouver first, thinking I could add the flight to Anchorage once I decided how early I wanted to arrive.

Unless I missed it, Princess was not very clear in the requirement that even if you are arriving and depaturing from different cities, you must book all parts of your air at the same time.  When I wanted to book the Anchorage portion, I had to cancel/rebook the return portion.  I just booked my arrival directly with the airline, because I had a great flexible fare on the return.  (It was no longer available and I did not want to risk that the low fare would return if I cancelled it.)

 

Like you said, a lesson learned.  Not pleased, but now I know the Princess rules/limitation.