Opinions on Choice Air please

[smj]

We are in the process of booking the Quest for May 8. We will try to arrive in Rome on May 7. What do you think of Choice Air? We usually use Kayak as a comparison tool and book air on our own but Choice sounds good.

THANKS

[bz]

I found ChoiceAir to be more expensive than what I could find on my own,   I won't use Traavelocity again, had issues when the flight was changed.  Not sure what to recommend.  Maybe find what you want on Travelocity & then book it directly from the airline.  Not a fan of Lufthansa, you have to pay big bucks to select your seat, even with premium economy and you're on hold for a long time  Loved Air France last time we flew them.  Good luck.

[Skicruiser55]

We have used Choice Air 3 times and have found their pricing to be about that of the airline directly but liked having a refundable (small fee) airfare and not paying until final payment but being locked into a price.  If it goes down you can get it adjusted.  I used it for our upcoming April Quest cruise and booked it back last June.  The pricing for Biz class has increased to 3X what we booked it for last year.  On 2 two bookings there have been schedule changes and I called CA and worked with them to get the flights that had been re-assigned changed and both times they worked out to be better than our original flights at no extra cost to us.  I am not a fan of 3rd party booking sites as a rule and usually book directly but I find CA to have advantages.  

[luv2travel90266]

Choice Air quoted me almost twice the price for Business Class seats found https://matrix.itasoftware.com/  which I find has more info on flights and prices. It is not a booking site.  

[KirkNC]

We used Choice Air for the cruise we are currently on and it was significantly less then what we were seeing on our own.    Looking at other responses it would seem best to have a firm idea of alternative costs before calling.

[annapolitan369]

For our May cruise on the Journey, Choice Air was $1,000/person more expensive than we were able to book on Turkish Air business class.  It pays to look at other options first, before calling Choice Air, IMHO.

[wjfan417]

I booked it on a 2020 cruise that ended up being cancelled because it was less expensive than what I could find on my own.  However, I just noticed that my invoice for a cruise this year says "the booking is currently subject to USD $2213.00 cancellation penalties" even though it's still more than 121 days prior to sailing and I've only paid $550 (deposit for on board booking).  I called and questioned Azamara, and the invoice is incorrect, but it was because of the air that was booked and not paid for yet on a cruise cancelled because of Covid. For this year's cruises, I've been able to find much less expensive air on my own.

 

Diana

[hiccups]

We used Choice Air for three of our cruises, twice in business class, and the prices were over a thousand dollars less per ticket than if we'd booked directly with the airline.  For our cancelled 2020 cruise, there was also that large a discount.  From others' posts, it seems that isn't always the case.

In a few weeks we'll be able to look for tickets for our next Azamara cruise, and we hope to have good luck with pricing again.

[silkismom]

My 2cents worth, with ChoiceAir, there is no problem if the cruise is canceled or changed to different locations.

[smj]

Thanks everyone for the information. I educated myself on what was available then called choice air. The prices were very close. Our cruise is in May and we will do economy. Those factors may play a part in the pricing.

[acruisergirl]

Trying to book a flight with Choice Air today and their website is down for maintenance.  Is anyone having that problem?

[luv2travel90266]

Choiceair website has been finicky and has been down more than up for months now. You probably need to call them. Suggest you price the air out first

[acruisergirl]

Thank you, I will try calling.

[Aardvaark]

We used Choice Air to a cruise that was affected by the advent of Covid.  Several countries denied us entry.  The cruise terminated in Muscat vice Dubai.  All through this, ChoiceAir changed our return flights to the states; we didn't need to do a thing. 

Those that did their own flights were going nuts trying to find connections home.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Good topic, I was just thinking about air arrangements through the "new" Azamara.  One of the reasons we like Regent is that you can get Business air reasonably. Officially it's "included" in the price, but you can remove it, so it obviously has a cost, but quite a low one. For example, for our Norway/Baltic cruise this July, the air is $3250/pp, biz class, Toronto - Copenhagen, Stockholm - Toronto.

 

Any way that Choice Air could do fares this good?  Would have cost us double or close to that, if we'd booked it ourselves.

[luv2travel90266]

You will find the answers mixed. I found them more expensive on a trip I just booked. Others had better  luck. It appears you just have to price the air before you call Choice Air

[tyler6597]

On 4/1/2022 at 1:00 PM, acruisergirl said:

Trying to book a flight with Choice Air today and their website is down for maintenance.  Is anyone having that problem?

I have a little secret about booking your flight with choice air on the Azamara website. YOU CAN"T DO IT YOU HAVE TO CALL THEM. I found out that you can go to the Celebrity Cruises website and you can book your airline online with choice air by Azamara. I did this a month ago with no problem. In fact the Celebrity website breaks down choice air into two choices. Choice air by Celebrity or Choice Air for Azamara. I booked the flights with no problem. The other point about using Choice Air for your travel is that if your flight is delayed or canceled for any reason Choice Air notifies Azamara and your flights will be adjusted to either get to the ship on departure day or to the next port. If you book your flight independently your out of luck.

Tyler

[KY Deb]

Thank you!   I’m considering an Azamara cruise and wanted to see what the business class fare would be.  I googled choice air by Celebrity and sure enough it led me to the site where I could check out prices without calling.  

[S. Cobbler]

I was skeptical, but just looked, and there is an actual website for that belonging to Azamara.

 

That's excellent! I haven't seen that for a cruise line before.