Flight "Ease" Frustrations

[Florida_gal_50]

7 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

Hank they are mainly talking about changes after final payment.  Some of the flight ease attendants are lost on the concept.  After final payment one can manage their flight on the airline website, at least if it is a US airline 

Yes, after final.  It’s pretty easy to before final.

[Hlitner]

1 minute ago, Mary229 said:

Hank they are mainly talking about changes after final payment.  Some of the flight ease attendants are lost on the concept.  After final payment one can manage their flight on the airline website, at least if it is a US airline 

The issues with airline schedule changes happen whether you use Flightease or book direct with the airlines.  With Flightease, if the schedule changes are ridiculous you have a shot at getting the reservation changed to another airline.  But when you book direct and get a last minute change (thanks to the airlines) you often have few decent options.  We went through this last May when our return flights from Prague to MDT (arranged through Seabourn's air) were partially cancelled at the last minute by United!  We ultimately had to fly from Prague to EWR and than rent a car (one-way) at our own expense.  Using Flightease (Seabourn uses the same folks as HAL) was not the issue.  We do see posts that blame Flightease for changes done by the airlines!  My point is that even if you do book direct (often for much more money than doing it through Flightease) you can still have major problems.

 

As a somewhat frequent flyer, the airline industry has been in disarray for nearly a year!  Flying, these days, it almost like playing a craps game as you can take odds on how many flight changes, the odds of getting to your destination on your desired day, and whether your luggage will ever, again, touch your hands once they have been turned over to the airline.

 

Hank

[Florida_gal_50]

7 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

The issues with airline schedule changes happen whether you use Flightease or book direct with the airlines.  With Flightease, if the schedule changes are ridiculous you have a shot at getting the reservation changed to another airline.  But when you book direct and get a last minute change (thanks to the airlines) you often have few decent options.  We went through this last May when our return flights from Prague to MDT (arranged through Seabourn's air) were partially cancelled at the last minute by United!  We ultimately had to fly from Prague to EWR and than rent a car (one-way) at our own expense.  Using Flightease (Seabourn uses the same folks as HAL) was not the issue.  We do see posts that blame Flightease for changes done by the airlines!  My point is that even if you do book direct (often for much more money than doing it through Flightease) you can still have major problems.

 

As a somewhat frequent flyer, the airline industry has been in disarray for nearly a year!  Flying, these days, it almost like playing a craps game as you can take odds on how many flight changes, the odds of getting to your destination on your desired day, and whether your luggage will ever, again, touch your hands once they have been turned over to the airline.

 

Hank

Thanks for this information and clarity.  I like using flight ease because I’m not out any money or end up with airline credits because I’ve booked directly.  It is the airline that are canceling flights not flight ease that is going in and kicking people off flights just for giggles although I’m sure complications arise.

[Hlitner]

Just now, Florida_gal_50 said:

Thanks for this information and clarity.  I like using flight ease because I’m not out any money or end up with airline credits because I’ve booked directly.  It is the airline that are canceling flights not flight ease that is going in and kicking people off flights just for giggles although I’m sure complications arise.

I like "just for giggles."   :).  There is another issue that causes folks even more grief.  If a flight gets cancelled there may not be any available seats on another flight for several days!  This happened to us last March when we were flying home from our winter home (Puerto Vallarta) on AA.  Our Saturday flight was from PVR to DFW where we were to change to a flight to our destination (MDT).  Our flight out of PVR was 2 hours late (mechanical issues) so we missed our connection at DFW.  AA automatically booked us on the next available flight (with seats) which was Tuesday evening!  We ultimately were able to get a Monday flight (remember, this happened on Saturday) to Cleveland where we rented a car for the 5 hour drive home!  AA actually had no seats on any other flight to the Northeast (including PHL, BWI, EWR, etc).  Why?  Fewer flights and lots of bookings due to spring break.

 

I almost feel sorry for the Flightease folks.  They are dealing with 10s of thousands of bookings for HAL, Seabourn and Princess and the airlines make their job near impossible.  Many cruisers blame the cruise line when the air arrangements go wrong, but in many cases, they are as innocent as the customer.

 

Hank

[islandwoman]

Is Flight Ease the same as EZAir that Princess uses ? The interface looks the same.  We used EZAir for a Princess cruise pre-pandemic and were very satisfied with it.

[Florida_gal_50]

7 minutes ago, islandwoman said:

Is Flight Ease the same as EZAir that Princess uses ? The interface looks the same.  We used EZAir for a Princess cruise pre-pandemic and were very satisfied with it.

It seems to be.  

[robotpony]

4 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Is Canada different?  When we have a flight change after final payment I simply go to the airline website and change the flight.

 

Our TA didn't know of a way to fix the flights, but the problem may have been that the supported carriers didn't have better flights in that price range? Or maybe our TA just didn't know it could be done. Either way, we'll be finding and booking ourselves in the future.

[Mary229]

14 minutes ago, robotpony said:

 

Our TA didn't know of a way to fix the flights, but the problem may have been that the supported carriers didn't have better flights in that price range? Or maybe our TA just didn't know it could be done. Either way, we'll be finding and booking ourselves in the future.

If you ever want to use them again, especially for their exceptional international business class fares the first thing to do after reserving is go to the airline site and sign up for a frequent flyer account.  With that new number in hand go back to flight ease and add that number to the reservation.  Everything will be linked. 
 

for last minute changes in the US simply go to the ticket counter at the airport 

[rodndonna]

On 12/10/2022 at 10:02 AM, Mary229 said:

Is Canada different?  When we have a flight change after final payment I simply go to the airline website and change the flight. Here they are required to let you pick the change you want, within reason, for no fees.  I did so the other day on American Airlines.  I was notified my return was moved to late in the evening from mid afternoon.  They allowed me to even choose between returning from Miami or FLL.  I was able to find something suitable. 

 

I think so (at least for AC -Air Canada). For our recent (really awful) flights we could go in to our booking on the AC site, review and select other options showing as no charge, but at the last stage of finalizing the change it would give us the "go back to your 3rd party booking" statement. We would then call Flightease, and after some time (about an hour) of being passed around, they finally said it's ticketed and we can't do anything (not sure why we were passed around for an hour for someone to decide that)  so we gave up. 

 

We just got an email of a required change for our Flights by Celebrity Air in April, will be curious to see how it plays out. They are similar in stating they will rebook and let us know, but planning on being much more proactive and involved along the way ..so it doesn't cross that "this is what we gave you, and now it is too late to change it"  boundary.

 

For the foreseeable future while airlines are still reworking schedules in their post Covid comeback, we will be booking direct. Ironically though, our HAL flight ease issue was required for a HAL cruise departure time change.

[QueenofEverything]

If we have our tickets issued now will we have the same problems?  

 

[Mary229]

8 hours ago, QueenofEverything said:

If we have our tickets issued now will we have the same problems?  

 

Go to the airline website, sign in and see your management options. No one can tell you if the airline will make a change to the flight, that is not something the cruise line controls.  It is better to be an educated consumer and know your options ahead of time

[QueenofEverything]

Is it a good idea to go ahead and ask HAL to issue the tickets?  Our cruise is fully paid for due to a cancellation credit from another cruise.  When I made the flight reservations, it charged my credit card even though technically final payment is not until January.  I assumed it was because the cruise was already paid for.

[Mary229]

1 hour ago, QueenofEverything said:

Is it a good idea to go ahead and ask HAL to issue the tickets?  Our cruise is fully paid for due to a cancellation credit from another cruise.  When I made the flight reservations, it charged my credit card even though technically final payment is not until January.  I assumed it was because the cruise was already paid for.

Technically you should be able to change your flight up to final payment date, YMMV.   I don’t see any advantage or disadvantage either way.  Was there some particular reason you wanted them to do so now?

[rodndonna]

3 hours ago, QueenofEverything said:

Is it a good idea to go ahead and ask HAL to issue the tickets?  Our cruise is fully paid for due to a cancellation credit from another cruise.  When I made the flight reservations, it charged my credit card even though technically final payment is not until January.  I assumed it was because the cruise was already paid for.

 

EDIT: oops - my point below is the disadvantage of paying it off early, not ticketing early. 🙃

 

There is one potential disadvantage - if there is a price drop and you refare lower, it is not credited back to you but stated it is to be issued as a credit on your account (at least it was in my recent case). We refared for a drop of just over $300 that was to be credited, but was not. Not we are stuck with chasing FlightEase for that ... uugghh. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by rodndonna

[QueenofEverything]

1 hour ago, Mary229 said:

Technically you should be able to change your flight up to final payment date, YMMV.   I don’t see any advantage or disadvantage either way.  Was there some particular reason you wanted them to do so now?

Having never used Flight Ease, I'm not sure how locked in I am until ticketed.  Having paid, I assumed it was ticketed and just realized it is probably not.

[QueenofEverything]

8 minutes ago, rodndonna said:

 

There is one potential disadvantage - if there is a price drop and you refare lower, it is not credited back to you but stated it is to be issued as a credit on your account (at least it was in my recent case). We refared for a drop of just over $300 that was to be credited, but was not. Not we are stuck with chasing FlightEase for that ... uugghh. 

How do you check to see if the fare has dropped?

[Mary229]

3 minutes ago, QueenofEverything said:

Having never used Flight Ease, I'm not sure how locked in I am until ticketed.  Having paid, I assumed it was ticketed and just realized it is probably not.

If you don’t foresee wanting to change in case there is a fare drop you can request it be ticketed.  Before you do be sure to edit the information to include frequent flyer info and other details.  This will help it link to your airline account and make it easier for you to manage your flight details - seats, meals, in case there is a schedule change and so on.

[SilvertoGold]

54 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

If you don’t foresee wanting to change in case there is a fare drop you can request it be ticketed.  Before you do be sure to edit the information to include frequent flyer info and other details.  This will help it link to your airline account and make it easier for you to manage your flight details - seats, meals, in case there is a schedule change and so on.

Could someone explain how the "request to be ticketed" works.  Have used FlightEase before but never asked for ticketing ourselves. We requested seats on the FlightEase HAL site and that went through. If you ask for being ticketed, I assume after final payment only, but any advantage to when?

[rodndonna]

9 hours ago, QueenofEverything said:

How do you check to see if the fare has dropped?

 

This is assuming you have booked the FLEXIBLE fare option. -

You just go in again, and click "change or cancel flights" -(not sure of exact wording) - it will give you options again, if there is a cheaper or better one, just select it and you will now have that fare. If you don't pick a new one, your original flight  and fare remains.

[Mary229]

8 hours ago, SilvertoGold said:

Could someone explain how the "request to be ticketed" works.  Have used FlightEase before but never asked for ticketing ourselves. We requested seats on the FlightEase HAL site and that went through. If you ask for being ticketed, I assume after final payment only, but any advantage to when?

I have never seen a lot of advantage.  You can call early, pay for the ticket and then request they go ahead and ticket. Doing so allows you to manage your flight from the airline website.   I think people do this as they are fearful for a fare hike but in all of my years using flight ease that has never occurred nor have I seen it mentioned on the forum. 

[westcoastsue]

I checked my reservation last week and was frustrated to see that KLM had changed my return flight from premium economy to economy. Outbound was still okay. I spoke with Rolando at Flight Ease and he was able to put me back in premium economy. Kudos to Rolando - he made my day!