Oceania Flights

[horseymike]

For experienced Oceania cruisers, are you better off booking your flights through Oceania or on your own when flying from the USA to Europe for a Mediterranean 

cruise ?

  I would be thinking about business class accommodations.

Thanks 

Edited February 1, 2023 by horseymike

[LHT28]

BIZ class  do your own air

JMO

Compare  the pricing  but  it has worked out cheaper to DIY  from Canada   maybe different  in USA

[jonthomas]

I have no experience with bus class , but found it much cheaper to have O do your air, with premium economy and they include transfers.....from Canada....

Edited February 1, 2023 by jonthomas

[horseymike]

Thanks 

[the more ports the better]

Biz class almost always works out to be much cheaper on your own when you take the cruise only fare.  To Europe, O life with air is typically is $1500-1700 more.  On top of this, they usually charge nearly the full business fare to upgrade.  Not always but most of the time.

 

Also, booking directly with the airline affords much more flexibility to change flights if something goes haywire with delays cancellations etc.

[shank63]

We have used O in the past, but no longer find it to be acceptable.  Do the math and make your own decisions remembering that booking your own provides much more control in selection of flights and seat assignments in all classes.

[Jancruz]

14 hours ago, the more ports the better said:

Biz class almost always works out to be much cheaper on your own when you take the cruise only fare.  To Europe, O life with air is typically is $1500-1700 more.  On top of this, they usually charge nearly the full business fare to upgrade.  Not always but most of the time.

 

Also, booking directly with the airline affords much more flexibility to change flights if something goes haywire with delays cancellations etc.

You do not have to take cruise only fare to do your own airlines..if you want tours you should still take O'Life and ask for air credit

Jancruz1

[the more ports the better]

Thanks Jan, I should have specified that O life without air is also an option.

[PirateShark]

A lot depends on where you are embarking and where you are flying from.  Example:  we fly from SFO to LHR in August.  When we booked in 2021, the air allowance was $550 plus $149 premium econ upgrade one way.  The math at booking was reasonable even with a potential deviation fee factored in.  Today, I booked independently because the allowance plus deviation wouldn't get me anywhere close to a decent flight as prices have drastically increased.

 

Long story short, keep all your options open and decide closer to departure if you can.  You may also have points accrued by that time, making DIY even more attractive.

[osandomir]

1 hour ago, PirateShark said:

A lot depends on where you are embarking and where you are flying from.  Example:  we fly from SFO to LHR in August.  When we booked in 2021, the air allowance was $550 plus $149 premium econ upgrade one way.  The math at booking was reasonable even with a potential deviation fee factored in.  Today, I booked independently because the allowance plus deviation wouldn't get me anywhere close to a decent flight as prices have drastically increased.

 

Long story short, keep all your options open and decide closer to departure if you can.  You may also have points accrued by that time, making DIY even more attractive.

I’d say that with today’s prices booking Premium economy air with O makes even more sense. We mostly book our own air, but for our upcoming cruise one way PE air ticket Bilbao to Los Angeles that O booked for us would cost us close to $4,000 if we booked it ourselves. It also may depends on your itinerary, but with one way flights you’ll save booking with O most of the time.

Edited February 2, 2023 by osandomir
Added content.

[PirateShark]

Our route is a little more competitive than the Bilbao to LAX?  In our particular situation, the math worked better DIY.  As I said, it depends on your circumstances.  I'm very happy that yours worked out great for you 😊. Enjoy your cruise!

[the more ports the better]

The OP was specifically asking about biz class.  O is rarely competitive in that arena.

 

Most airlines permit multi stop fares which are the same pricing as RT as long as you stick to one region, for example, the EU or Asia.  Unless doing a TA and need a one way, O typically is not competitive when booking biz class.

[Furball83]

22 hours ago, the more ports the better said:

Biz class almost always works out to be much cheaper on your own when you take the cruise only fare.  To Europe, O life with air is typically is $1500-1700 more.  On top of this, they usually charge nearly the full business fare to upgrade.  Not always but most of the time.

 

Also, booking directly with the airline affords much more flexibility to change flights if something goes haywire with delays cancellations etc.

I just need a one-way return from Rome in April, and business class on my own was going to be $4,876! Was able to get it through Oceania for the $175 air deviation fee and $500 fare difference - plus the $1,899 I had already paid for restricted business class - so total of $2,574 thorough Oceania for a direct, non-stop flight from Rome to Charlotte on my preferred airline. Saves me $2,302, and they also include my transfer from ship to airport. Just think it pays to do your own research rather than assuming you can get better or cheaper flights on your own.

[FlyerTalker]

16 hours ago, the more ports the better said:

Most airlines permit multi stop fares which are the same pricing as RT as long as you stick to one region, for example, the EU or Asia. 

 

Correction:

 

Open jaw pricing is a function of the round trip pricing on each segment.

 

Flying A to B and then C to A, an open jaw would be:

 

Take the roundtrip price from A to B and divide by two.

 

Take the roundtip price from C to A and divide by two.

 

Add those together.

 

It is NOT "the same pricing".

 

And there are other specific rules applicable to open-jaws.

 

 

[redraider1966]

1 hour ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Correction:

 

Open jaw pricing is a function of the round trip pricing on each segment.

 

Flying A to B and then C to A, an open jaw would be:

 

Take the roundtrip price from A to B and divide by two.

 

Take the roundtip price from C to A and divide by two.

 

Add those together.

 

It is NOT "the same pricing".

 

And there are other specific rules applicable to open-jaws.

 

 

Plus 1.

[mnocket]

2 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Correction:

 

Open jaw pricing is a function of the round trip pricing on each segment.

 

Flying A to B and then C to A, an open jaw would be:

 

Take the roundtrip price from A to B and divide by two.

 

Take the roundtip price from C to A and divide by two.

 

Add those together.

 

It is NOT "the same pricing".

 

And there are other specific rules applicable to open-jaws.

 

 

It's always amazed and disappointed me one-way tickets are so overpriced.  Is there any logic to this pricing strategy?  Are airlines afraid that one-way tickets will interfere with their capacity to sell round-trip tickets (i.e. return trip not available because too many booked it one-way)?  Doesn't really make sense to me, but there must be some reason behind this pricing strategy as most airlines do it.

[the more ports the better]

5 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Correction:

 

Open jaw pricing is a function of the round trip pricing on each segment.

 

Flying A to B and then C to A, an open jaw would be:

 

Take the roundtrip price from A to B and divide by two.

 

Take the roundtip price from C to A and divide by two.

 

Add those together.

 

It is NOT "the same pricing".

 

And there are other specific rules applicable to open-jaws.

 

 

Hey, flyertalker.  Obviously, it’s the price of the individual RT’s divided by two.   I was pointing out that you don’t have to purchase two overpriced one ways.

 

Do you know if any airlines are still offering a complementary intermediary flight between European cities when purchasing an open jaw?  I typically use miles unless flying for business.  A few times, when I booked the inter EU flight in the middle of the trip, no miles were deducted.

[osandomir]

34 minutes ago, the more ports the better said:

 

 

Do you know if any airlines are still offering a complementary intermediary flight between European cities when purchasing an open jaw?  I typically use miles unless flying for business.  A few times, when I booked the inter EU flight in the middle of the trip, no miles were deducted.

United when booking award tickets.

Edited February 4, 2023 by osandomir

[the more ports the better]

Thx!!

[Mura]

On 2/1/2023 at 5:27 PM, LHT28 said:

BIZ class  do your own air

JMO

Compare  the pricing  but  it has worked out cheaper to DIY  from Canada   maybe different  in USA

Same in the U.S.

 

On OCCASION (rarely) we found an advantage in booking PE from NY to Europe (non-stop) .... but it was rarely,  We tend to book bizair on our own and not use O's air.

 

When we started with Renaissance in back in Oct 1999 we did book our own air because we'd had a previous reservation to Milan that we switched to Lisbon for our newly booked cruise. When we boarded the ship we heard absolute horror stories from people who had used Ren's air.

 

Admittedly, they didn't have direct flights from a U.S. airport to Europe as we did!  But there were such long waits in airports that we took the lesson never to book "free" air.  Later on, after Oceania came into existence, we dd on occasion -- very rarely! -- use the free air.  Mostly it was if we were flying from NYC to Miami and were returning from Europe non-stop to NYC.

 

But back then we did fly coach.  Nowadays, now that we are definitely seniors, we prefer to fly business and book our own.  There were a couple of trips a few years ago where we used O's PE air and they were definitely okay.

 

As Lyn said, however, O charges a lot more for biz air than the regular airlines do.  It can depend what your departure airport is.  We're in NYC so we have more options than many people further west do.

 

Mura

[terrydtx]

We are new to Oceania, long time Celebrity customer but no happy with their new suites pricing so we have booked our first Oceania cruise in March 2025.  We will be flying to Santiago Chile from San Antonio, TX and then home from Buenos Aires and looking at prices this year they are so expensive. We normally fly business class or minimum premium economy for international flights. Would we better off booking PE flights with Oceania? Does anyone here have experience doing this with O to South America? We are also looking at Copa Airlines which has flights from Houston, TX to Santiago with a stop in Panama and they have reasonable BC fares, which are about the same as United PE costs. Thanks for any help.

[LHT28]

Does O offer PE  to South America??

I have only seen it on the European routes

[Jmoondance]

Not sure about the South America, O agent told us not for Asia.

[Jmoondance]

Is anyone has a Info. about flight to Asian destination, would greatly appreciate.

Dubai, Seoul or to Tokyo.

O life vs. independent.

[mauibabes]

O contracts do not include PE seating for South America.  We were able to take the Air Credit and for a couple hundred extra, we booked our own PE flights on American to Buenos Aires and home from Santiago. 
To my knowledge, the PE offer only covers European flights, at least that is what I have been told directly by my O Soecialist. 
When we tried to go to Asia before Covid, the only way we could get PE was by booking our own flights. 
 

Good Luck,

Mauibabes.