Air Through Crystal Is Available and Pre & Post Hotel Program Coming Soon

[hypercafe]

I would think anyone in the know about travel today knows flying is like buying a lottery ticket, odds are against a good trip. I also wonder how anyone today can trust an unknown company with no track record to plan your vacation and give them money and your time. At least with other lines we can read reviews, talk to an experienced air department and make a choice based on passed performance.

[2bobs]

Many of us are willing to trust an "unknown company" because of the decades-long reputation of excellence of A&K and that company's willingness to try to help to resurrect Crystal (or, if you prefer,  create a New Crystal).  Bob S.

[BWIVince]

1 hour ago, 2bobs said:

Many of us are willing to trust an "unknown company" because of the decades-long reputation of excellence of A&K and that company's willingness to try to help to resurrect Crystal (or, if you prefer,  create a New Crystal).  Bob S.

 

+1...  I booked with Crystal when they first launched because the ownership by NYK gave them significant chops compared to other upstarts of the era -- even though NYK hadn't transported passengers in generations (let alone had any luxury presence).  

 

If anything, A&K's long history in luxury travel gives me even more confidence than I had in the original Crystal -- which was plenty to book.

 

Everyone's entitled to do what they're comfortable with, I just found the  "unknown" part kind of funny based on the background a lot of us had with Crystal circa 1989-1991.  We could only dream we were working with a company like A&K.

 

Vince

[Keith1010]

I feel the same way as Bob S. and Vince.  

 

This one to me is a more unique than an unknown company because of A&K being a big part of it.  I've only used them for some tours and found their programs to be of high quality.

 

 What also makes this company different than an unknown is  we know the assets which are the ships and we know that so many members of the crew will be  from Crystal. In addition, some of the key executives of the team responsible for the on-board experience including the operations of the Hotel, Shore Excursions and Entertainment/Enrichment were in the same or very similar roles in their last years at Crystal.

 

I get it for those who are gun shy and like most things only one opinion counts which is your own. 

 

l do believe no matter what type of travel if one has concerns insurance is something to consider but to verify the insurance you obtain addresses whatever the concern(s) are. This includes not only should a company fold but other concerns such as  age/health, become ill, missing a cruise due to some other issue such as a shutdown of an airline or the entire system. We've all learned things happen and many of those things have nothing to do with a specific company such as the examples I mentioned.

 

Keith

[FlyerTalker]

If you want to know more about why those schedules are changing:

 

 

[travelberlin]

30 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

If you want to know more about why those schedules are changing:

 

 

Thanks this means that we should only plan to book about 3 months in advance if we want to have a more or less reliable booking. But isn’t it that there are lower fares when booked far in advance? Is there any information when flights become more expensive?

Ivi

[BWIVince]

1 hour ago, travelberlin said:

Thanks this means that we should only plan to book about 3 months in advance if we want to have a more or less reliable booking. But isn’t it that there are lower fares when booked far in advance? Is there any information when flights become more expensive?

Ivi

 

I personally never let the 3 month scheduling stop me from booking earlier (if a reasonable fare exists), but it sets my expectations around the schedule for sure.  If the ticket was outside of the final schedule, I never got too wound up about the specifics of aircraft type or connection times since I knew they were in flux, but just aimed for a general time of day and routing I liked, since those were the most likely to stay consistent and the easiest to get the airline to rebook alternative options upon if the default flight doesn't work for me.

 

The seasonal schedule changes used to be even less fun in the olden days (back when I had to walk uphill to school in the snow, both ways, without feet), when paper tickets still existed.  Back when I was a travel agent, we used to have ARC revalidation stickers you manually hand wrote with the new flight information and literally stuck over the old flight number and info on each printed flight coupon.  The agency held tickets in a safe until a month or so before departure so we could send boarding passes, but also in the case of schedule changes like this.  If a client was booking airfare for a big trip, they might book 9-10 months out, and the ticket could go through 2 or 3 schedule changes, and need stickers applied multiple times before they went out (or possibly need to be reissued completely).  Ugh.  

 

At least now schedule changes are a lot more automated, even if they're not as painless as they could be.

 

Vince

[FlyerTalker]

15 hours ago, travelberlin said:

Is there any information when flights become more expensive?

 

Flights become more expensive when demand sells out the lower priced fare buckets.  There is no time or date when that occurs.

 

In the end, it's all a matter of supply and demand.  Econ 101 is at work in almost everything around us.

 

Adam Smith smiles.

 

 

[travelberlin]

6 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Flights become more expensive when demand sells out the lower priced fare buckets.  There is no time or date when that occurs.

 

In the end, it's all a matter of supply and demand.  Econ 101 is at work in almost everything around us.

 

Adam Smith smiles.

 

 

Yes, Adam Smith could write more about it. For example that the laws of supply and demand do not apply to flight tickets in the way he thought.

It is not an “invisible hand” regulating the market so that supply and demand meet, but the hands of the airlines. The airlines have the power to influence the supply and they do so first by forming alliances which eliminates competition, second reducing the number of flights offered using code shares with those partners and 3rd cancelling flights which did not sell well. 
I have never seen a price reduction in flights I have booked although at the moment of flying the planes might not be full. But maybe this is just me. Airlines do not seem to discount prices when the demand is low. They just seem to reduce supply cancelling flights. 

In addition, I have noticed two, for me “new”, strategies: one is the offer to bid for an upgrade to a higher class and the other is to capture the information of your browser via cookies so that if you keep looking for certain flights on certain days, the prices of those flights will get higher. In this last case you end up competing with yourself. So I try to book the flight the first time I search in order to avoid price increases just because I am signaling interest. 
 

Interesting indeed… 

 

Ivi
 

[TRIPACIAN]

5 hours ago, travelberlin said:

Yes, Adam Smith could write more about it. For example that the laws of supply and demand do not apply to flight tickets in the way he thought.

It is not an “invisible hand” regulating the market so that supply and demand meet, but the hands of the airlines. The airlines have the power to influence the supply and they do so first by forming alliances which eliminates competition, second reducing the number of flights offered using code shares with those partners and 3rd cancelling flights which did not sell well. 
I have never seen a price reduction in flights I have booked although at the moment of flying the planes might not be full. But maybe this is just me. Airlines do not seem to discount prices when the demand is low. They just seem to reduce supply cancelling flights. 

In addition, I have noticed two, for me “new”, strategies: one is the offer to bid for an upgrade to a higher class and the other is to capture the information of your browser via cookies so that if you keep looking for certain flights on certain days, the prices of those flights will get higher. In this last case you end up competing with yourself. So I try to book the flight the first time I search in order to avoid price increases just because I am signaling interest. 
 

Interesting indeed… 

 

Ivi
 

You should do your search on a different day from the day you plan on traveling.  Use the same day of the week but one week apart, that avoids signaling interest.

[BWIVince]

Private/incognito browsing may also help to some degree there too, as long as you're not logged in and use a different private browser session for each search.

 

Vince

Edited February 23, 2023 by BWIVince

[Roland4]

7 minutes ago, BWIVince said:

Private/incognito browsing may also help here, as long as you're not logged in and use a different browser session for each search.

 

Vince

Clearing cookies and cache also can help, especially with Expedia.

[BWIVince]

11 minutes ago, Roland4 said:

Clearing cookies and cache also can help, especially with Expedia.

 

Totally...  I tend not to go that route because there are cookies I don't want to lose depending on the computer I'm using (some of them I need in a particular state for work testing, especially third party cooking, while they're still a thing)... But I'm totally an edge case on that!  Most people should just be able to clear and repeat.

 

Vince

[FlyerTalker]

4 hours ago, TRIPACIAN said:

You should do your search on a different day from the day you plan on traveling.  Use the same day of the week but one week apart, that avoids signaling interest.

 

Huh??

 

If there is X inventory on one day, but only Y inventory on the other, how are you going to get an accurate picture of what is available.

 

Sorta like this:  Weather for tomorrow is 70 and sunny.  Weather a week later is going to be 50 and raining.  Are you going to use next week's forecast because it's the same day of the week.

 

Think this one through.

[Mr Luxury]

6 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Huh??

 

If there is X inventory on one day, but only Y inventory on the other, how are you going to get an accurate picture of what is available.

 

Sorta like this:  Weather for tomorrow is 70 and sunny.  Weather a week later is going to be 50 and raining.  Are you going to use next week's forecast because it's the same day of the week.

 

Think this one through.

I couldn't believe what I read either 

[Keith1010]

I am far from the expert on this but this is what I do.

 

I get a sense of what a good fare is by looking at fares over a few week period.  Does this provide a 100% low far solution?  No.  But it gets me a good understanding about the fares.

 

I realize when I book early and if it is one flight or if the flight involves stops that flight time can change.  But if they change and I am not happy with them I either change them myself or call the airline.

 

I book early because I want Business/First Class and two seats together so with some domestic flights having very few rows and other flights having more rows but substantially less than coach I don't want to wait.  This is not at all different booking other things with limited availability.

 

If I used Airline miles I want to book early as well.

 

And as FlyerTalker says it does come down to demand versus availability. I think exceptions to this might be if several months from now there is a major increase in fuel costs, or if a competitor ratchets down prices and they want to match them or if an airline pulls out leaving the carrier to exclusively serve a market and prices go up although this is similar to demand versus capacity.

 

And like buying a new car where you can negotiate price once I buy the tickets I don't spend another minute worrying about my decision because you just never know.

 

Keith

[Embowaf]

Use Google Flights to scope out prices without signaling interest to things like Expedia, etc.

[FlyerTalker]

My two kopeks:

 

Unless you are creating an itinerary that requires multiple airlines across various alliances (and perhaps even then), there is little reason to be using an OTA such as Expedia.

 

Fare rules can be opaque, fees and conditions may be hidden, and you are introducing an additional layer of bureaucracy into your arrangements with little benefit.

 

Caveat Emptor.