Viking free air - can you skip or cancel one of the flights?

[dkf11]

When Viking includes free air, if one of the flights (either outbound or return) seems terrible, can you just skip/cancel that flight and book your own flight at your own expense?  I am nervous after reading some of your horror stories. Is there a penalty or cancellation fee for doing this?

[CDNPolar]

Anytime you have a series of flights booked, you must show up for all of the flights you risk cancelation of the rest of the trip.

 

For instance:  You like the connection but not the first flight, if you don't show for the first flight then the connection would be cancelled automatically as a no-show to the first flight.  This is standard in the airlines.  I don't know what would happen if you take the first flight but not the connection, but there could be a penalty there too.  You may end up with the return cancelled.

 

EVEN WITH FREE AIR, you can pay for the Viking Air Plus and pick your own flights.  You don't have to accept what they give you.

We have free air on our August River Cruise and we got the airline, aircraft, schedule and seats we wanted through Viking Air Plus.

[TayanaLorna]

Don't know if this would work for you but we had free air on one Viking cruise and i booked only the outbound.  I told them the return would be useless since the ship was docking where i live.  Viking Air agreed.  However we did still get a free transfer to the airport upon disembarkation as it was much easier for friends to pick us up there then at the cruise port.  I just asked.

[Jim Avery]

Things are always changing but we had included air and a few days before disembarkation we thought of renting a car and driving home quicker than the scheduled flight.  We asked if we could drop the included flight and Viking did.  Gave us $400 back too.

[FlyerTalker]

The last two posts highlight the difference between skipping the end of set of flights vs one of the earlier ones.

 

Flights must be taken in the sequence they are issued on the ticket.  Break the sequence without the consent, approval and reissue by the carrier and the remainder of the ticket is invalid and void.

 

Now, if you don't use the end of the ticket - well, that might be considered "hidden city" ticketing, but I don't think that would be an issue with a cruiseline air ticket.

[LindaS272]

3 hours ago, dkf11 said:

When Viking includes free air, if one of the flights (either outbound or return) seems terrible, can you just skip/cancel that flight and book your own flight at your own expense?  I am nervous after reading some of your horror stories. Is there a penalty or cancellation fee for doing this?

Yes, you can. Most likely you will want to get Viking Air+ to choose your desired routing, but if one or the other doesn’t work for you, just tell Viking (before ticketing), and book your own leg. Example—on our upcoming cruise in July, we took the “free” air but paid the upgrade fee for PE. We bought Air+ and found an acceptable route to Bergen from Seattle, but there were no airlines with direct flights from Reykjavik on the return to Seattle with PE, so Viking refunded half of our PE fare upgrade and we booked our own Saga Class on Icelandair back to Seattle. 

[CCWineLover]

23 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

Yes, you can. Most likely you will want to get Viking Air+ to choose your desired routing, but if one or the other doesn’t work for you, just tell Viking (before ticketing), and book your own leg. Example—on our upcoming cruise in July, we took the “free” air but paid the upgrade fee for PE. We bought Air+ and found an acceptable route to Bergen from Seattle, but there were no airlines with direct flights from Reykjavik on the return to Seattle with PE, so Viking refunded half of our PE fare upgrade and we booked our own Saga Class on Icelandair back to Seattle. 

Thx Linda!  Perfect example.