Gulp! Transatlantic 'Cunard Air' fares for June 2024 are through the roof!!

[frankp01]

We have a friend in London celebrating a milestone birthday in June. It was a treat to find that the QM2's return from Southampton to NYC also fits nicely into the celebration. We booked the Cunard portion thinking that the Cunard air would be reasonable (as we have booked Cunard air several times, at a great rate, including December 2023 for $350). I just checked the air fares, booking directly with the airline. One way fares are $800 - 1200, depending upon the departure city. Youch! I emailed our travel agent to see what Cunard would offer. Double youch!😮 The Cunard fares are the same. Even our agent said "This is awful!". The agent is hypothesizing that Cunard has had some downsizing, and they may have let their air contracts lapse, as well as the staff that manage that area.

 

I'm just curious if anyone has booked Cunard air for 2024 at this point. Are you being quoted the same high fares? I realize that we have 10 months, so hopefully things will improve.

[IB2]

Air fare inflation since the pandemic has been considerable, significantly of course due to higher fuel prices and the financial position of the airlines.

 

The advertised Cunard prices for 2024 no longer include an air fare, like they used to, so you no longer get a deduction if you don't need one or prefer to book separately 

Edited August 3, 2023 by IB2

[frankp01]

You must be in the UK. AFAIK, cruise fares in the States have never included an air portion. That's why Cunard sells discounted add-on air tickets.

[gumshoe958]

How much is return air fare? Might be cheaper than one way, and you can just throw away the return leg.

[frankp01]

Just now, gumshoe958 said:

How much is return air fare?

I'm ahead of you. I started with return fares. They are about the same, or $100 lower, at best. But that's the advantage of getting the air through Cunard. One way fares are (normally!) extraordinarily good.

[gumshoe958]

What about air miles?

 

Failing that I guess it’s a choice between sucking it up or gambling that Cunard Air will come up trumps while hoping that fares don’t rise even higher.

[foodsvcmgr]

Check Norse and other discount carriers.

They typically offer low cost one way options.

[frankp01]

JetBlue has a pretty good fare. But it means having a 7 hour layover in Boston. I'll have to look into Norse. I know that TAP has a pretty good fare, if we don't mind spending some time in Portugal.

[frankp01]

But my ultimate 

1 hour ago, gumshoe958 said:

it’s a choice between sucking it up or gambling that Cunard Air will come up trumps while hoping that fares don’t rise even higher

Precisely! Knowing that the Cunard transatlantic air fares in the past have been in the $280-350 range, I'm willing to gamble a bit. Maybe until December 2023, which would still be 5 or 6 months from the date of travel.

[Mudhen]

Or if timing is appropriate, bottom of the boat QM2 to Southampton?

Sometimes cheaper than air…

[snowballs mom]

@frankp01 We have July - August 2024 sailings and can book airfare with Cunard starting September 2nd. I have been tracking the prices for premium economy, Denver to Heathrow, through ITA Matrix to try and get an idea of when the best time would be to purchase. At this point the prices seem to be high when released, then drop about ten months out, followed by an increase. The only airlines with nonstops from Denver are United and American, and American's pricing usually is lower than United's (sometimes by a lot). I am considering booking refundable tickets with Cunard, then tracking prices in the hopes of finding better options.

 

From what I have seen, the Denver nonstops are priced lower than connecting flights. The lowest pricing I have seen is around $1200 one way and $1500-1800 round trip for premium economy.

[frankp01]

@snowballs mom Thanks for your thoughts. You're seeing fares similar to what we're seeing. Our travel agent didn't say there was an issue of having to wait to book our airfare this early. But I'm wondering if we should wait until 10 or 11 months out. That's more-or-less the deadline you quoted.

8 minutes ago, snowballs mom said:

I am considering booking refundable tickets with Cunard

When we've bought Cunard air in the past, I never paid attention to whether the fares were refundable. I do know that we didn't have to pay for the flights until the final-payment date for the cruise fare. You may have a point. I'll ask our agent to go ahead and book flights that are refundable, and keep our fingers crossed that the fares drop.

[snowballs mom]

5 minutes ago, frankp01 said:

When we've bought Cunard air in the past, I never paid attention to whether the fares were refundable. I do know that we didn't have to pay for the flights until the final-payment date for the cruise fare. You may have a point. I'll ask our agent to go ahead and book flights that are refundable, and keep our fingers crossed that the fares drop.

That actually came from a Cunard booking agent. I asked about Cunard air a couple of months ago. Apparently there is the option to purchase either refundable or non-refundable tickets through them. The non-refundable are less expensive but need to be paid for upon booking. The refundable cost more but payment is not due until final payment date for the cruise, and the tickets can be canceled.

[frankp01]

35 minutes ago, Mudhen said:

if timing is appropriate, bottom of the boat QM2 to Southampton?

Thanks, thought of that too! In fact, one of the reasons we're sailing home, in the first place, is that the airfares were so high, when we looked a month or two ago. I assumed that the Cunard air add-on would be its usual bargain. With the air fares the way they are, I had considered sailing over, too. With sailing eastbound we'd have 10 days to spend in London.  Two of the three of us can probably swing that much time off, but I think one might have a hard time.

[david,Mississauga]

3 hours ago, frankp01 said:

You must be in the UK. AFAIK, cruise fares in the States have never included an air portion. That's why Cunard sells discounted add-on air tickets.

 

At one time Cunard's transatlantic fares included a flight in the opposite direction to or from most US and Canadian airports. It was a long time ago, but we took advantage of that many times between 1973 and 1990.  We had to give up long-distance travel for many years and I was surprised when we resumed in 2008 that "free" air was no longer offered on US and Canadian bookings.

 

We have had good one-way fares with Air Transat.  If you can make your way to Montreal or Toronto the one-way fares for economy start at $617 and the Club Class (realistically this should be called premium economy) starts at about $1,000 but can be hard to get at the lowest fare. These are Canadian dollars.

[frankp01]

Thanks, @david,Mississauga  I'll definitely take a look at travelling via Toronto. Surprisingly, the fare on Air Canada isn't too bad.

[Mudhen]

It was just a thought of an option, if doable.

Would beat flying any day!

Good luck with what ever you decide on!

[snowballs mom]

@frankp01 I have a question for you, since I have not booked air arrangements through a cruiseline for many years. Did Cunard offer flights on multiple airlines, or did they have just one option for your itinerary. Thanks!

[frankp01]

8 minutes ago, snowballs mom said:

Did Cunard offer flights on multiple airlines

In my experience, yes. I asked our travel agent for a range of dates and two departure cities. There was a significant difference in the fares, based upon the day of the week. As I recall, there were two airlines involved, depending upon the departure city. One airline was the one on which I have the most miles. It also happened to have the best fare, so that's what we ended up flying. My experience with Cunard air is that the fares have been incredibly good. That is, until today!

[techteach]

@frankp01 You mentioned having miles on one of the airlines. Can you use the miles at the lower rate quoted with Cunard? We’ve flown business on BA using miles in the past and haven’t looked into Cunard air.

[frankp01]

1 hour ago, techteach said:

Can you use the miles

I suspect not, although I've never tried. You're charged for the airfare on your Cunard booking confirmation. I'm not sure how that document would be able to handle miles in lieu of currency.

[Millieloulou]

Yes We have the same experience with Cunard airfares.Certainly more expensive than before.We are flying LHR to JFK return for Christmas cruise.

What is bugging us is that we are unable to reserve our seats even with settling our account early.We cannot do this until 45 days before we fly.Calls to Cunard and BA get us the same answer.

I wish now that I had booked the flights myself.Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to persuade my husband to cross the Atlantic in December.

[Millieloulou]

Sorry this is for this year.

[Victoria2]

50 minutes ago, Millieloulou said:

Yes We have the same experience with Cunard airfares.Certainly more expensive than before.We are flying LHR to JFK return for Christmas cruise.

What is bugging us is that we are unable to reserve our seats even with settling our account early.We cannot do this until 45 days before we fly.Calls to Cunard and BA get us the same answer.

I wish now that I had booked the flights myself.Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to persuade my husband to cross the Atlantic 

We choose the airline, date and class of travel and our agent bundles it up into a total Cunard package. We pay the flight part immediately which means we choose our seats at the earliest date possible.

Best of both worlds.

[ExArkie]

15 hours ago, frankp01 said:

Thanks, @david,Mississauga  I'll definitely take a look at travelling via Toronto. Surprisingly, the fare on Air Canada isn't too bad.

For one-way transatlantic flights, I have found leaving from Canada generally means paying around one-half of the round trip fare. Leaving from the US generally means paying almost the full round trip fare.

 

Out of curiosity, I checked one-way Toronto to London in early June 2024. Several options for less than US$500 - TAP had one with an overnight in Lisbon (great city, by the way) for around US$400. A one-way for Philadelphia to Toronto (you have to get there somehow) to connect to the transatlantic flight was around US$250. 
 

Possibly not a huge difference from Jet Blue via Boston (I saw it for US$717 on June 3), but there is that 7.5 hour layover in Boston. Of course, based on my last experience at Logan airport, that was just about the amount of time needed to make the connection…it was a very bad weather day in Boston.