Business Class Flights arranged by Regent Seven Seas from Dulles to Rome

[MissPhoeb]

August 31, 2023

Hello,

Has anyone out there ever been on a Regent Seven Seas cruise and had them book your airfare, specifically anyone from Dulles Airport to Rome?  If so, which airline(s) did they book you on?  The cruise we booked, which is a little over a year away, includes business class air and I paid the extra fee that gives us input into which flights they book us on.  I realize I'm way ahead of the curve, but I'm trying to research the best airline(s), connections, etc., and it's dizzying.  It would help if I could narrow it down to just the airlines Regent typically uses and I was hoping someone in this forum that has had airfare booked by Regent from Dulles (or the Washington, D.C. area) to Rome could tell me which airline they were on.  Thanks for any input!!

Edited August 31, 2023 by MissPhoeb

[Kwaj girl]

How did you pay the "extra fee" already when airlines have not yet posted flight schedules that you would discuss with Regent Air (and thus incur a fee at that time)?

[Lonedaddy]

The best connection would be the united nonstop.    

[Nachosdelux]

1 hour ago, Lonedaddy said:

The best connection would be the united nonstop.    

 

absolutely.

[mrlevin]

2 hours ago, Kwaj girl said:

How did you pay the "extra fee" already when airlines have not yet posted flight schedules that you would discuss with Regent Air (and thus incur a fee at that time)?

If they wanted to leave from a "secondary" airport their invoice would show $124.50 per person per direction additional charge.  Given that IAD is a Regent primary airport it shouldn't show up on this itinerary but I wanted to show how you could "pay" (i.e., invoice) the additional cost before you have flights.

[Kwaj girl]

21 minutes ago, mrlevin said:

If they wanted to leave from a "secondary" airport their invoice would show $124.50 per person per direction additional charge.  Given that IAD is a Regent primary airport it shouldn't show up on this itinerary but I wanted to show how you could "pay" (i.e., invoice) the additional cost before you have flights.

 

We use a secondary airport and are aware of the directional add-collect.  That did nor seem to be what the OP implied.

[mrlevin]

18 minutes ago, Kwaj girl said:

 

We use a secondary airport and are aware of the directional add-collect.  That did nor seem to be what the OP implied.

Agree, that didn't seem what she meant; we traveled out of HSV for many years; we know that airport very well.  I even flew out of there in March 1993 last flight out before the airport was closed due to snow.  

[Kwaj girl]

25 minutes ago, mrlevin said:

Agree, that didn't seem what she meant; we traveled out of HSV for many years; we know that airport very well.  I even flew out of there in March 1993 last flight out before the airport was closed due to snow.  

 

HSV - my airport!

[MissPhoeb]

Kwan girl:  The extra fee was paid to Regent Seven Seas, not to the airline.  The extra fee allows you some flexibility with regard to the flights Regent selects for you.  In order to take advantage of this, it helps to have at least several preferred flights in mind if you're not crazy about what Regent picks.

 

I was hoping to connect with someone who has had airfare booked for them by Regent from Dulles to Rome.  I did see the United flight, but it's one of the most expensive, so I assumed that Regent would book us on a more economical and less convenient flight.  You know the old saying; "if it sounds too good to be true. . ."

[loriva]

There is lots of information in the sticky on Regent flights--you might find someone who has had your routing there.

 

To see if the United non-stop is an option--when flights open up (and you'll need both outbound and return dates)--do a search on the United website.  Use the "advanced search" option and look for a "P" fare.  That is the deepest discount fare and the one Regent books.  It will show up in the second column of prices--look for the header "fare searched." 

 

Even if the fare is available, however, you might have to pay a surcharge over the air allowance from Regent.  We just faced that with a return flight from Singapore after an airline cancelled its flight that was part of our original itinerary.  I found a "P" fare on United and partner ANA, but still had to pay an upcharge as we were changing from the originally booked EVA Air.

[Kwaj girl]

25 minutes ago, MissPhoeb said:

Kwan girl:  The extra fee was paid to Regent Seven Seas, not to the airline.  The extra fee allows you some flexibility with regard to the flights Regent selects for you.  In order to take advantage of this, it helps to have at least several preferred flights in mind if you're not crazy about what Regent picks.

 

I was hoping to connect with someone who has had airfare booked for them by Regent from Dulles to Rome.  I did see the United flight, but it's one of the most expensive, so I assumed that Regent would book us on a more economical and less convenient flight.  You know the old saying; "if it sounds too good to be true. . ."

 

Why would you "already" have paid Regent's Custom Air fee when airlines haven't even posted their schedules yet for your time frame? The air department can't discuss options that aren't even available yet.  Airlines generally post their schedules 330 days prior to flight.

[puppyluv1]

We had a very good experience deviating our flight that leaves today for Barcelona for a cruise that starts on Sunday. We requested a nonstop from NY which was about $2500 pp more than the options with one connection. We only had to pay $500 pp up charge. We thought that was a great deal. Like others have said, we did our research beforehand. Makes the whole process easy. 

[MissPhoeb]

1 hour ago, loriva said:

There is lots of information in the sticky on Regent flights--you might find someone who has had your routing there.

 

To see if the United non-stop is an option--when flights open up (and you'll need both outbound and return dates)--do a search on the United website.  Use the "advanced search" option and look for a "P" fare.  That is the deepest discount fare and the one Regent books.  It will show up in the second column of prices--look for the header "fare searched." 

 

Even if the fare is available, however, you might have to pay a surcharge over the air allowance from Regent.  We just faced that with a return flight from Singapore after an airline cancelled its flight that was part of our original itinerary.  I found a "P" fare on United and partner ANA, but still had to pay an upcharge as we were changing from the originally booked EVA Air.

THANK YOU, this is very helpful information!!  Not following you about "in the sticky" on Regent flights though.  What is that?

[mj_holiday]

The very first discussion on the Regent Cruise Critic forum (which you are on) discusses flights with and without deviation.  There is a thumb tack by it.  That will give you alot of information about booking flights.

[paratrooper69]

2017 November.  Dulles to PHL to FCO.  American.

[TheShag]

On 9/1/2023 at 7:35 AM, loriva said:

There is lots of information in the sticky on Regent flights--you might find someone who has had your routing there.

 

To see if the United non-stop is an option--when flights open up (and you'll need both outbound and return dates)--do a search on the United website.  Use the "advanced search" option and look for a "P" fare.  That is the deepest discount fare and the one Regent books.  It will show up in the second column of prices--look for the header "fare searched." 

 

Even if the fare is available, however, you might have to pay a surcharge over the air allowance from Regent.  We just faced that with a return flight from Singapore after an airline cancelled its flight that was part of our original itinerary.  I found a "P" fare on United and partner ANA, but still had to pay an upcharge as we were changing from the originally booked EVA Air.

Curious about booking codes. I thought "P" was for Premium Economy. Is "P" specific to United and denotes Biz class?

[papaflamingo]

3 hours ago, TheShag said:

Curious about booking codes. I thought "P" was for Premium Economy. Is "P" specific to United and denotes Biz class?

 "P" is UAL's code for "Deep Discount Business." 

https://cwsi.net/united.htm

Edited September 10, 2023 by papaflamingo

[SWFLAOK]

On 9/1/2023 at 7:47 AM, Kwaj girl said:

 

Why would you "already" have paid Regent's Custom Air fee when airlines haven't even posted their schedules yet for your time frame? The air department can't discuss options that aren't even available yet.  Airlines generally post their schedules 330 days prior to flight.

We had to pay for Regent Custom Air in July before they would even consider looking at a flight for us in September for our late March cruise. Without that payment, they would not start looking for our flight, That was a quote from Regent, and they still had to be prompted to give us flights in September.

We obviously could have booked flights ourselves a long time ago, but our cruise includes business class airfare, and we expect Regent to provide them. We looked at booking our own flights, and they we very expensive for business class. That's one of the reasons we have continued to take Regent cruises. We are gold members on Regent, and will be adding quite a few nights onboard this cruise, and we have never had a problem with their included air in the past.

But this time, we were asked to pay extra for our flight in addition to the custom air fee, and were only given assigned seats for our return flights. They couldn't say when our seats would be assigned for our other flights because they didn't know why they hadn't already been assigned by the airline (the same airline that we're flying on return). This doesn't give us a good feeling for our upcoming cruise. We won't be making our final payment in November if they can't confirm our seats by then, and will be asking for a refund of our considerable down payment. I think Regent has been unable to figure out how to deal with the airlines now that there are way more non cruise passengers traveling internationally, especially in business class, than there were pre-Covid.

[papaflamingo]

11 hours ago, SWFLAOK said:

We had to pay for Regent Custom Air in July before they would even consider looking at a flight for us in September for our late March cruise. Without that payment, they would not start looking for our flight, That was a quote from Regent, and they still had to be prompted to give us flights in September.

We obviously could have booked flights ourselves a long time ago, but our cruise includes business class airfare, and we expect Regent to provide them. We looked at booking our own flights, and they we very expensive for business class. That's one of the reasons we have continued to take Regent cruises. We are gold members on Regent, and will be adding quite a few nights onboard this cruise, and we have never had a problem with their included air in the past.

But this time, we were asked to pay extra for our flight in addition to the custom air fee, and were only given assigned seats for our return flights. They couldn't say when our seats would be assigned for our other flights because they didn't know why they hadn't already been assigned by the airline (the same airline that we're flying on return). This doesn't give us a good feeling for our upcoming cruise. We won't be making our final payment in November if they can't confirm our seats by then, and will be asking for a refund of our considerable down payment. I think Regent has been unable to figure out how to deal with the airlines now that there are way more non cruise passengers traveling internationally, especially in business class, than there were pre-Covid.

Your post is a bit confusing.. so here's how I read it.... the "custom air fee" to talk to them is a new $75 fee that is designed to keep phone calls down to those actually interested in deviating. In the past people would call, spend a long time exploring options then simply say "no" to any deviation.   Since the airlines are constantly changing flights and schedules, the Air Dept. is overloaded, so they added the $75 fee to reduce the "window shoppers."  And it seems to have worked.  

So, the $175 deviation fee is only charged if you actually accept a deviation.  The $75 "talk" fee is rolled into one of the deviations fees so the total to deviate is still $175 per person.

As for seat assignments, that is totally up to the individual airlines.  We usually deviate on Delta (we live in Atlanta).  Our seats are ALWAYS assigned while I'm still on the phone with Regent (I tell the agent which seats I want and the agent assigns them).  I did the same for United on our upcoming cruise.  This isn't a Regent policy, it's an airline policy.  So if you aren't going to go on the cruise without assigned seats, then you either need to deviate on a different airline or you'll simply be missing cruises.  

As to your comment "this time, we were asked to pay extra for our flight in addition to the custom air fee," yes.. because you selected flights without a contract rate.  So you have to pay the additional.  This is happening more and more, not because of Regent, but because the airlines are flying full. They don't need to discount rates on their most popular flights.  But it's dependent.  We had to pay an up charge for the non-stop from Atlanta to Athens on our upcoming cruise, but the non-stop home from Rome was no up charge.  And the reverse was true for our flights next Feb.  So it's just a matter of your flight desires.  If you ask them they'll give you a no up charge option (at least they did for me) and I was able to decide if the up charge was worth it.  

Sadly, this is "cruising after Covid."  I'm retired airline and I can tell you that the airlines are so full and so short of crews that this is just how it's going to be.  

[SWFLAOK]

PapaFlamingo,  almost all of what you've assumed is incorrect. We have a cruise TA that we have worked with for many years, and trust our agent completely. We never have "bothered" the Regent air employees ourselves. We have taken Regent air on every Regent cruise that we have take, and have deviated on air for all of them. We don't like to wait for our air reservations since it makes getting to the airport and back more complicated. Once we wanted to add a week to visit family who lived where our cruise ended, and had to pay a deviation to stay an extra week before flying home. That flight, of course, was cancelled due to a flight attendant feeling ill on the inbound flight, and no one being available until early the next morning. We were able to stay with family, but we were charged for upgraded seats a second time for our 2 flights home, and Regent wasn't responsible for them since we added the seat upgrade ourselves. Neither airline (one of them Delta, the other American) that we were on to get home, claimed any responsibility for us having to pay twice for our upgraded seats.

As I already said, we had to pay a non-refundable 75 dollar fee, each, back in July for Regent air to consider our deviation request, and we were charged at that time on my credit card. A few days after being charged Regent air told us that deviations for our cruise for flights that we needed for our pre-cruise excursion at the end of March would not be available until sometime in September, and that happened very recently.

When our TA contacted Regent air, they were able to book flights for us, at the additional cost of the deviation, plus an additional fee for not having 2 stops rather then one, with our departure and return from Miami. The airline was a contracted airline. It was not an airline we requested, and the return flight required us to pay Regent for a post hotel with transfers due to Regent restrictions on when we could disembark, and we will arrive home a day later than we expected.

I have always thought that you, PF, were a Regent TA, but now that I know you are retired airline (probably Delta), I know why much of the information you've given in the past seems suspect.

After our many travel experiences, with both cruises, and otherwise,  our only request to cruise lines when we fly is that we never fly on Delta, and that we never fly through Atlanta. We don't live in Georgia, and have never had a good experience flying to it, or from it, and the problems have always been on Delta. We used to live in upstate NY, and had several problems with Delta way back then, so it's a problem that started way before we started taking cruises, but continued after that. And the Delta business class lounge in Atlanta is the worst lounge we've ever experienced anywhere that we've traveled. After they bumped us from our business class flight because their feeder flight that we were on was late (too many bags brought to the gate and gate-checked, I watched from my window onboard for over 20 minutes to load them) they gave us a hard time getting into the lounge since we were downgraded to delta one. We showed them our business class tickets from our scheduled flight, and after a phone call they let us in. We were sorry we asked. It was filled with screaming kids, with few seats available, and long lines for food. Definitely not where I wanted to sit through our 4 hour delay for the next flight.

 

[Kwaj girl]

11 minutes ago, SWFLAOK said:

PapaFlamingo,  almost all of what you've assumed is incorrect. We have a cruise TA that we have worked with for many years, and trust our agent completely. We never have "bothered" the Regent air employees ourselves. We have taken Regent air on every Regent cruise that we have take, and have deviated on air for all of them. We don't like to wait for our air reservations since it makes getting to the airport and back more complicated. Once we wanted to add a week to visit family who lived where our cruise ended, and had to pay a deviation to stay an extra week before flying home. That flight, of course, was cancelled due to a flight attendant feeling ill on the inbound flight, and no one being available until early the next morning. We were able to stay with family, but we were charged for upgraded seats a second time for our 2 flights home, and Regent wasn't responsible for them since we added the seat upgrade ourselves. Neither airline (one of them Delta, the other American) that we were on to get home, claimed any responsibility for us having to pay twice for our upgraded seats.

As I already said, we had to pay a non-refundable 75 dollar fee, each, back in July for Regent air to consider our deviation request, and we were charged at that time on my credit card. A few days after being charged Regent air told us that deviations for our cruise for flights that we needed for our pre-cruise excursion at the end of March would not be available until sometime in September, and that happened very recently.

When our TA contacted Regent air, they were able to book flights for us, at the additional cost of the deviation, plus an additional fee for not having 2 stops rather then one, with our departure and return from Miami. The airline was a contracted airline. It was not an airline we requested, and the return flight required us to pay Regent for a post hotel with transfers due to Regent restrictions on when we could disembark, and we will arrive home a day later than we expected.

I have always thought that you, PF, were a Regent TA, but now that I know you are retired airline (probably Delta), I know why much of the information you've given in the past seems suspect.

After our many travel experiences, with both cruises, and otherwise,  our only request to cruise lines when we fly is that we never fly on Delta, and that we never fly through Atlanta. We don't live in Georgia, and have never had a good experience flying to it, or from it, and the problems have always been on Delta. We used to live in upstate NY, and had several problems with Delta way back then, so it's a problem that started way before we started taking cruises, but continued after that. And the Delta business class lounge in Atlanta is the worst lounge we've ever experienced anywhere that we've traveled. After they bumped us from our business class flight because their feeder flight that we were on was late (too many bags brought to the gate and gate-checked, I watched from my window onboard for over 20 minutes to load them) they gave us a hard time getting into the lounge since we were downgraded to delta one. We showed them our business class tickets from our scheduled flight, and after a phone call they let us in. We were sorry we asked. It was filled with screaming kids, with few seats available, and long lines for food. Definitely not where I wanted to sit through our 4 hour delay for the next flight.

 

 

"Downgraded to Delta one?" HUH?

[papaflamingo]

56 minutes ago, Kwaj girl said:

 

"Downgraded to Delta one?" HUH?

I was wondering the same thing. Maybe just a misprint or misquote.

[papaflamingo]

1 hour ago, SWFLAOK said:

PapaFlamingo,  almost all of what you've assumed is incorrect. We have a cruise TA that we have worked with for many years, and trust our agent completely. We never have "bothered" the Regent air employees ourselves. We have taken Regent air on every Regent cruise that we have take, and have deviated on air for all of them. We don't like to wait for our air reservations since it makes getting to the airport and back more complicated. Once we wanted to add a week to visit family who lived where our cruise ended, and had to pay a deviation to stay an extra week before flying home. That flight, of course, was cancelled due to a flight attendant feeling ill on the inbound flight, and no one being available until early the next morning. We were able to stay with family, but we were charged for upgraded seats a second time for our 2 flights home, and Regent wasn't responsible for them since we added the seat upgrade ourselves. Neither airline (one of them Delta, the other American) that we were on to get home, claimed any responsibility for us having to pay twice for our upgraded seats.

As I already said, we had to pay a non-refundable 75 dollar fee, each, back in July for Regent air to consider our deviation request, and we were charged at that time on my credit card. A few days after being charged Regent air told us that deviations for our cruise for flights that we needed for our pre-cruise excursion at the end of March would not be available until sometime in September, and that happened very recently.

When our TA contacted Regent air, they were able to book flights for us, at the additional cost of the deviation, plus an additional fee for not having 2 stops rather then one, with our departure and return from Miami. The airline was a contracted airline. It was not an airline we requested, and the return flight required us to pay Regent for a post hotel with transfers due to Regent restrictions on when we could disembark, and we will arrive home a day later than we expected.

I have always thought that you, PF, were a Regent TA, but now that I know you are retired airline (probably Delta), I know why much of the information you've given in the past seems suspect.

After our many travel experiences, with both cruises, and otherwise,  our only request to cruise lines when we fly is that we never fly on Delta, and that we never fly through Atlanta. We don't live in Georgia, and have never had a good experience flying to it, or from it, and the problems have always been on Delta. We used to live in upstate NY, and had several problems with Delta way back then, so it's a problem that started way before we started taking cruises, but continued after that. And the Delta business class lounge in Atlanta is the worst lounge we've ever experienced anywhere that we've traveled. After they bumped us from our business class flight because their feeder flight that we were on was late (too many bags brought to the gate and gate-checked, I watched from my window onboard for over 20 minutes to load them) they gave us a hard time getting into the lounge since we were downgraded to delta one. We showed them our business class tickets from our scheduled flight, and after a phone call they let us in. We were sorry we asked. It was filled with screaming kids, with few seats available, and long lines for food. Definitely not where I wanted to sit through our 4 hour delay for the next flight.

 

Ok...sorry you find "much of the information [I've] given in the past,,,suspect."  Not sure where that is coming from, I try hard to give only my experience and facts as I know them.  Not sure why me being a retired Delta Pilot makes my information "suspect."  

Your situation, for me, is still confusing.  I have deviated on both our last cruises, and just deviated on our next two.  My experience has been quite pleasant and acceptable.  And yes, it includes leaving early, staying late, and pre-cruise excursions.  I have only been charged the $175 per person deviation fee until the $75 "contact" fee was added.  Then I was charged a SINGLE $75 to book the flights or BOTH my wife and I, and when I accepted the flights, I paid an additional $100 for me as they rolled the $75 into it,  and $175 for my wife so a total of $175 for each of us. Yes, I had to pay an up charge for a couple of flights, and not for a couple.  But the up charge was always at my choice, as I was offered no up charge flights also.  I just felt the extra charge was worth it for me.  So,  I am totally confused as to your situation.  But since you find my information "suspect," I'll stop passing any to you.   

By the way, thanks for "trashing" a company that I worked at for 29 years.  Nice touch. 😏

I won't make excuses for Delta other than to say I was likely NOT personally responsible for your issues with them.  I know they can mess up, just like any other large corporation.  But I was very proud of my career there and I am most familiar with the quality of their pilots and flight crews, their crew training requirements, maintenance programs, flight safety regulations and programs, etc. For those reason I prefer Delta to other airlines.  

Anyway I do hope you find an airlines that will be a better "fit" for you.  

Good luck.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by papaflamingo

[wcsdkqh]

I have always found traveling with Delta to be a pleasant experience and the Atlanta airport one of the easiest to traverse. Much prefer Delta over other airlines I’ve flown on. 

[Kwaj girl]

We are on Delta as we speak....enroute to Anchorage to join Explorer tomorrow.  One thing for sure...in our experience....Delta will get us there!  Have been $crewed too many times by that other airline beginning with U....

As a side note....today I reached MILLION MILER status with Delta.  Surprise public recognition at the gate in ATL.  I'd post the photo if I knew how!