Delta Cancels Contract with Regent

[Chateaunole-du-pape]

2 hours ago, Dolebludger said:

Papaflamingo, just a question. On your flight, I understand that economy on Jet Blue is not what most of us Regent cruisers would like. But in addition, would you have to claim and recheck your luggage when you changed from JAL to Jet blue in Boston? We find that to be true often when connections involve an airline change, and that is a “deal breaker” for us. 

I've never made or even heard of a connection off of an international flight arriving in the U.S. where baggage re-check (if you had checked bags) and security re-screening weren't necessary. This is because you must clear customs with your checked baggage physically present with you, and since during that process you've had access to your checked bags, which might contain items that cannot be brought into the cabin of the airplane, you must go through security screening again. Usually the baggage re-check is quite simple - a bag tag is already attached and you don't have to really deal with anyone, you just set it on a conveyor belt and then proceed to security screening. But it must be done. The only exceptions I can think of are international stations that have U.S. Customs and Immigration pre-clearance, where there are actually U.S. officers stationed in the foreign country: Ireland, Canada, Abu Dhabi, the Bahamas and perhaps a handful of other Caribbean countries. In some or all of those instances, it may be possible for your bags to go from your arriving plane to your connecting plane without your even having to touch or even see them. I know that's the case with Ireland; U.S. CBP installed some really interesting infrastructure there maybe 10 years ago that allows the U.S. customs agent to inspect your bag from afar and declare it fit to enter the U.S. before it even gets to the plane that's departing Ireland.

If you're connecting between two completely different airlines, you may or may not have to go through full baggage re-check, with new bag tags and everything. It all depends on whether the two carriers involved have an ITB (interline ticketing and baggage) agreement.

Edited February 8 by Chateaunole-du-pape

[rallydave]

Close enough for government work.  Always a few outliers

[Dolebludger]

All I know is that business class on all domestic flights I’ve been on has been little more than “coach” used to be. Of course, I accept that there are exceptions to this, and I haven’t been on all domestic flights. We need more business class seats, because some of us can’t fly economy for medical reasons.

[rallydave]

3 hours ago, Dolebludger said:

Papaflamingo, just a question. On your flight, I understand that economy on Jet Blue is not what most of us Regent cruisers would like. But in addition, would you have to claim and recheck your luggage when you changed from JAL to Jet blue in Boston? We find that to be true often when connections involve an airline change, and that is a “deal breaker” for us. 

As was stated earlier and I will clarify. For international flights into the US that fo not have you go thru immigration in a foreign country like Canada Ireland Aruba etc no matter the incoming airline or the connecting flight ALL luggage is removed from the plane and ALL passengers go thru immigration and ALL luggage goes thru customs. 
 

No difference same airline or different airline. This is different for many foreign countries where bags are checked to and picked up at final destination. 

[papaflamingo]

23 hours ago, Dolebludger said:

papaflamingo:
 

And, oh yeah, another question. We were able to choose a non-stop on United  Denver - London (not knowing what Regent’s alternative would be) for the deviation charge only. So my question is, how much was your up charge for Delta direct?

For the non-stop Haneda-Atlanta on Delta the up charge was $1000 per person.  Figured since it's about 13 hour flight, it was worth it.  If I was to purchase the flight using my employee discount (I'm retired Delta) it would cost about $5500 per person (without my employee discount the cost would be $6100 per person).  I think the air allotment today for one leg is $2850 so you can see even adding the $1000 I save about $1200 per person using Regent air. And I believe when we first booked the cruise the air allotment was a bit less as it's gone up as the airlines are getting more expensive. 

Edited February 9 by papaflamingo

[mikenbob]

Just completed our air deviation for flights to London…on Delta. Our TA said the cost issue is with most airlines. Many of the carriers reduced capacity during the COVID years and have been slow to add back all of the scheduled flights. Add that to a much higher demand for international travel and it all boils down to a supply vs. demand issue. The amount of credit offered for flights from ATL to LHR are about half of the fares being charged, so not much incentive to book outside of the Regent air deviation system. We chose an $800 per person deviation for non-stop round trip flights on Delta (it would have been $900 per person on British Airways) and that was a bargain compared to booking directly with the Regent credit. In fairness to Regent, it looks like someone incorrectly forecasted future airline rates when the pricing for was set a year or so ago.

[bitob]

Relevant article from today's NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/travel/american-airlines-loyalty-program-changes.html

 

[irishwitchy]

2 hours ago, bitob said:

Relevant article from today's NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/travel/american-airlines-loyalty-program-changes.html

 

I also read this, I’m expecting we will see more on this.   I always book my own tickets directly with the airlines.   No major issues to speak of, except misplaced luggage.  

[SandJCruiser]

For what it's worth, on our upcoming Regent cruise to Alaska, with the pre-cruise Denali tour, our experience was as follows:  

 

We needed to fly Las Vegas to Fairbanks and back from Vancouver to Las Vegas.  The Regent flights would be Economy.  LAS is not a gateway city, so I had my TA inquire as to Regent's quote to upgrade to First and fly in/out of LAS.

 

The quote came back as an upcharge of $823.50 each, per direction.  Plus the air credit component of the fare was $700 each.  If you do the math, that worked out to be a total, in effect,  of $4,694 for two.  I booked Delta, first class, with very acceptable connections, for $2374.  In this case, at least, it seems hard to believe that Regent would not have profited off of the air component. 

 

Just sayin'...

[2SailingNomads]

12 hours ago, SandJCruiser said:

For what it's worth, on our upcoming Regent cruise to Alaska, with the pre-cruise Denali tour, our experience was as follows:  

 

We needed to fly Las Vegas to Fairbanks and back from Vancouver to Las Vegas.  The Regent flights would be Economy.  LAS is not a gateway city, so I had my TA inquire as to Regent's quote to upgrade to First and fly in/out of LAS.

 

The quote came back as an upcharge of $823.50 each, per direction.  Plus the air credit component of the fare was $700 each.  If you do the math, that worked out to be a total, in effect,  of $4,694 for two.  I booked Delta, first class, with very acceptable connections, for $2374.  In this case, at least, it seems hard to believe that Regent would not have profited off of the air component. 

 

Just sayin'...

Flying out of LAS now and previously from SLC we always get hit with the non-gateway airport despite the fact that there are nonstop flights to AMS, LHR and from SLC to CDG.  West jet code shared with Delta has nonstop to Vancouver.  Not sure the qualifications to be a gateway, maybe volume of ships pax from that location?

[papaflamingo]

On 3/6/2024 at 12:02 PM, SandJCruiser said:

In this case, at least, it seems hard to believe that Regent would not have profited off of the air component. 

 

Perhaps, but they say no. Regardless, Regent isn't a Travel Agent per se.  If they don't have contract rates then they are simply booking a flight for you, as a Travel Agent will.  So why would it be surprising to find that they add a surcharge to do your TA's job?  Regent is, after all, a "for profit" company. 

Not trying to be argumentative, so I apologize if my comment comes across as such.  Just an honest opinion. 

[rallydave]

18 minutes ago, papaflamingo said:

Perhaps, but they say no. Regardless, Regent isn't a Travel Agent per se.  If they don't have contract rates then they are simply booking a flight for you, as a Travel Agent will.  So why would it be surprising to find that they add a surcharge to do your TA's job?  Regent is, after all, a "for profit" company. 

Not trying to be argumentative, so I apologize if my comment comes across as such.  Just an honest opinion. 

In addition you have to remember that the cruise fares that include the sir are identical no matter your home airport and not based on your particular home airport. 
 

Thus regent as you stated a for profit company has to calculate the cost of the included air based on some average of air fares for the entire US and likely a contingency to ensure the make a profit and not lose profits should the passenger bookings not match their estimates. 
 

win some lose some and sure the included fares are high enough to make a profit 

 

and remember the credit is identical no mater your home airport so it may or may not cover your self booking. 
 

also doubt the credit is the identical amount added to the cruise fare again to ensure profits. 

[SandJCruiser]

Papaflamingo- No offense taken.  I was merely giving a real world  example where the price difference seemed excessive.  I'm sure that many pax experience good deals going with Regent's air.  And yes, there are other factors to be considered, like convenience, transfers, etc.  And, yes, we shouldn't expect Regent to handle air arrangements without recovering all their costs and a reasonable profit as well.  Just this time, in our case, the offered air price was nearly double, which made our decision easy.  YMMV.