Oceania Air - seat selection

[richyking]

Hi all. My wife and I are booked on Vista, Istanbul - Rome in May 24. This is our first cruise ever, Oceania was recommended to us and we are looking forward to it and this forum has been invaluable thank you. Just a quick question which may sound dumb but I just haven't got my head around it. I booked direct with Oceania B2 cabin sm and included air fare. Normally when I book a holiday, usually a year or more in advance, I can choose my seats which I do at time of booking usually extra leg room. I now have my flight details but am unable to select seats because I do not have a ticket. To obtain a ticket early I have to agree to 'no refund whatsoever'.  My wife suffers from a flying phobia so we need to sit together I am concerned that leaving it so late we may not get seats together. Anyone able to advise or have experience we are flying in and out of London Heathrow. Sorry for long message and thank you.

[Island2Dweller]

I don't know the specifics of your case.  But in general, cruise lines have deals with airlines where they block book a certain number of seats well ahead.  But they only firm up the passenger names with the airline nearer the departure date.

This means that airline doesn't have your name / ticket number in the system yet, so you can't choose seats.  If you insist that they ticket you now then it becomes a fixed booking, which is why it becomes no refund.

The legacy carriers using LHR (such as BA or Turkish) will generally get you sat together so long as you do on-line check in as soon as it open.  It's only the likes of Ryanair that deliberately split you up.

[richyking]

Thank you Island2Dweller thats really helpful and reassuring I think I will now just wait for the ticket issue. Appreciate the quick response.

[babysteps]

2 hours ago, richyking said:

Thank you Island2Dweller thats really helpful and reassuring I think I will now just wait for the ticket issue. Appreciate the quick response.

We haven't used O's air very often. One time it still wasn't ticketed a couple weeks before the flight and our TA reached out to O to get it ticketed. I gather it's usually earlier than that, not sure what happened but once ticketed we could choose seats etc. as per terms of ticket.

So you may wish to be *slightly* more active than 'just wait for the ticket' lol

[thebsinmiss]

Our travel agent strongly recommended booking our flights ourselves (did not use the TA either which was fine with her). Reasons 

- No guarantee you will have a direct flight. You may end up with multiple airports and flights 

- No real control over seat assignment. If you book yourself you pay a fee but you can immediately select your seats which is especially important if you want exit row, premium economy etc...

- Typically you can do all the above at a lower cost vs the airfare cost quoted by O but it requires some extra time on the computer looking for the right deal.

 

Enjoy your cruise (and flights)

[jazznruby]

Contrary to what most on CC will tell you, I've used O air (not biz class) with great success. I've paid the deviation fee to get exactly the itinerary that I wanted, rather than taking what O gives you. And in all cases, since we prefer to fly premium economy, we've saved $$ significantly. While it's true they don't ticket until closer to departure, I've always received a ticket locator number shortly after booking, which has allowed me to do seat selection. Not sure if booking conditions are different for  the UK, or if paying the deviation fee has made the difference, but that's been my experience. I'm about to book O air through my TA for November cruise, and will see if the process is the same as in the past.

[clo]

11 minutes ago, jazznruby said:

I've always received a ticket locator number shortly after booking, which has allowed me to do seat selection.

I was just going to mention that. 

[FlyerTalker]

7 hours ago, Island2Dweller said:

I don't know the specifics of your case.  But in general, cruise lines have deals with airlines where they block book a certain number of seats well ahead.  But they only firm up the passenger names with the airline nearer the departure date.

 

I take issue with this due to terminology.  Airlines don't sell "seats" - they sell tickets.  And cruiselines don't have a block of "seats" - they have "tickets".  So there are not a pile of "seats" all awaiting a cruiseline assignment.

 

 

[FlyerTalker]

4 hours ago, babysteps said:

once ticketed we could choose seats etc. as per terms of ticket.

 

And that "terms of ticket" can be a sticky point.  BA is known to charge for seat assignments, even in business class.  So much is dependent on both the airline AND the specific fare rules for that bulk ticket.

 

 

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, jazznruby said:

While it's true they don't ticket until closer to departure, I've always received a ticket locator number shortly after booking, which has allowed me to do seat selection.

 

As noted elsewhere, a locator is nothing more than a placeholder until you are actually ticketed.  Depending on the airline, you can select seats or not, again per the specifics of the underlying ticket fare rules.

 

 

[qballer]

Have your T/A or Oceania have your flight  ticketed. Sometimes they can not do this for up to 3 months before cruise. It may take several calls, but it usually gets done and you can pick out seats. If you are flying on Turkish air.... good luck.  They don't seem to care about customer service.

[Redtravel]

We usually do our own air.  However, sometimes there may be good reason to book Oceania air.  Yes, we got seats together on all the planes. Last year, we booked late. We couldn’t find any air at an acceptable price. We chose O air.  We flew from Philadelphia to London to catch a cruise out of Southampton.  There are several non stops daily. We couldn’t get on them. O flew us from Phl to Fra on Eurowings discovery.  Seats weren’t assigned until online checkin.  We got seats across the aisle from each other.  However when we got to the airport, our seats had changed to next to each other in the middle of group of 4.  From Fra, we flew to LGW and took bus to Southampton. We arrived at 3 pm. Ship sailed at 5 pm.  We made it. Never would fly in that close to sailing. Going home, we flew from Oslo to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Minneapolis, and Minneapolis to Philadelphia.  It was crazy.  We got home.  
if you don’t mind living on the edge, O air can be exciting.  

[mauibabes]

If you have not made your final payment, but I am guessing you have, I would suggest you use the Oceania Air Credit amount as your baseline and try to book your own flight from London to Istanbul and home from wherever your cruise ends and see if the ticket price you find is acceptable to you. O will probably not have PE seating available from their contract carriers so you are probably better off taking their credit and DIY and get your seats together. 
 

If you were booked thru a TA, I would have made the flights a condition of my booking. I would think flying in May you should still find available flights to accommodate your needs. 
Enjoy your first Oceania cruise because Vista is an amazing ship and they will definitely treat you like royalty. You said B-4 Stateroom so pay attention to your Specialty dining reservations booking date. All the restaurants on Vista have some wonderful menus so ENJOY. 

Mauibabes

[Vallesan]

Richyking. The chances of having to change planes from LHR to Istanbul are pretty slim. This usually happens if you are flying from a regional airport but it’s usually non-stop from Heathrow.

It’s odd that Oceania can’t be more helpful once you have paid in full. If they can’t or won’t help try to at least find out which airline and flight you're booked on, and then you could maybe approach the airline and explain the situation. They may be able to help.

Good luck!

[FlyerTalker]

6 hours ago, Vallesan said:

Richyking. The chances of having to change planes from LHR to Istanbul are pretty slim.

 

Only if you get booked onto BA or Turkish.

 

You could easily be booked on Air France through Paris, Lufthansa through Frankfurt, KLM through Amsterdam, Austrian through Vienna or other routings.

 

Completely depends on the specific contracts in place.  And what inventory is available for that routing and dates.

 

 

[pinotlover]

The crux of the matter is corporate cash flow. Oceania doesn’t want to expend the cash until absolutely necessary, and the airlines don’t recognize the ticket and allow seat selection until they have cash in hand.

 

The cruise and other travel industry’s use of bulk rate discount flight fares is rather complicated and as pointed out above it rarely includes a block of seats on any flight. That’s a different scenario that is only rarely used.

[Vallesan]

1 hour ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Only if you get booked onto BA or Turkish.

 

You could easily be booked on Air France through Paris, Lufthansa through Frankfurt, KLM through Amsterdam, Austrian through Vienna or other routings.

 

Completely depends on the specific contracts in place.  And what inventory is available for that routing and dates.

 

 

I’m only going from my own experience. I travelled with Oceania air to Hong Kong from Heathrow BA non stop. 

 

Last year I used Seabourn air to Athens and was offered a route from Manchester out via Frankfurt and back via Amsterdam. I got non-stop BA to Athens from Heathrow. 

 

Incidentally I paid in full for my cruise to get an extra discount at the time of booking. . I was due to travel in September and I was offered flights in the February and was able to book seats immediately.

 

I think most cruise lines  use BA for flights from the UK. 

 

[clo]

11 hours ago, Redtravel said:

We got seats across the aisle from each other.

When I worked for an intl airline and flew 'free,' one time we were seated rows and and rows apart. So what? It was a red-eye flight so at least I didn't have to listen to him snore.

[goletans]

One will be able to select seats once the flight is ticketed, and this will be after final payment is made. If final payment is not due, but one wants to select seats sooner, our TA told us that O would ticket the flight as soon as we made final payment. One need not wait to male final payment until the due date.

[osandomir]

Seat selection rules depend on the particular airline. I was able to select our premium economy seats on the Virgin Atlantic flight right after it was booked for us by Oceania with the air deviation way before the final payment was made and the flight was ticketed.

[ORV]

On 2/16/2024 at 12:48 PM, goletans said:

One will be able to select seats once the flight is ticketed, and this will be after final payment is made. If final payment is not due, but one wants to select seats sooner, our TA told us that O would ticket the flight as soon as we made final payment. One need not wait to male final payment until the due date.

Just to add a little more to this. Just because Final Payment has been made doesn't mean that they automatically ticket your flight. But final payment must be made before flights are ticketed. It must be requested. Final payment I believe is now at 150 days. Usually you will find out your flight assignment at 70 days, and then it will be ticketed at approximately 45 to 30 days. 

 

Deviation changes everything in the above scenarios, this is accomplished by payment or having 15 cruises or more with Oceania. 

[pinotlover]

I’ll add another scenario one must understand and get specific information on. On which airline (s) will you be ticketed? Point in fact;

 

I paid a deviation to be booked on a specific itinerary on United Airlines from BNA-Copenhagen then Stockholm-BNA. All fine a good until seat selection.Oceania, using its contracts,  booked me on the UA leg round trip to EWR, but booked the two international legs on SAS. United had no knowledge of my SAS connections, and I could only book the UA seats for their legs. SAS had its own rules on seat selection, and that was a far harder and different scenario. 

Oceania had indeed booked and ticketed my flights, but not in a method that was originally apparent. This led to some original confusion on both my TA and my part.

 

[FlyerTalker]

26 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

I’ll add another scenario one must understand and get specific information on. On which airline (s) will you be ticketed?

 

Small semantic quibble, for everyone else's benefit:

 

There are two different types of carriers.  There is the "marketing" carrier and the "operating" carrier.  It is the marketing one that you are ticketed by.  And there is the operating one which will be actually flying the route with their aircraft and crew.

 

In Pinot's example, UA was the marketing carrier and the one that ticketed the flight.  However, for 50% of the legs, UA was the operating carrier and SAS was the operating one.  And probably all four segments had UA flight numbers, adding to the issue.

 

It is important to know who is, or is not, the operating carrier.  Because that is who you will check in with, whose flight number will be the most prominent on airport displays, whose carry-on rules will apply and whose seat assignment policies will be in effect.  Especially be aware of that carry-on gotcha -- you could easily find that your carry-on allowance drastically changes midway through your flights at a connection point, and get stuck with checking bags and/or various fees. 

 

I've had that happen, where at the connection point I was confronted by a gate agent with a scale, weighing every single item being taken onboard.  Luckily I was under the limits, but I saw others getting blindsided out of the blue (from their perspective).

 

 

[pinotlover]

FT;

 

Oceania bought two separate round trip tickets for us. One for each carrier., with their own distinct codes. UA had no knowledge, in their system, of the SAS ticket. When we checked in at BNA, we had to show our SAS tickets to get the flights put together for baggage purposes. What we didn’t catch was our Oceania UA ticket allowance was two checked bags each, while our SAS ticket only allowed for one. On our return flight we had to pay charges on the one additional bag we had.

 

Had we booked this flight ourselves, it would have all been with the marketing carrier ( UA) for the entire itinerary as you suggested.

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, pinotlover said:

Oceania bought two separate round trip tickets for us. One for each carrier., with their own distinct codes. UA had no knowledge, in their system, of the SAS ticket. When we checked in at BNA, we had to show our SAS tickets to get the flights put together for baggage purposes. What we didn’t catch was our Oceania UA ticket allowance was two checked bags each, while our SAS ticket only allowed for one. On our return flight we had to pay charges on the one additional bag we had.

 

Wow.

 

I can see there being separate locators, as different airline res systems sometimes don't carry over the locator from one flight to another.  But you got two separate and distinct tickets.  BNA-EWR-BNA and a EWR-CPH/ARN-EWR.  Completely unacceptable without knowledge and consent of the passenger for the separate tickets.

 

1 hour ago, pinotlover said:

Had we booked this flight ourselves, it would have all been with the marketing carrier ( UA) for the entire itinerary as you suggested.

 

Even then, you might have been stuck with only one bag allowed on the return.

 

For the benefit of all the readers:

 

One other baggage wrinkle when there are two carriers.  There is a concept known as MSC - Most Significant Carrier.  Different airlines and different fare rules can use this concept to determine the baggage allowances and fees for a routing.  Sometimes, it's the rules of the marketing carrier, sometimes the operating, sometimes the one with the intercontinental segment and sometimes something just specified in the fare rules.  One has to ALWAYS check the specifics for your flight, lest you be caught flat-footed along the way.

 

This isn't the place to go into a long discussion on MSC, but one should know that it can be lurking whenever you have multiple carriers involved in an itinerary.