Possible to change P&O booked flights in order to extend holiday? Or independently booking a return flight?

[CruisingSarah]

Does anyone have any experience of being to change the included flights?  We have just had the idea to extend our week's cruise by 2-3 days and wondered if P&O are likely to be able to do this at a reasonable charge.  Currently on the third attempt to phone them, so far tried twice and had to hang up after half an hour of no answer.

 

If they can't and we could book an independent one way flight, are there any considerations to doing this?  Obviously we would inform them that we would be not be taking the coach transfer to the airport and the return flight.

 

Thanks for any advice.

[molecrochip]

The contact centre should be able to sort/cost this for you. 
 

You are likely on a charter flight so extending your holiday is likely to have a flight cost attached. I would suggest costing your own flight back with BA/Virgin first so that you have the comparison handy.

[Presto2]

We once organised for our 2 week cruise with P&O to be extended with a 2 day stay in Malta before we sailed when we were on Oceana. The hotel and flights should have been pre cruise and organised by P&O, with the flights on Easyjet. I say, 'should' as Covid hit and we never got to go on that cruise.

[CruisingSarah]

Thanks both, after a 100 minute call to P&O just now and still no answer as there was a further long wait internally for their flights department I think we will do our own thing or stick with what we have got.

 

The P&O agent was extremely unhelpful and basically told us to phone tomorrow morning as he didn't want to have to wait on hold for flight dept, but having already waited 45 minutes before my call was answered and after trying twice yesterday and the day before for over 30 minutes without getting through I was keen to try and progress this once I was actually on the phone but it was not to be.

 

I think I am going to be going back to using a travel agent, I have found P&O to be increasingly difficult to contact the past 6 months.

[LA30]

I think it might vary according to the cruise.  We have changed the P&O flights a couple of times on half world cruises, to allow for a long stay in Australia before or after.  But on a two week Caribbean to Southampton repositioning cruise we had to pay the full price to P&O as well as arrange our own flights for a couple of weeks earlier.

[World Traveller 2008]

Last year we wanted to stay 2 nights pre-cruise in Malta but when we phoned P&O they said we had to fly from Gatwick (or was it Heathrow, can't remember) in order for this to be included in the original cruise cost.  This wasn't convenient as we live in Cheshire and our return flight was from Malta to Manchester so we had to pay the full, original price to P&O and arrange our own flights pre-cruise to Malta.  We kept the flights and transfer back home.  We were glad we decided on this option and had 2 wonderful nights in an hotel in Valletta pre-cruise.