Vancouver/Whittier Air

[hbeard]

We're looking at the Vacouver-Whittier route on Princess in late summer, but it seems like airfare with different inbound/outbound cities is crazy expensive (when compared to, say, Seattle round-trip).

 

What's the trick for getting decent airfare when embark/disembark is in different city. Can TAs do better than the other online search sites when booking two one-ways.

 

If it helps, we'd be going out of Sacramento, San Francisco, or Oakland.

 

hbeard

[alolewis]

In my experience when leaving and returning from differant cities usually the Princess airfare is cheaper due to the way airlines price the flights. have you checked the Princess airfare?

 

I know most of the search engines do let you check multiple cities which this is or in TA terms, an open jaw ticket. If you have frequent flyer miles most airlines a;;ow an open jaw ticket. You can use American miles for Alaska Airlines flights.

[Host Caroline]

We're looking at the Vacouver-Whittier route on Princess in late summer, but it seems like airfare with different inbound/outbound cities is crazy expensive (when compared to, say, Seattle round-trip).

 

What's the trick for getting decent airfare when embark/disembark is in different city. Can TAs do better than the other online search sites when booking two one-ways.

 

If it helps, we'd be going out of Sacramento, San Francisco, or Oakland.

 

hbeard

 

The rates have gone up considerably since we booked our air for June back in January! One ticket is into Seattle from NC with return out of Vancouver to NC and then another ticket taking Alaska Air to Anchorage from Seattle. i.e. booked two separate tickets. It came to 423 pp for the roundtrip (Charlotte/Seattle/Vancouver ticket) and 169 for Seattle to Anchorage.. From California I would think you could get relatively inexpensive roundtrip to Seattle, sep. ticket to Anchorage and then take the Quick Shuttle back to Seattle? Dunno if you want to do that but there are search engines like sidestep.com, and kayak.com that let you plug in diff. airfare

And some airlines (like USAirways) don't let you do open jaw with FF miles, we tried..

[bdwyer]

We did this cruise last summer and booked a RT Los Angeles - Seattle ticket, plus a one way Anchorage to Seattle ticket. We never saw the Anchorage to Seattle leg get any cheaper than when we bought it in Jan, so you might as well pick that up as soon as possible. Then, just watch for deals out of SF, Oakland or Sac to Seattle via the West Coast carriers, and you've got your trip covered. We took the morning Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver and it was terrific! Wonderful views and a full sit down dining car. :)

[hbeard]

Thanks for the great ideas....I could probably even use some mileage awards for RT to Seattle...can't usually use mile for one-way....so it would just be the one way-Sea-Anchorage...and I really like the train idea.

 

hbeard

[fti]

Thanks for the great ideas....I could probably even use some mileage awards for RT to Seattle...can't usually use mile for one-way....so it would just be the one way-Sea-Anchorage...and I really like the train idea.

 

hbeard

 

Using miles is a great idea. You can use miles to do an "open jaw" - into one city and out of another. So into Vancouver and out of Anchorage or vice versa. We did that last summer with miles and it worked great. In fact, as soon as I mentioned the cities, the res agent on the phone said, "You are taking a cruise." It is that common.

[hbeard]

Very cool...I wasn't aware of the "open jaw" option...I'll have to check to see if the miles I've got banked can be used that way.

 

hbeard

[EmmaWoodhouse]

We just booked the same thing from Indianapolis, and found that an open jaw on Frontier was substantially cheaper than Princess air.

[KnoxvilleSam]

Maybe this is a stupid question on my part to the OP, but I'm sure you're aware that when you're trying to book these that you don't look up 2 one-way fares but rather open-jaw. That applies whether you're using FF or paying cold hard cash.

 

Just wondering!

[hbeard]

I'll have to confess that I had been looking up two one-ways...I'm so used to using the typical travel sites and aggregators like kayak...I've never seen the option to do open jaw on any of them...do you always need to use a "real" TA to book these, or are there also ways to get at them through a web search?

[D4]

I'll have to confess that I had been looking up two one-ways...I'm so used to using the typical travel sites and aggregators like kayak...I've never seen the option to do open jaw on any of them...do you always need to use a "real" TA to book these, or are there also ways to get at them through a web search?

 

Most airline websites let you search for this type of flight. You may have to click on something like "Multi-City Routing" or "Advanced or Other Search Options".

[gambit57]

We're looking at the Vacouver-Whittier route on Princess in late summer, but it seems like airfare with different inbound/outbound cities is crazy expensive (when compared to, say, Seattle round-trip).

 

What's the trick for getting decent airfare when embark/disembark is in different city. Can TAs do better than the other online search sites when booking two one-ways.

 

If it helps, we'd be going out of Sacramento, San Francisco, or Oakland.

 

hbeard

 

I'm looking at the same cities for an earlier cruise. So far, I'm getting the best deals out of SFO. Sacramento is the best when checking individual airline websites, but the discount places are cheaper so far (haven't checked them all yet). Expedia for the one to Vancouver. Orbitz for the one from Anchorage. Beating the quoted Princess price by about $100/person.

 

That transfer fee from the airports to cruise port is killing me tho. I wanna know how most people do it.