air deviations

[meow!]

I have found some general information which may be useful to many Oceania cruisers. While you can make air deviations as you please, if you plan on using Oceania's air, the inward and outward legs must be between your home and a city on the way, you cannot make stops on either the inbound or outbound flights, i.e. the only two legs that can be part of your included air.

 

Just for example, if you live near SFO, you are taking the VCE to ATH cruise, you fly out from SFO to VCE, no problem, you can have connections but not stops. On your way back, you want to stop at LHR, then your return with Oceania must be from LHR to SFO, and you have to purchase the ATH to LHR yourself separately. Besides, while your flight from LHR to SFO has a connection at JFK, you cannot make JFK a "stop", it can only be a "connection". If you also want to make JFK a stop, then your Oceania included return flight will be from JFK to SFO, and all flights between ATH and JFK will have to be purchased yourself separately. In general, Oceania charges less for those "included flights" (in the form of included price plus deviation upcharge) than you will have to pay if you buy the ticket yourself, particularly if you live on the West coast.

 

Even if you do book an air deviation well in advance, all that you are liable for is the $75 handling fee up to 91 days before your voyage. If you cancel 91 days ahead, only your $75 will be forfeited, you will have full refund for the rest. If you want to make any change to an already booked flight/deviation with Oceania, it is another $75 handling charge every time you change. You may or may not get airline frequent flying points on Oceania booked flights. Hopefully Jancruz will tell us whether the above information is correct, it may be helpful to anyone who wants to book flights with deviations!

[JimandStan]

Meow-

 

Yes, because Oceania is involved in the Air portion as a courtesy TO GET YOU FROM HOME TO THE SHIP AND BACK.

The air portion is considered to be transportation, NOT touring.

If you want to make complicated airline reservations, take the air credit and leave Oceania out of it.

[meow!]

Thank you kindly for the concise explanation!

[potterhill]

As we discovered on our trip to Kenya in December, a connection time is less than 24 hours and a stopover is over 24 hours. If less than 24 hours you can check you luggage all the way through even if you are staying overnight.

 

Our flight from Toronto to London was cancelled and we got rerouted through Detroit but missed the connection to Nairobi by 1 hour. So we got an overnight in London without the hassles of dealing with luggage. We took the subway into London and gave our 15 year old son a very quick tour of some of the highlights of the city. It ended up being a fun evening.

 

Mo

[FlyerTalker]

One "trick" to be aware of: If you are on an international itinerary, you are allowed a longer time for a "connection" than for a domestic itinerary. The rule for international is that your connecting flight must be the longer of either:

 

1) The first flight out to your next destination - OR

2) 24 hours

 

So, if you wanted to make a London "stop" on the return, you could arrange to arrive at say 11am and then take a 10am flight out the next day. This would be under 24 hours, and would be a legal connection for your flight. This would not be a "stopover", which is defined as a break in travel greater than the legal connecting maximum. Same with an outbound to Europe. Say you were on the DL flight to VCE, which leaves JFK at 6:55 pm. If your flight into JFK arrived at 7PM, you could get a 23 hour plus connection and be legal. You could then have a nice night on the town (plus some of the next day), at no additional flight cost.

 

There are some more extreme examples out there. One of the better ones is to route to Johannesburg through Buenos Aires using Malaysian from EZE to JNB. This flight only operates 3 times a week, so you can get more than 24 hours in BA if you time it right. There are flights in some parts of Africa and Asia that only operate weekly or semi-weekly, so you can get some real good "free stopovers" there, but it takes some research and planning.

 

Think outside the box!!

[meow!]

Thank you all, for your informative replies.

[caribbeansun]

I find it difficult to classify what they are doing and charging for a "courtesy".

 

Meow-

 

Yes, because Oceania is involved in the Air portion as a courtesy TO GET YOU FROM HOME TO THE SHIP AND BACK.

The air portion is considered to be transportation, NOT touring.

If you want to make complicated airline reservations, take the air credit and leave Oceania out of it.