Understanding Air: Cruises and Tours

So, you’re taking a cruise vacation! That’s awesome! But before you set sail, you’ve got a few decisions to make. These decisions range from the very simple to the potentially frustrating. Luckily, you’re working with an awesome travel advisor (hopefully me 😆) that will be able to guide you through the planning process. Today, I want to briefly discuss the often-confusing topic you will have to address as you prepare: your air travel plans! ✈️

Unless you live within driving distance of your port of embarkation, you’ll need to consider how you are going to get there. In the simplest sense, you have two choices. First, you can purchase your own air directly with the airlines. Second, you can purchase air through the cruise line. (By the way, what I am going to discuss today also applies to land tour companies such as Trafalgar or Insight Vacations.) Although these choices seem simple, there are a few things you need to consider.

🤓 Playing with Legos…..

In general, cruise lines pre-contract seats on certain flights. We say that they buy seats “in bulk”. So, they look at their sailing dates, and they pre-contract seats on specific flight legs: they might get 10 seats from Dallas to Vancouver, 5 seats from Cleveland to Tampa, etc. They try to cover all the potential flight combinations that their passengers may have. You can think of each of these flights as a Lego blocks. We could consider the flight from Cleveland to Tampa as one Lego block.

Let’s say you live near Cleveland, OH, and you are taking the cruise leaving from Tampa. The cruise line can offer you a combined fare that includes the cruise and the air. And what’s great is that most cruise lines really are offering you a good deal. They don’t make money from the sale of air. It’s simply a service that they offer their passengers to make the cruise experience more seamless. So, what’s not to love?

Well, let’s get back to our box of Legos. When you purchase air from the cruise line, they only have one obligation: to get you from your home to your port of embarkation in time to board the ship. They don’t have any obligation to fly you directly, to assign you to a specific seat, to fly you on a specific airline, etc. They’re just obligated to “fly you”. So, when you buy their cruise/air package, they are shaking-up their box of Lego blocks to see what they can piece together. You assume that it will be the Cleveland to Tampa flight. However, perhaps they’ve already run out of that block. So instead, they are going to have to piece together two other blocks. They will fly you out of Cleveland at 5am to connect with your Tampa flight in Chicago. What the heck! That’s flying the wrong direction! And you don’t like waking up at 3am to drive to the airport. Not fair! 🤨

Actually, it’s completely fair. They are meeting their obligation to you. They are getting you to Tampa in time for your cruise. That being said, you do have some options. Let’s look at this from a timeline perspective. (By the way, this is very general, and you need to confirm with your travel advisor that this is the timeline procedure that your specific cruise or tour company follows). Here’s a typical timeline:

• Milestone 1: You book your cruise and initially include the integrated airfare. At this point, certain cruise lines may ask for your flight preferences (airline, etc). They don’t guarantee that they can fulfill them, but at least they have them.

• Milestone 2: About 120 days before departure, the cruise line provides you with an air schedule. In most cases, the schedule that they send you is not ticketed (locked-in) with the airlines. It’s simply their proposal. These are the Lego blocks that they have put together to get you to you to your destination.

• Milestone 3:  You decide how to respond to the schedule that they proposed. Your options:

  • Option 1: Accept the air schedule “as is”.

  • Option 2: Decline the air schedule, ask for a refund for the air portion, and book your own air directly with the airlines.

  • Option 3: Pay the cruise line a “customization fee” to modify your schedule. (Fly you on a different airline, put you on a later flight, etc.) Keep in mind that in order to meet your needs, the airline might have to use a Lego block that is not in their box. This could result in additional cost to you (beyond the customization fee) since they are going out and acquiring something that they have not pre-contracted for.

• Milestone 4: You purchase your air directly with the airline (if you’ve chosen to do that) OR the cruise line “tickets” the schedule that you have agreed upon with them. The cruise lines generally ticket their air itineraries 45-60 days prior to departure. Once the flights are ticketed, changing them will become a headache.

✔ NOTE: If you are booking last minute, this entire process is necessarily compressed.

Now, let’s consider a couple of other issues that play into this:

·      If your cruise departs the dock at 3pm, and you are not there, it will depart without you. Trust me. If you purchase your air through the cruise line, they typically take responsibility for this. In other words, they would get you to the ship’s first port-of-call. If you choose to book your own air, you may want to consider arriving a day early so that you don’t suffer some kind of flight-delay tragedy. 😳

·      When you arrive to your destination airport, you still must get to the ship. Some cruise lines and tour companies will provide free airport transfers if you purchase air through the cruise lines. No big deal, but it’s something you’ll want to discuss with your travel advisor.

What to do?

So with all this craziness, what should you do? One size does not fit all, and it depends on your own situation and what you value most (comfort vs cost, etc).

• If you have very specific flight preferences, or you want to use frequent flyer benefits, you will probably be better off simply booking your own air. The cruise line may be able to get you close to the flights/seats/itinerary that you want, but it’s unlikely that it will be perfect.

• If price/value is your main concern, then you are usually best-off just sticking with the cruise line, especially with the additional benefits that I listed above.

• If you like the idea of sticking with the airline but have some “negotiable” preferences, then go ahead and pay the cruise line a customization fee, and see what they can do to get you closer to your ideal air itinerary.

I want to reemphasize that all cruise lines and tour companies have their own policies regarding air. The information above is a generalization, designed to help you organize your thoughts at a high level, and start asking your travel advisor the right questions. 

Need help booking your next cruise? Let’s talk!