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Flights by Celebrity – Definitely Worth It


JLMoran

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Long post ahead, here's the TL;DR:

  • Flights by Celebrity does indeed give a really good savings on one-way international flights, whether you compare with booking direct with the airline or going through a site like Google Flights or Expedia
  • Their customer service is excellent; had a snag after booking and they resolved it quickly, plus answered all my questions while I was on the line with them
  • I definitely recommend them (and by extension Air2Sea from Royal Caribbean, since it's the same group under the hood)

 

 

My reminder to check for flight home from Dublin using the "Flights by Celebrity" service went off today. I figured before I went to them, I should see what the other usual options like booking directly or going through Expedia or Google Flights would run me. Yup, it's spreadsheet (or in this case bullet list) time!

Since I was already leaning towards Iceland Air (@Ray said it's his second-favorite airline; I'd love to know what his favorite is!) I checked their web site first for the direct booking option.

  • They did have flights for my desired week of August 16, including a flight on Thursday, Aug 20, that left DUB at 2:40 PM and arrived in JFK at 7:00 PM; very good timing, and the day we most wanted to fly out
  • Flight includes a one-hour stopover in KEF; first leg is 2-1/2 hours, second leg is 6 hours; not awful flight durations
  • Regular economy includes one checked bag, and the seats offer 32" of leg room; that's enough for me to sit comfortably without upgrading to a "premium" seat
  • Listed price is currently $704.01 per person ($2,816.04 for the four of us) – OUCH!

 I tried Google Flights next, and couldn't even see anything yet for the week of August 16

  • What they do have for late July through August 2 shows a very consistent baseline price of $378.75-$387.50 per person ($1,515 to $1,550 for the four of us)
  • That Iceland Air flight was listed for a few weeks earlier, on July 30, and cost a smidge less – $638.25 per person ($2,553 for the four of us); I'll assume that it'll be the same price when they finally show it for August 20

So next I checked Expedia. They also had nothing for the week of August 16

  • Like Google Flights, that Iceland Air flight was available on July 30
  • Unlike Google Flights, it cost more to book with Expedia than if I were to book direct with Iceland Air -- $855 per person ($3,418.52 for the family)!!! ??

 

My results didn't leave me with great hopes. I navigated over to the Flights by Celebrity site, entered my cruise booking info so I could get real quotes, and did my search. Spoiler alert: they won big time!

  • They had plenty of flights listed for the entire week of August 16, including that exact same Iceland Air flight I'd found for August 20.
  • Confirmed it was standard economy and not Iceland Air's "Economy Light", as the listing showed it included a checked bag
  • The price for that flight through Celebrity? $366.13 per person ($1,464.52 for the four of us), or 48% less than booking directly with Iceland Air!
  • The other listed flights on that day were all of $6 less per person, and departed / arrived at much less desirable times, so Iceland Air was the winner!

 

I completed the booking, got my confirmation number, and was told I should get an email shortly. But... nothing, even after a couple of hours. Royal IT once again? Only one way to find out!

I called up their reservations line and asked the rep if she could confirm whether my flight booking was in the system. She saw it right away, soon as I gave her our cruise reservation numbers. Asked me if I'd done the flight booking myself, and after confirming that she told me she could link it up for me. I was on hold for about 10 minutes total, but she came back on a couple of times to let me know she was still working on it and it was a lengthy process. But she finally got it all done, and waited on the line while I confirmed I got the confirmation emails at last.

Gave her a big thanks, and asked if the fact my original cruise booking was through a travel agent might have mucked things up. She said she doubted that, and she knew the computer system sometimes just failed to correctly link the reservations together; so yeah, Royal IT strikes again! I also confirmed with her that my flight was indeed fully cancelable and no payment required until final payment date; she added that if I saw the price drop, I could call them and they would rebook it at the lower rate. She also confirmed for me that the confirmation number I had was the actual airline confirmation number, and verified it by looking up the booking on Iceland Air directly. She then waited while I went to Iceland Air myself and entered the number, and confirmed that I saw not only the flight details, but also the options to select seats, buy meals in advance, etc.

I thanked her profusely, and was really disappointed that I got disconnected during the transfer to the survey; I actually wanted to complete that and give my rep a big two thumbs up!

The service is definitely worth it, especially when you can get one of those bookings that allow for no payment until final payment date. I was surprised I had a ticketed booking that let me select seats, as I'd heard you didn't get that until payment was made; but I just re-checked the Iceland Air site, and my booking still shows the seats I selected this morning.

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16 hours ago, JLMoran said:

 

Since I was already leaning towards Iceland Air (@Ray said it's his second-favorite airline; I'd love to know what his favorite is!) 

 

 

Drum roll..................Philippines Airlines

From start to finish without doubt the best airline i have flown. 

Joe will answer you PM shortly will also tell you how to avoid paying icelands extortionate food and drink prices in airport or on aircraft ? 

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4 hours ago, Ray said:

Drum roll..................Philippines Airlines

From start to finish without doubt the best airline i have flown.

Definitely did not expect that answer! ? Never saw them listed on any of the options, I'm guessing they have a limited set of routes they fly?

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3 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Definitely did not expect that answer! ? Never saw them listed on any of the options, I'm guessing they have a limited set of routes they fly?

I was flying from Singapore to Manila when i flew with them, seats had so much leg room, food was amazing, crew basically walked from sg to ph as all they did was go from front to back the whole flight and i have never been on any other flight where the wine comes from proper full size bottles poured into a glass even on the economy class. and when i jokingly  suggested she just leave the full bottle of red to save her coming back she did ???? 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Update to the lengthy original story...

Yesterday I went back onto the Flights by Celebrity site to get a current quote for that Iceland Air flight. I am very glad that I booked the flight and locked it in the first day it became available, as in just under a month the price has gone from $366.13 per person to $701.15!!

Yeah, nearly double.

I could be wrong, its a long time yet until August, but I don't think I'm going to be calling them at any point to request a reprice. ??

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Okay so I started looking tonight and am having a slight heart attack on prices.  That, and they craziness of flying from EWR to Chicago to get on a reasonable non-stop to Barcelona.  OMG.  There on one coming back that wants us to fly from BCN to PHL to Charlotte to EWR.  Seriously???

These flights are going to cost me a fortune. Sigh. 

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@KathyC, in my experience of hunting for international flights this past year, you are going to pay an arm and a leg to fly out of or into EWR. Going out of / into JFK cut the price in half for both this flight that I booked for our cruise, and also a flight my daughter had to take for a summer student program in Ghana. Combine that with more (and more-frequent) flight options at better times of the day on a bigger selection of airlines, and even if you throw in the cost of a limo there and back it is way more cost-effective.

Apart from that, take a look at airlines like Brussels Air (the line my daughter took and loved for her Ghana flight) or another northern European airline that does a short single-stop layover at their home hub. That also saved a ton of money for me vs a nonstop flight, much as I'd have liked to get one; if nothing else, that flight shows that it's possible to get something with only a minimal layover and departure / arrival times that work out pretty darned good.

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  • 3 months later...

There's an interesting addendum to this story. Last week, I received an email from Icelandair. My flight had been completely changed, and now instead of being on a flight departing Dublin at 2:40 PM I was going to be on a completely different flight that leaves three hours earlier, at 11:40 AM. I was more than a little confused by this, and I called up Flights by Celebrity to find out if they did this for some reason, or if the airline had done it (likely because they weren't getting enough people on the flight to justify keeping it).

I got a rep reasonably quickly, and he confirmed that it was the airline that made this change on me; Flights by Celebrity never moves people around. He re-checked the available flights and also confirmed that my original 2:40 PM flight was completely gone. The second leg was completely unaffected, so now instead of a 40-minute layover in KEF I'd have a nearly 4-hour layover. Kind of annoying, but the departure time from Dublin is still a lot better than just about all of the other options I had seen in my initial search. Maybe we'll have enough time to take a shuttle back to Reykjavik (it's like 30 minutes away from Keflavik airport) and have a couple extra hours there for any shopping we didn't get to do earlier.

But here's the interesting part. Because Icelandair moved my flight by more than 2 hours, I was completely clear with Flights by Celebrity to cancel the booking with no change fees, and switch to another booking if I really needed that afternoon departure time. I told the rep I was still OK with the current flight times, since it was still getting us back to JFK at the same time and that was already a pretty reasonable arrival hour. And it's a good thing, because the price of our flight was unchanged from before and there was not one flight to be found by that rep that was anywhere near as good a price as I had gotten with Icelandair.

And then I commented to the rep that my only annoyance would be having to re-select our seats for the flight, and he did a quick lookup and said, "Actually, it looks like they retained your original seat selections!" He read off the numbers, and I confirmed they were the same for both legs as what I'd originally chosen. So while I'm a bit annoyed with Icelandair for completely moving the first leg of our flight, I will say good on them for not changing any other aspect that I had already chosen and (as best I knew) locked in.

Hopefully there won't be any additional changes to this flight, but if they move it a little earlier again I'll definitely take advantage of the shuttle they offer to go back to Reykjavik for a bit and extend the vacation time just a little further.

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Thank you @JLMoran for setting up this discussion page. It prompted me to call Flights by Celebrity and I'm favorably impressed!

They set me up with flights for my upcoming New Zealand/Australia cruise. 

The airfare was less than I was seeing on Travelocity and fully refundable!  They even got me direct flights in and out of Houston!

I'm astounded! What a deal!

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@steverk, that's great to hear! The more I hear about this program (and sister program Air2Sea with Royal Caribbean) in relation to international flights, the happier that makes me.

 

@Lovetocruise2002 and @emsff02, just to reinforce my comment on a separate thread about the importance of doing the flight bookings as soon as they open up to get the best prices: I decided to do a random check yesterday after the flight change a couple of weeks earlier, just to see what was available and if I potentially could have switched to a... not necessarily lower-priced flight, but one that was still "better" in terms of departure and arrival times, layover time, etc. The short answer is, not even close!

The longer answer (because this is me writing, after all ?) is that there was exactly one flight on Norwegian that cost ever so slightly less ($9 per person). But, it would have included a layover in Oslo (so we start off flying in the wrong direction ?) and was a longer total flight, arriving in JFK around 8:30. Other than that, the next-best flight was on TAP and would have cost over $80 more per person, and left earlier in the morning while arriving in JFK at the same time (layover in Lisbon).

The first flight I found that got me back to a mid-afternoon departure was a non-stop flight option on Aer Lingus that left at 4:30 PM and arrived in JFK around 7:30, but that would have cost me several hundred more per person than what I've got booked. Much as I want to be able to relax on that final day and not rush to the airport, it's not worth that much money to me!

There were no flights listed for Icelandair, not even my new one, so whatever block of tickets Flights By Celebrity had with them was clearly all sold out.

So find out the date that Flights By Celebrity / Air2Sea opens up flight itineraries for your particular sailing, mark it in your calendars, and make sure to find the best option on that day and get it booked!

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@JLMoran, Thanks for the info again! We used air2sea for our upcoming Liberty trip and had good results. The flights were cheaper than what I could find directly with the airlines. While unfortunately we are flying into IAH on United, the price is okay. We looked at Southwest into Hobby and it was 1k more. All other flights were crazy expensive (presidents day vacation week, and I guess in Galveston is having a Mardi Gras celebration) Even with United baggage fees, that number  from Southwest is way higher. We also got to pick seats with United via air2sea which buying from United directly I believe costs money.

Speaking of picking seats, this turned into a free upgrade for us too. Our flight from EWR to IAH got changed by United after we had booked, and we lost our seat assignments. (this was shortly after booking )I had called United after and they told me since the tickets weren't paid for by Royal yet (this was prior to final payment date) I was SOL, and could call back after then and maybe pay for seat assignments......great........Any way, yesterday, I suddenly remembered what the United rep told me, so I pull the app up to look at our flights, low and behold, there are seats assigned..Awesome...wait, the assigned seats were terrible. They were middle seats in all different rows. Not good when traveling with two small kids. I called up United to see if we could maybe put us all closer together. I explained how we originally had seats, but then there was an itinerary change and we lost them. The representative was super helpful! He said, yup, he could see the change in the itinerary, and that the change was initiated by United. He looked where our seats were assigned and said, no that wont work, and moved us all up to the Economy Premium section, which if I did on my own would have cost $540, but he waived the fee since they caused the change and loss of original seats. I would have been happy having our seats closer together with all the other "steerage passengers" but I'll gladly take a free upgrade!

For the Anthem group cruise I will absolutely look into air2sea again to price this out. I just need to figure out the day the flights get released and set a calendar alarm. We also plan on going a few days early to do some sightseeing. My wife is a huge Downton Abbey fan, so we plan on staying in a local pub/inn/B&B near Highclere Castle and visiting the castle grounds prior to the cruise.

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  • 4 weeks later...
7 minutes ago, Brobbins246 said:

How do you find out on Air2Sea when flights will be released?  

If it's the same as Flights by Celebrity, I found that info after going to the flight search page and entering my ship and departure date. Below the main message in large type saying flights were not available yet, I found a small notice that said how many days until flights would become available.

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I'm not seeing that message for my April, 2021 cruise (maybe it's too far out to even show that message) but I did stumble across this in the RC FAQ's.  Looks like 330 days out the schedules open up.  I tested this by searching flights in early January, 2021.  The ones within 330 days from today were available, the later ones were not.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 1 month later...

As a footnote, if you go onto an airline direct booking site you see they publish flights up to 9 months out.   Air2sea or Flights by Celebrity can't load their system until the airline publishes their schedule.  That's one way to gauge when you can start looking.    Another rule of thumb is the rate sweet zone - some travel blogs will tell you the cusp in prices will present about 4 months out from your desired date.    Not sure if that holds under our current circumstances.

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Pricing is pretty dynamic.   I watch over a period of a week or so and whenever I start a query, I'll get a different set of airlines and price sets depending upon when i'm checking.   If I'm zoning in on a specific airline, the Air2Sea or Flight by Celebrity may not yield equivalent pricing, in fact it tends to be higher.   Depending on the timing you can find a lower price on your elected airline directly.  I lean toward the cruise line connections on international and play the direct to airline game for domestic travel.  What's constant is the travel assist you get with the cruise line air booking.   They service and adjust your flight schedules when delays could impact embarkation.  Its a good perk.

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17 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said:

The price difference between Air2Sea and Delta don't bother me nearly as much as not knowing what class of seats I'm buying.  There are 4 types of seats on the Delta site, but only 3 listed on the same flights on Air2Sea.  That's a problem.

If you call them they can tell you.  I don't think the cruise lines  use "super economy" seat purchases as they would be subject to too many restrictions (you're wanting to know what seat you get ahead of time as well as preserve access to overhead space).  We use American and United and they match up to what's advertised on Celebrity are or Air2sea.    I just booked earlier than I usually do for a B2B in June '21 from Venice.  Had been watching prices on a number of sites and decided to push the button.  Since payment is deferred until final cruise payment, you have time to continue shopping and can drop the airfare from your itinerary if you find a better deal.   

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18 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said:

The price difference between Air2Sea and Delta don't bother me nearly as much as not knowing what class of seats I'm buying.  There are 4 types of seats on the Delta site, but only 3 listed on the same flights on Air2Sea.  That's a problem.

I agree with @cruisellama that the very cheapest seats are likely not part of the three tiers you're seeing on Air2Sea, since economy booking still allows for going to the airline site and choosing your seat. I had that with IcelandAir, and IIRC they also have a bottom-rung tier that doesn't allow seat selection or inclusion of any checked bags, whereas the economy seats I purchased did include those. Only other options on Flights By Celebrity were for whatever IcelandAir's equivalent of business and/or first class seating was.

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12 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

I agree with @cruisellama that the very cheapest seats are likely not part of the three tiers you're seeing on Air2Sea, since economy booking still allows for going to the airline site and choosing your seat. 

I'm not looking at the cheapest seats.  I want the ones just under what they consider first class (because the first class tickets are over $4k each, and that's way above my budget), but I can't tell on Air2Sea which classes they are actually considering.  Oh well, the cruise will probably be canceled anyway.

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3 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said:

I'm not looking at the cheapest seats.  I want the ones just under what they consider first class (because the first class tickets are over $4k each, and that's way above my budget), but I can't tell on Air2Sea which classes they are actually considering.  Oh well, the cruise will probably be canceled anyway.

Just as a reference point for AA, domestically its Economy, Main Cabin Extra, and First/Busn.   Int'l:  Economy, Main Cabin Extra, Premium Economy, Business, First (depending on equipment).  Econ as it doesn't allow for seat selection or overhead.   Like you, not looking for the cheapest, but based on duration of flight, most cost effective comfort zone.

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, cruisellama said:

Had good luck with refund turn around (2 weeks) on my Flights by Celebrity for our cancelled November booking.  Didn't think I would see it that fast.   Although I have not seen the FCC yet.

FCC / Cruise fare refunds seem to always take longer than the airfare refund. Not sure why, maybe they're separate business lines and its easier for the air travel group to get refunds through their system.

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1 hour ago, JLMoran said:

FCC / Cruise fare refunds seem to always take longer than the airfare refund. Not sure why

Maybe several billion in bailout money makes it easier for airlines to issue refunds.  

ChoiceAir, Air2Sea etc. are more or less functioning as travel agents so when the carrier (airline) issues the refund they can forward that more quickly.  

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21 hours ago, twangster said:

Maybe several billion in bailout money makes it easier for airlines to issue refunds.  

ChoiceAir, Air2Sea etc. are more or less functioning as travel agents so when the carrier (airline) issues the refund they can forward that more quickly.  

That was my understanding after speaking to the agent.

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