Air2Sea / Flights by Celebrity vs Princess EZAir -- It's not even a competition

[JLMoran]

So the flights for my 2022 Med sailing on Regal Princess finally opened up, and I figured I would book the flights through Princess' EZAir service to get the group rate pricing and lock in a flight with no payment due until final payment. Just like Air2Sea or Flights By Celebrity, right? HA!!!

First off, "EZAir" fails to live up to that name in one gigantic way -- You cannot book a flight for your cabin and another linked cabin at the same time!!!!

That's right -- if you want to fly with someone booked in another cabin that is already linked on your cruise reservation (like, y'know, your kids) you must first book your own flight and make note of the flight booking number. Then, you have to log in separately for the second cabin, start its own flight booking in EZAir, and then enter the first flight booking number in a "fly with friends" part of the form to actually try to get on the same flight. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I had found a British Airways non-stop flight from JFK to Athens for the flight out and it only had 5 seats left in Premium Economy. So I wanted to grab that for the four of us, but every time I went back to that "Fly With Friends" field and entered the kids' cruise booking number; because funnily enough, this is exactly how Air2Sea and Flights by Celebrity works. But all I would get was "Booking not found".

So I emailed my TA and asked if she was familiar with EZAir, and if maybe our cruise reservations weren't linked and that's why I was getting "not found". This was on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, so I figured I might not hear back quickly. But I didn't get a call from her until Wednesday, because Princess had the EZAir service shut down for the entire Labor Day weekend, and then when she started calling them on Tuesday it would pick up but be dead.

In any event, she had an EZAir rep on the phone with her, and asked the rep to explain to me how I go about booking the flights for both of our cabins. The rep flat-out refused to do that, and said that she would have to book the flights for me. And what followed was something straight out of my worst car purchasing nightmares. It was 20 minutes of high-pressure sales push, barely any time to register the details of the flight and figure out if it lined up with our planned schedule well enough, and absolute disdain every time I tried to ask a reasonable question like "with that flight time, do you have an idea of when I'd need to be at the Rome airport?"

The rep found the same British Airways flight I'd found, and amazingly it still had 5 seats available and was still the least-expensive flight option. She booked that one from JFK to Athens and the return flight from Rome back to JFK, and so far so OK. But then she proceeded to set up the kids' flight -- and the price came back different than the final price for my wife and I. I asked why it was different and was literally told, "I don't know, I just get the pricing as I'm going through the booking. Do you want this flight or no? I need to know now."

For clarity -- My own booking started at $1,600-ish per person but bumped to $1,900-ish because one leg of our return flight was going to be in Business Class instead of Premium Economy. I had no idea at this point if the price I was quoted for my kids was the starting price, or the price after factoring in whatever class that first leg of the return flight was going to be for them (if it wasn't also Business Class). And this woman from EZAir would not tell me!!! It was simply accept the flight and let her move on, or bail. So I accepted it.

It actually turned out to be a lower final price than what my wife and I paid, by about $200 pp; but the confirmation emails don't make it any more clear why than the rep did. I don't see the class of airfare purchased on any leg, nor the seats the rep says were booked for the outbound flight. All I see are the flight numbers, the departure and arrival times, and that all of those match up for all four of us.

And here's the icing on the cake. The rep sent the confirmation email for my kids' booking to the TA and was trying to drop the call before my TA even got the email to confirm she saw all the right info!! This woman was basically telling us she had no more time for us, her work with us was done, and she had to drop. The second my TA said she got the email, the rep disconnected and left us high and dry.

The whole experience left both of us feeling appalled. My TA said she has NEVER had anything like that with any other flight booking service from a cruise line. It certainly didn't line up with my Flights by Celebrity experience, where I had a rep spend a very pleasant and patient 30 minutes with me reviewing my flights and offering alternatives after my original booking was changed by more than 2 hours from its originally scheduled time. Our only guess is that the rep is on some kind of time clock that affects their job rating, and/or that they are earning a commission for each booking. (would explain the high-pressure "book now or get off my line" attitude)

I haven't logged into my Princess booking since then, but I really should so I can confirm there if the seat bookings are showing or if there's some other way to verify everything. Meanwhile, I'll begin looking for other flights and just try to confirm that we did get a solid rate and that I don't need to cancel this EZAir booking.

I'll definitely be more appreciative of my future Air2Sea or Flights By Celebrity bookings, web site glitchiness and all!!

[karl_nj]

 

 

First off, "EZAir" fails to live up to that name in one gigantic way -- You cannot book a flight for your cabin and another linked cabin at the same time!!!!

That's right -- if you want to fly with someone booked in another cabin that is already linked on your cruise reservation (like, y'know, your kids) you must first book your own flight and make note of the flight booking number. Then, you have to log in separately for the second cabin, start its own flight booking in EZAir, and then enter the first flight booking number in a "fly with friends" part of the form to actually try to get on the same flight. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I'll definitely be more appreciative of my future Air2Sea or Flights By Celebrity bookings, web site glitchiness and all!!

 

Interesting... so I noticed something very similar when I tried to book flights for my recent cruise on Celebrity Edge on Flights by Celebrity.  In the past, when using Air2Sea, I used to be able to book both cabins at the same time, but this time around, I kept getting error messages.

I ended up giving up and just booking airfare directly with the airline, even though I gave up a $100/person "discount" in order to do that.

Similarly, when i've used EZAir in the past, I had no issues booking flights for 2 cabins at the same time.

Odd that both EZAir and Flights by Celebrity are now running into the same issue, which wasn't a problem in the past.

 

In other news, i'm still fighting with Air2Sea to get my flights refunded, after Royal cancelled my August cruise.  First they told me I needed to wait 45 business days.  Then, after I called after 45 business days, they told me I needed to wait "two billing cycles".  I haven't called back yet.  I assume their new excuse will have something to do with the phases of the moon.

In short, I think all of these programs are overburneded and not providing the customer service they used to.

 

[karl_nj]

 

 

I haven't logged into my Princess booking since then, but I really should so I can confirm there if the seat bookings are showing or if there's some other way to verify everything. Meanwhile, I'll begin looking for other flights and just try to confirm that we did get a solid rate and that I don't need to cancel this EZAir booking.

 

 

See if you can try to find a BA confirmation/booking number and check it on their website.  I've been able to do that with Delta for flights booked with EZAir and Air2Sea, and for SAS for flights booked with Air2Sea.  But there are often two sets of confirmation numbers floating around, one for EZAir/Air2Sea/etc and one for the airline, so you may have to search for it.

[Zacharius]

 

I had found a British Airways non-stop flight from JFK to Athens

No you didn't. You found a BA codeshare nonstop from JFK to Athens. The only place BA flies nonstop from JFK is London-Heathrow (formerly also London-City and Manchester, and I think even Gatwick...but now, just Heathrow, and definitely not Athens). What you likely found was the American Airlines seasonal JFK-ATH nonstop - I am guessing you are looking at BA1642, which is actually AA334 - American Airlines plane, American Airlines crew. This is important because the airline you are actually flying on will dictate who you check in with, what terminal you use at the airport, any seat selection and luggage rules, etc. So definitely be aware of the "Operated By" part of this. 

[JLMoran]

 

See if you can try to find a BA confirmation/booking number and check it on their website.

I re-read the confirmation emails from my TA on my computer, rather than my phone, and found the airline confirmation codes. Went to the BA site and entered both, have confirmation it's all the same class and flights. Still can't reserve seats this far in advance for the return flights, as that's apparently limited to top-tier loyalty members. (and I can't even get the option to reserve while paying a fee right now, maybe because I need to first sign up for their program or something)

Forgot to note that on the good news front, my cruise fare for this trip dropped by over $300 per person back in July. I missed that email from her (got routed to spam folder ), so that was a pleasant surprise when she mentioned she had gotten that for me. Almost enough to pay for one flight ticket. Hopefully the fare will go down a bit more in the coming months, maybe along with the airfare.

[JLMoran]

 

No you didn't. You found a BA codeshare nonstop from JFK to Athens. The only place BA flies nonstop from JFK is London-Heathrow (formerly also London-City and Manchester, and I think even Gatwick...but now, just Heathrow, and definitely not Athens). What you likely found was the American Airlines seasonal JFK-ATH nonstop - I am guessing you are looking at BA1642, which is actually AA334 - American Airlines plane, American Airlines crew. This is important because the airline you are actually flying on will dictate who you check in with, what terminal you use at the airport, and such. So definitely be aware of the "Operated By" part of this. 

You are absolutely correct about this -- I am indeed on flight 1642, which does note "Operated by American Airlines" and departs JFK from Terminal 8. I was guessing that might mean I'm checking in through AA rather than BA, and using an AA terminal, but that's fine. I'm still taking it since the total airfare was still appreciably less per person than any other option, including ones that flew from JFK to Athens with just one stop.

No fan of AA, but I'll deal with them once (and only for the flight there) for this once-in-a-lifetime trip. Especially since it lets us arrive in Athens at 8:50 AM and have two full days there, instead of a day and a half or less. Hopefully will manage to sleep a bit during the flight so the jet lag isn't outlandish.

[Zacharius]

19 hours ago, JLMoran said:

You are absolutely correct about this -- I am indeed on flight 1642, which does note "Operated by American Airlines" and departs JFK from Terminal 8. I was guessing that might mean I'm checking in through AA rather than BA, and using an AA terminal, but that's fine. I'm still taking it since the total airfare was still appreciably less per person than any other option, including ones that flew from JFK to Athens with just one stop.

 

Yep, everything from here on out is pretty much done through AA. Go to the AA terminal, check in with AA, keep an eye on AA's baggage rules, that kind of stuff. As someone who pretty much lives on AA flights (both domestic and longhaul), I can assure you they're fine...you won't love it, you probably won't hate it, but in the end it won't be much different than BA or any other airline getting you from New York to Athens in Economy (or even Premium Economy).