Air2Sea Question

[steverk]

1 hour ago, Dad2Cue said:

My cruise is refundable.  I assumed the $200 per person penalty was referring to the penalty for cancelling the cruise in addition to the flight.  Do you have any idea what the A2S fee was in your case?  They seem to leave out that bit of information in the policy as written.  The information about my flight that I got from A2S says the my flight is refundable "with fee" but it doesn't disclose what the fee is.  The airlines play this game with "flexible" and "fully flexible" fares.  I hate future flight credits as much as future cruise credits but don't get me started.

I have only cancelled a cruise during "cruise with confidence."  Now I only book a cruise with a refundable deposit.  I got burned once with a nonrefundable deposit.  I didn't cancel the cruise but I changed the date.  That was a $200 change fee but maybe it was $100 per person.  I have no idea what happens if you cancel a cruise completely with a nonrefundable deposit.  Do you lose your whole deposit or $200 per person or what?

The cruise was fully refundable and was fully refunded.

The air was supposed to be refundable with fees and I asked at booking. They insisted there really weren't any fees. They wanted $200 total for my wife and I.  My TA was able to get it resolved in my favor 

[Lovetocruise2002]

15 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I just wish the A2S website was consistent.

A potential Wednesday flight I want doesn't appear, but the same flight on the same airline appears the next day.

They don't show any United business class seats for flights that Thursday, despite showing them for Wednesday

Why not call them directly? I hate the Air2Sea website. It doesn’t show all options that’s for sure. I have never once booked Air2Sea flights through the website for that very reason. 
 

When I want to make a new Air2Sea reservation, I call them directly. If there is a particular flight that I am interested in, I tell them the flight number and they can look up availability like that. Sometimes when they search initially, they don’t even get all the options. 

[smokeybandit]

2 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Why not call them directly?

One of those on principle things for me. Why have a half-assed website and make someone do what's pretty archaic these days and make a phone call to book a flight?

[Lovetocruise2002]

2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

One of those on principle things for me. Why have a half-assed website and make someone do what's pretty archaic these days and make a phone call to book a flight?

That’s a good point. Thought has crossed my mind too but I just overlook it.
 

Their system isn’t great. Like I said, even when I call, they tell me that there are only certain flights available (not ones I want) and then I give them the actual flight numbers that I am looking at, then they can find it.

Or more recently, I called to book my flights for March 2024. First time I called, I did not like the price. I called back a few days later cause the price was more decent and they told me I had to wait to within 300 days for my sailing. I told them that is not true, that once I can see it on Delta direct, it should be available for booking, an another agent quoted me a price already a few days ago. Then they put me on hold and surprise, they could book it. So yeah, like all things Royal, nothing is perfect lol

[smokeybandit]

I would think Air2Sea is losing business for having partial flights shown on their website. Too many people won't even book if they can't do it online.

[teddy]

We’ve definitely had to supply flight numbers to Air2Sea. 
 

I agree it’s not great, but it’s saved us money, so that makes it worth doing. 

[twangster]

Just now, smokeybandit said:

I would think Air2Sea is losing business for having partial flights shown on their website. Too many people won't even book if they can't do it online.

I can't imagine A2S is a huge profit center for them.  

[Dad2Cue]

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

I would think Air2Sea is losing business for having partial flights shown on their website. Too many people won't even book if they can't do it online.

This is especially true since I needed to find the flight I wanted on the airline website before calling A2S.  I didn't really want to fly on the day of my cruise but that was all the A2S website showed.  After booking with A2S you have to go back to the airline website to enter your frequent flyer and known traveler information.  I also have to track prices on the airline website for any price decreases.  I like that my airfare is included on my cruise invoice but not if the "refundable flight" comes with a cancellation penalty and A2S fee.   

I really want to give A2S a try and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. The quoted price on A2S was less.  However,  I won't get my first checked bag for free when I use my airline credit card.   I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion A2S isn't worth the hassle. 

[steverk]

44 minutes ago, Dad2Cue said:

This is especially true since I needed to find the flight I wanted on the airline website before calling A2S.  I didn't really want to fly on the day of my cruise but that was all the A2S website showed.  After booking with A2S you have to go back to the airline website to enter your frequent flyer and known traveler information.  I also have to track prices on the airline website for any price decreases.  I like that my airfare is included on my cruise invoice but not if the "refundable flight" comes with a cancellation penalty and A2S fee.   

I really want to give A2S a try and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. The quoted price on A2S was less.  However,  I won't get my first checked bag for free when I use my airline credit card.   I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion A2S isn't worth the hassle. 

Like a lot of things, it's not worth the hassle until there's a problem. 

I took my family on a Thanksgiving cruise out of San Juan for Thanksgiving 2021. My son, flying out of Birmingham Alabama the day before forgot his COVID vaccine card, which was required at that time. He missed his plane.

There were no scheduled connections between Birmingham and San Juan that would arrive in time for his flight. Nothing on American Airlines website.  Nothing on Travelocity. 

He called air2sea since our flight was booked through them. They pieced together a segment from Birmingham to Dallas with a tight connection to a direct flight to San Juan. He made the ship with 2 hours to spare.

Without air2sea, he would have missed that cruise. 

I won't fly to a cruise any other way now.

[Lovetocruise2002]

3 hours ago, Dad2Cue said:

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion A2S isn't worth the hassle. 

I used to think that too. Until the March 2022 fiasco.

If I had booked through Air2Sea, I could have saved $1500 (to fly from PIT-MIA instead of DTW) + $350 (cost of last minute car rental to drive from DTW-PIT) + $300 (last minute hotel stay at PIT airport) + major stress that we would miss our cruise and not be compensated at all and still suffering PTSD from that over a year later.

In conclusion, IMO, it is worth the hassle.

[smokeybandit]

I figured out why I'm not seeing certain classes of flights that I know exist.

Looks like Air2Sea, at least based on the website, only has a certain amount of seats per class per flight.  Despite zero business class seats booked so far, A2S only has an allotment of 2 seats for that flight.

 

Yeah I know, call. But I don't like calling

[twangster]

Well this is interesting...

Every few weeks I check my Delta trips and validate seat assignments.  Today I noticed my flights for my upcoming cruise are gone.   Turns out they were cancelled.

A2S claims they need 72 hours to work on it but everything will be okay.  The flights are still available but now at a higher cost.  A2S states I am price protected. 

Guess I'll find out in 3 days.   

[teddy]

2 hours ago, twangster said:

Well this is interesting...

Every few weeks I check my Delta trips and validate seat assignments.  Today I noticed my flights for my upcoming cruise are gone.   Turns out they were cancelled.

A2S claims they need 72 hours to work on it but everything will be okay.  The flights are still available but now at a higher cost.  A2S states I am price protected. 

Guess I'll find out in 3 days.   

 

Well shoot. 
 

I hope things work out for you. 

[smokeybandit]

Air2Sea finally showed more than 2 seats available for the flight I wanted to Panama. I book business class, great.

Except when I log into my reservation on United, I'm only business class for 3 of the 4 round trip legs, despite that 4th leg having business class available and despite my Air2Sea confirmation email saying I'm in business class for all 4 legs.

 

Guess I'm going to have to call them anyway.

[smokeybandit]

Update: Bitten by Air2Sea.  They put me in economy for one leg despite the confirmation email saying business class for that leg and being charged a full business class fare for an economy seat.  That's just how it can work for flights with connections. This rather key detail isn't shown on the website.

I cancelled.  That leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.

 

The A2S agent was nice and tried to help me out (despite the usual barely being able to hear him, I think they still use rotary phones there). But, oh well.
 

[twangster]

On 5/31/2023 at 1:58 PM, twangster said:

Well this is interesting...

Every few weeks I check my Delta trips and validate seat assignments.  Today I noticed my flights for my upcoming cruise are gone.   Turns out they were cancelled.

A2S claims they need 72 hours to work on it but everything will be okay.  The flights are still available but now at a higher cost.  A2S states I am price protected. 

Guess I'll find out in 3 days.   

As a follow up my flights are back!

Picked seats and I'm good to go.  

But I'll be keeping an eye on them.  If I didn't find this until the day of the flight I can only imagine what would have happened.  

[Dad2Cue]

4 hours ago, twangster said:

As a follow up my flights are back!

Picked seats and I'm good to go.  

But I'll be keeping an eye on them.  If I didn't find this until the day of the flight I can only imagine what would have happened.  

Was it a Delta problem or an A2S problem?

My flight still shows up on the United website for the day before my cruise. 

Does A2S actually generate a reservation with the airline?  I'm thinking A2S assigns a name to their allotment of seats.  I guess the airline doesn't care who occupies the seat so maybe the airline put someone else in your seat.  I have no idea how A2S works.  I haven't even paid for my flight yet.  

[twangster]

49 minutes ago, Dad2Cue said:

Was it a Delta problem or an A2S problem?

My flight still shows up on the United website for the day before my cruise. 

Does A2S actually generate a reservation with the airline?  I'm thinking A2S assigns a name to their allotment of seats.  I guess the airline doesn't care who occupies the seat so maybe the airline put someone else in your seat.  I have no idea how A2S works.  I haven't even paid for my flight yet.  

I suspect A2S forgot to issue the ticket against the airline reservation.  It was on Delta's website under my account so it had my skymiles and trusted traveler numbers.  

An A2S booking comes with an airline record locator.  It has passenger names derived from the cruise booking.  International A2S flight tickets are also generated from the cruise booking and in the case of international flights if a passport has a middle name it's very important for the cruise booking to also use that middle name.   It's a pretty big deal to add a middle name later, like it causes a lot of work for A2S working with the airline.  

For a number of US airline and international airlines like ANA my record locators allow me to log in on the website and choose seats.  All my info is there as if it's a direct booking even six months out.