slawecki

my wife wants to take a river cruise this fall. do any of the river cruise companies offer promotional rates for biz class air fare. would be from somewhere to central europe from wash dc, and from somewhere else in central europe back to IAD.

Randyk47

Generally speaking cruise lines, both river and ocean, don't have particularly good deals on airfare. Even the luxury lines will most often offer just free/included/discounted coach airfare and then charge a plus up for business or first class. Personally we've done better, and at the worst paid the same, if we book our own air, hotels, and transfers. You might see a sale or special incentive but that takes research and a bit of watching to catch an offer. If not dealing through a travel agent or agency my best recommendation would be to pick whatever line or lines you're interested in and sign up for mailings (regular mail or Internet) to see what if any offers.

Jay71

Slightly off topic but I think it depends on your parameters of a "good deal." X and RCI offer airfare through Choice Air. Personally, I've never used them but would consider it. I've done some test searches and while they didn't beat the crazy seat sale pricing we had snagged, their fares seem very competitively/better priced for the day compared to other fares we found on Expedia and Kayak. But the trade-off is that their tickets can be very restrictive for changes and with not the greatest routing/connections.

MSPeconomist

I'd be concerned about cruise lines using bulk/consolidator fares that don't earn miles and might not be eligible for any elite benefits, although the latter is likely to be a moot point for business class passengers. In some cases, you might not have a choice of times/routings/carriers/codeshares, plus the cruise line or its agent is acting as your travel agent and responsible for making any rebookings/changes prior to the day of departure.

Randyk47

I've heard at least some cruise lines have gone to more flexible and reasonable air travel arrangements but it certainly was, and still might be, like this in the past. These very limitations and restrictions were what drove us away from using cruise line arranged air 20 years ago. We also found that while the offered fares were sometimes a bit lower than personally arranged air they typically weren't that much lower and certainly not enough to offset the loss in frequent flyer miles and other lost benefits. Of course the other side of the coin is that if you're not a frequent flyer or seasoned traveler there's a benefit to letting somebody else make sure you get to your cruise on time.

Kagehitokiri

when premium cabin 'includes' it, it is a deal, but they simply bundle it into fare price, in other words making you pay for it rather than it being optional

'net fares' are offered by travel agents, where travel agent sets their profit margin

wrp96

The few times cruise air has been a reasonable deal for me has been for one way cruises like transatlantics, where a one way transatlantic ticket, especially in business class, can be cost prohibitive. For my river cruise, booking my own airfare was definitely a better option than anything the cruise line offered.

JDiver

Last year, we cruised SXM-LIS on a transatlantic repositioning cruise. One way SFO--SXM was quite reasonable, but finding a return was tricky (open jaw fares generally won't allow the open jaw portion to be longer than the legs).

Many of the flights were very pricy, but using Google Flights, BA, IB websites (trying for one world flights for miles earning and status benefits) found a very decent fare - lower than most Premium Economy and Economy flights we were presented with. The return required flying Iberia LIS-MAD as IB, a BA codeshare flown by IB MAD-JFK and a BA codeshare on AA JFK-SFO, but we flew in Business on IB's A319 with the excellent Business Club (usually used on MAD-TLV and other mid-haul runs), IB Business Plus on their A330 and AA's excellent A321T transcon Business seats (both latter offer fully horizontal seat beds).

AFAM-DFW

While it is usually better to book your own air, I always ask for cruise pricing with and without air. Sometimes the cruise line is running a promo where business air is included in the cabin price or a low cost upgrade from the included coach.

Along with the price difference, the cruise air will be on the route that is cheapest for the cruise line and may include more connections and less convenient times. The cruise also charges extra if you want to have extra days at the front or back end of the trip.

For example, we booked a Viking cruise and their included routing had us catching a 6am flight for the return and the bus left the ship at 3am. We paid extra for an 11am departure.

ralfkrippner

I just booked a Lufthansa biz fare on choice air for an X cruise from EZE next February. The fare had the exact same price as on LH's website but has less restrictions. Booked on choiceair it is refundable and changeable while on LH its non-refundable and changeable only with a high fee.

I investigated on transatlantic fares once and got fares at about 50% of the cheapest returns while booked via OTA or airlines site oneways were more similar to return fares. So for oneways cruise companies fares seem to be very good.

I've not yet seen rivercruise companies offer special airfares.

Hoyaheel

Not sure what your qualifications are for "special" but river cruises absolutely do offer airfares. My in-laws did a last minute cruise on Uniworld a couple years ago (I think it was their 4th on that line) and the main reason they were able to take advantage of the cheap cruise fare is that Uniworld offered airfare for less than they were able to find independently. As we know - last minute airfare from US to Europe in the summer is expensive most of the time, and it's why last minute cruise sales aren't always great options for Americans....

There are also lines that offer business class upgrades to their airfare specials for those in suites etc. Same as ocean cruises. I haven't taken advantage of any of these deals, but they do exist.

HeidiInTheAlps

I think Choice Air is a good choice when you are needing a one way ticket, they seem to have some special fare classes on a one way basis not available OTA's.

rtpflyer

I suspect that the high priced Transatlantic one way fares are designed to extract maximum cash from business travelers and that airlines offer reduced one way Transatlantic fares via cruise lines because they know business travelers won't be able to take advantage of them (and will therefore have to continue paying the higher prices).

Kagehitokiri

silversea now doing $400 business class, seem to recall $2000 is the usual

presumably some river business deals are out there

or if booking higher level river cabins, negotiate

jonsail

I have found that Seabourn can offer a much better fare deal than one can get by going to the airline's websites. I e-mailed Cranky at Cranky Flier about this and he replied that the airlines allow cruise lines and many third party services such as his concierge service to offer these much better rates that are not published but demand that the passenger actually take the cruise. In my experience with Seabourn the airlines gives me all the frequent flyer and elite qualifying miles that I would get if I had booked directly. The exact deals on offer can vary from day to day, even months before the cruise so obviously the airlines are trying to estimate which seats they will not be able to get full fares for. On a trip I booked recently, I was booked one way on American and Seabourn was able to give me assigned seats. The other way was Delta and Seabourn could not give me assigned seats. I called Delta and Delta said they would let me make seat assignments when they got paid by Seabourn. But this illustrates another advantage of booking thru Seabourn. I still have a few weeks to get a full refund on both air and cruise. Finally, if the cruise line book you and your flight is delayed it is the problem of the cruise line to get you to the next port, not your problem as would be the case if you book yourself. I might add that I used kayak.com to see which airlines had the routes I wanted and then seatguru.com to assess seats and suggested to Seabourn which flights I wanted. That worked, as long as I was a little flexible on travel dates. Seabourn was very good about offering a number of price options and flight options.