As my sig says, I don't travel much, but I have finally accumulated enough miles in mine and my husband's WP accounts for us to get to our cruise departing from San Juan, PR on award tickets.
Background: before making a final decision on our sail date, I decided to check NW availability. I didn't have much luck
. It looks like no MSP-SJU morning flights can be booked on either March 22 or 27, so we'll likely have to travel the day before and stay overnight in SJ -- not a big problem. The return date for the 27th cruise is April 1, a blackout for date for NW -- we don't have enough miles for RuleBuster. So that leaves our only option as flying on the 21st, for a cruise which departs on the 22nd and returns on the 27th. Thankfully there are seats for this return date.
Now my question: how likely is this availability to change in the next 2.5 months? The cruise deal for us (to get an employee discount because I work for its parent company) is that we won't be confirmed until 30 days before sailing. So it seems we have two choices regarding air travel:
1) Arrange everything now -- knowing that we may not even be able to sail on that date. This risk looks very low as cruises are not filling up these days -- especially the six-star luxury lines like RSSC (Radisson Seven Seas) -- but it exists nonetheless.
2) Wait until we're confirmed on board and then make air reservations. I have no idea how often or fast these award seats get "taken", and that's where you all come in.
How big is the risk that we will get booked on the cruise and then find out that our WP seats have since sold out? The problem here is that we will then have to buy our tickets outright, which currently run $370 RT each, and will almost double the cost of the entire trip.
Any comments on this dilemma are welcome! And are there other avenues here to pursue? For example, can I redeem the NW miles at CO for possibly better availability?
Thanks in advance!
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An infrequent flyer trying to change that by earning my miles via alternate methods!
and webmaster at
http://www.RewardsLookup.com