We are getting ready for a big trip to Europe, coming up in about a month, and we are VERY excited. As we were planning this trip I got it into my head that I didn’t want to fly both ways. I wanted to either go or come back on a cruise ship. This was definitely possible – in fact we could have gotten there both ways on a ship for less than the cost of Premium Economy air if we could afford to take 2 months off. But alas, we’re not retired yet.
Most transatlantic flights are more expensive one-way than round-trip and this was one of the first barriers in my planning. We were quite happy with Virgin Atlantic’s Premium Economy but their one-way pricing was prohibitive. Eventually I found that Norwegian Air had Premium Economy without prohibitive one-way pricing and I figured we could give them a try and could thus afford to come back to the U.S. on Cunard’s Queen Mary.
At this point, I called our travel agent extraordinaire, Sandra. I should have called her sooner. She booked us the inside stateroom we requested at a cost of $1238 per person. Because we were using Sandra and her travel agency, Plaza Travel, we also got $200 cruise credit and prepaid gratuities, things we would not have gotten if we had booked directly through Cunard. But next Sandra asked if we wanted her to arrange air through Cunard, something I had never even thought of. I said, “Sure, let’s see what they can do.” Sandra is very patient and went back and forth with me and Cunard with various pricing options, but what we ultimately settled on was Premium Economy on Virgin Atlantic from New York to Heathrow for $782.61 per person. This is amazing. The lowest price for the same flight on Virgin Atlantic’s website was over $2200 per person! Needless to say we booked it. Once we had the flight and the cruise booked, the price to fly there Premium Economy and come back on the Queen Mary was only about $400 more total than flying Premium Economy both ways.
Now fast forward four months to February. We had paid for our cruise and air in full when I saw an ad in the New York Times for Cunard’s 175th anniversary. The prices they were quoting for our cruise were $999 per person for the lowest category stateroom rather than the $1238 per person we had paid. I sent Sandra an email to ask if she could get us that price. Even if they took away the gratuities and cruise credit, we would save money. Sandra emailed back that she would see what she could do and within an hour she called. “I’m on the phone with Cunard,” she said. “They’re saying they can’t give you that price because you’ve paid in full, but I told them that’s not fair and they have to do something for you, so they’re offering to upgrade you to a balcony and throw in an additional $100 per person cruise credit. Would that be okay?”
Would that be okay???? We LOVE a balcony. We were trying to save $100 or so and instead Sandra got us upgraded to a room with a view that sells for $1598 per person AND we now have $400 of free play money once we get on board. And Sandra is ALWAYS doing things like that for us. That’s why we use a travel agent.
Now I will say we don’t use Sandra for everything. If we want to get the least expensive room at the Motel 6 we don’t waste Sandra’s time. For most of the rest of this trip we are using hotel points and airline miles to get us to and from Portland and New York and to stay in hotels in New York and London, and I didn’t involve Sandra in any of this. But when we want to stay somewhere nice, Sandra never fails to make our trip very very special. Thank you, Sandra!
