Cruise deals with flights

Cruise lines offer a wide range of services for their passengers, so it's no surprise they can book airfare for you. But the question has long been whether you're better off taking care of your own arrangements to get to your port of embarkation.

Not all cruise line air/sea packages are created equal. Programs vary from cruise line to cruise line, and to further complicate matters, your itinerary will determine whether you'll see price benefits by booking through the lines.

We scoured the programs and policies of the cruise lines, got cruise travel agents to weigh in and reviewed a range of anecdotes from avid cruisers. This revealed only one certainty: your travel personality probably will be the deciding factor as to whether you will find value in cruise lines' air/sea programs.

"Some people just like to have everything taken care of for them, " says Linda Allen, with Cruises by Linda, a cruise travel consultancy.

Some cruisers, such as Cruise Critic member dolphin2012, who flew from Texas to Barcelona to sail on Carnival Sunshine, report positive air/sea experiences: "We just used the Fly Aweigh program in June with no problems, " dolphin2012 wrote on Cruise Critic's message boards. "... we were on the Sunshine so I didn't want to worry since we were flying in the same day from Texas to Barcelona... the flight only had one stop in Amsterdam and on the way back we did have two stops ... the flights were about 400 cheaper per person also."

Others, though, learned the hard way that the programs can leave you susceptible to changes to your flight plans that you might find inconvenient.

Cruise Critic member StrongMinded1 offered this experience: "I made the biggest mistake booking my air through Royal Caribbean's 'Partner, ' Choice Air. I purchased assigned seats for my party of 8 on a 6:40 a.m. flight back on 3/7/2011. The carrier changed the flight time to 7:30 a.m. but since the flight didn't change, I had the same assigned seats. On June 5th, Choice Air took me off my 7:30 a.m. flight with NO reason, DID not notify me and then TWO days later, put us on a 9:00 a.m. flight. Royal Caribbean called me and says the CARRIER made the flight change but after spending 4 hours on the phone yesterday with the carrier and Choice Air, I found out the change was voluntary by my agent, Choice Air. BOTTOM LINE - CHOICE AIR makes it completely THEIR choice to do what they please with the flights that YOU paid for. You have no control over your own reservation."

To make an airfare choice that best suits you, it can help to simply know what to expect.

What You Get With Cruise Line Airfare

Cruise lines tempt travelers to book flights through them with a couple of incentives: low fares and assistance if travel plans go awry.

The cruise lines generally promise to get you the lowest available rate on the base airfare. And because they negotiate bulk contract fares with the airlines, the cruise lines might be able to provide a nice savings on some routes.

For example, Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises' ChoiceAir program guarantees the lowest available rate on the base airfare - though watch out for added service fees of up to $25 per traveler. Cruisers who find lower airfare within 24 hours of booking with ChoiceAir get 110 percent of the difference in price applied as an onboard credit.

In addition, when you use a cruise line's air/sea program, you typically get guaranteed assistance with alternative flights if there are any delays or cancellations with your originally scheduled flight.

Carnival Cruise Lines' Fly Aweigh program, for example, guarantees that if a flight cancellation or delay makes you miss your embarkation port, you will be put on a flight to meet the ship at the next port of call, and Carnival will provide hotel and transportation at no expense.