Re: Regent Business air from Europe to LAX which requires a change of planes in the USA (say ATL, JFK, DFW ).

When you change planes in USA, do you fly domestic first class back to LAX if it's a narrow body with just two classes of service?

Marcie - I am sure one of the Keene folks will chime in, but if you read the fine print on Regent air, they only guarantee business for the international portion of the trip. That being said, we have been fortunate enough to have gotten first class for the domestic portion on 2 class configurations whenever we have used Regent Air in the past. However, I have heard others say they have been stuck in economy for the domestic portion. Nowadays so many of the domestic flights are on those small regional jets that I don't care for, and getting stuck in economy on one of those little things is a bummer. Regent will guarantee first class for the domestic portion if you pay a hefty up-charge! We also have to pay a an extra fee for flying out of Austin, so it usually works out better for us to take the credit and book our own air - that way we know we will get first class on domestic flights!

Our experience on South America was that we got domestic first, but only because we were flying AA all the way round trip. If coming back from Europe say you fly from Europe on BA, then fly UA from New York to LAX for instance, the domestic portion would be economy. But if you fly UA all the way, I think you would get first class on the domestic portion.....but I don't know that 100%.

Cindy, with the expansion at Austin we have a lot more flight options now. For POP2IT, Silversea didn't even charge an extra fee for flying out of Austin; hopefully Regent, too, will give us this option. That fee is why I, too, never use Regent air.

Marc

Keep me posted Marc if you have any success! Last time we tried to book Regent air (just 2 years ago) they wouldn't budge on the secondary gateway fee, so we ended up taking the air credit. Didn't even ask on our last cruise.

JoAnn is correct. If you are using two different airlines it will be coach on the domestic portion barring some really unusual circumstance. When you are using the same airline for the domestic and international flight they will try and get you the domestic first class but it cannot be guaranteed. All depends on the itinerary.

Thank you all.

We too have to pay that surcharge for air from Richmond or Norfolk. Sometimes we drive to Washington Dulles and avoid that, but it depends on the itinerary.....for the River cruise in Sept, since we will only be gone two weeks, we will drive to IAD, although we used points, it just avoids one of those regional jet flights and one more possibility of luggage going astray.