We just booked our flights to Rio for our Rio-Ft.Lauderdale cruise on Voyager in December and found the oddest things. For our Seattle-Rio and Ft.L.-Seattle flights, the differences in fares for Biz were astonishing. The strangest thing was that booking the itinerary on Northwest.com was more than $2,000 per person lower than booking it on Delta.com, for the exactly same Delta flights, code-shared with Northwest. Priceline and a couple of other online providers were more than $1,000 per person higher than Northwest.com. I checked it all twice to be sure that I wasn't missing some key item, such as our having to ride in the cargo hold with the luggage and caged dogs. But it appears to be a genuine Biz reservation on Delta for about half of the fare Delta shows on its own website. Please tell me, kiddies, if I am missing something here. If not, this is a very good lesson in looking at every possible vendor for airfares, no? Okay, okay, I know that Delta sucks; but for that low fare in Biz we will manage just fine. Does anyone have any notion that Northwest reservations won't be honored by Delta when the merger is completed?? Or, perhaps, are we just a bit lucky tonight??

Sounds like you found a good deal. Just make sure to keep email with confirmation and receipt.

...and check the reservation (as well as your seat assignments) online daily, if you have the time. I have caught many a canceled flight/schedule change/fare drops etc. by doing this. The airlines either take weeks to inform you of changes, or they don't tell you at all!

Editing to add....congrats on the great deal!!!!!

Wow Fred, congrats! Have you booked the Rio leg yet?

Fred, sometimes there can be great price disparity between airline partners for the same itinerary if one has booked significantly less of their inventory than they are allocated. Sounds like you indeed got a good deal! Probably the LEAST risk between airlines in the current market would be anything between Northwest and Delta.

Cheers,
Ken

Sounds like a lucky break! Delta is not so bad to South America IOHO.

congratulations on an airline arbitrage!

Cheers, Anne

Ken - Thanks for the interesting insight. At this moment, we are happy to have our confirmations from NW and Delta (I checked our reservations at Delta.com and found that they recognize us there). It still seems quite odd that NW can sell the Biz seats for less than half of the price that Delta is selling them; but we will be content with our grand bargain.

Fortunately, now that we have received all sorts of detailed confirmations of the sale, we will have a sound case in contract law against Delta if they refuse to honor the reservations. Lordie, what a drag to have to think about how to sue one's airline if they don't honor a reservation? It is indeed unfortunate to have to think of airline reservations in terms of potentially adversarial relations.

Oh well, if we end up in steerage or in cargo, we'll still make it to Rio. Hmm, lovely images of delightfully tanned creatures on the beach at Ipanema...

Fred...I'm crossing my fingers that all of this works for you! I had LAN Business Class fights to Buenos Aires and they were terrific. Ngaire worked on my air upgrade and it worked out GREAT!

Freddie

I fly Delta a lot and thought I'd see if I could capitalize on your good fortune. We're booked in first class on Delta for a 2 week SCUBA trip to Bonaire in April - the price on NW.Com was identical - Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained! BTW, NW seemed horrified when I told them of your experience (just kidding!)

Ted

Hi, Fred - Mark and I just booked our air to Rio as well. Have you nailed down the airport-to-port part of the planning yet? Looking forward to meeting you onboard Voyager - this should be a great trip!!

Mia - We are arriving in Rio on the 1st and spending three nights there before embarking on Voyager. We've not been to Rio and want to spend a couple of days there before the cruise. We aren't daring enough to arrive in a port on the day of embarkation.

Ted - Please feel free to rat me out to Northwest, as the same low fares still show on its website, despite the fare on the Delta site being twice as high. Maybe it is as Ken suggested, that NW has a lot of allocated inventory to unload. It may also have something to do with how the final calculation of the merger price will be determined; and NW wants to have more cash on its books. Who knows?? In any event, this is definitely one gift horse into whose mouth we don't intend to look!!!

Cheers, Fred

Hi, Fred - Wish we could have spent a few days taking in the sights before the cruise, but work schedules would not permit. We hope to see a thing or two during the overnight, but look forward to hearing your impressions of the city! Mia :)

Fred, have you decided where to stay yet?

We're not planning much yet for this cruise. I guess I'm trying not to get a lot of anticipation vested in it, in case we have to cancel. We certainly would arrive a couple of days early if we go. As you know, David's been to Rio, I have not, so I've always wanted to go. David's on sabbatical then, so if money was no object we might spend longer, but at the moment the whole prospect looks kind of dim. We'll see.

Continental Airlines is also discounting prices quite dramatically. Our round trip Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale, First Class, came down from $2,700 (for two) to $1,690. It's certainly worth double checking the cost of a flight the week before you leave! :)