MGA Travel Viking Advisory

Our agency has booked millions of dollars of cruises with Viking Ocean Cruises and Viking River Cruises over the years.  The onboard experience has a typical high satisfaction rate from our clients. That’s the good part.

It has been our agency’s experience, however, that certain Viking policies have proven to be non-transparent and sometimes misleading. Our agency has nothing against the Viking brand per se, but over the years we have learned that we cannot not always rely on Viking to do the right thing from our point of view, and when one of these policies goes against what one would expect, some past clients have been very unhappy.

Here is just one example, regarding how they frequently handle airfare. Viking offers discounted, flat-rate airfares to cruise guests, even years in advance. This is very appealing to clients to know exactly what their cruise AND air costs are going to be.  Or so they believe.

Viking regularly uses algorithms to determine the cheapest flights, not necessarily the best itinerary or number of connections for the guest. Remember they are offering flat rate or “free” air and even they don’t know what the air cost will be if it’s a year out or more. So naturally they are looking to find the lowest cost, but it may not be in the client’s best interest.  To counter this, Our agency has historically recommended getting Viking Air Plus (custom air) at an added cost, so that our agents can talk with Viking Air and attempt to book preferred routes and itineraries that still fit in the Viking determined “budget.” Our agents would then request the air to be ticketed (meaning Viking pays the airline for it).  This can be done about 10 months prior to departure.

Nowadays, Viking will no longer ticket the air until about a month to 45 days before departure.  Among other things, this makes it difficult to select seats or pay for better seats.  And by the time it is ticketed all of the good ones are usually gone.  Unfortunately, now it’s become even worse: at the time of ticketing, regardless of having custom air or not, if your selected flights have increased in price, their algorithm can automatically  change the flights you had selected to cheaper ones, almost always with worse itineraries, longer layovers, more connections, etc.  If Viking had paid for the flights when they were booked, you would be locked in to the preferred flights and price.  However they don’t do that any longer, even though they have already collected your money for the “flat-rate” cost or “free” flights. When you say you want your original flights back Viking will let you know how much [additional] you will have to pay for that, often thousands of dollars more.

To be sure, airlines make changes to flights all of the time, but that's not what we are referring to. Viking, not the airline, and at its discretion, will change the flights you preferred and booked earlier, in order to save money.  When that happens, it will not be the fault of the airline nor your travel advisor.  And it will also be so close to departure that you will have very few options remaining.

Air is only one of several concerns, such as the web of Future Cruise Credit categories they issue, the application of them buried among multiple sets of rules.  Another disappointment, specifically on Viking ocean voyages, the “included” shore excursions can sell out before you even have the opportunity to reserve them in advance.

Finally, please be aware that Viking will require you to pay in full much sooner than most cruise lines, usually the month following the deposit date - even if the cruise doesn't depart until the following year or more.