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Early booking on Silversea


mittenscat23
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How is Silversea with honouring price reductions or cabin up grade offers as you get closer to sailing? I noticed that Silversea offers extra perks as the departure date gets closer.

 

I would hate to book a year in advance, pay in full and then before final payment of cruise see that new bookings are getting 2 cabin upgrades and reduced pricing?

 

Thanks

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In a world of low interest rates, our money was not going to earn much anyway, so we booked early for a choice of the ship in terms of cabins. (not that it helped much, a slip of a typing finger has us on the wrong deck anyway… )

There is a risk that the line may go broke and the potential irritation if they may start quietly discounting to high volume agents.

I probably won't do it agin….

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We booked our November 2017 cruise in June last year via Silversea UK. We paid in full to receive a 10% discount.

 

In March we noticed that the price had been reduced. We emailed Silversea to request a 5% refund. They replied saying that we also qualified for their two category upgrade promotion. We kept the suite we had originally booked for the price of one two categories lower and received a refund of about 25%.

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We booked our November 2017 cruise in June last year via Silversea UK. We paid in full to receive a 10% discount.

 

 

 

In March we noticed that the price had been reduced. We emailed Silversea to request a 5% refund. They replied saying that we also qualified for their two category upgrade promotion. We kept the suite we had originally booked for the price of one two categories lower and received a refund of about 25%.

 

 

 

I had a similar experience last year after paying in full for the cruise with bargain air fares. They then introduced a 2 category upgrade (or $1500 free on board spend) and then $1000 on board spend making this cruise incredible value.

 

Unfortunately my next booking hasn't faired so well.

 

Yesterday they added free business class flights, which I was going to take advantage of. Unable to speak, I later noticed they had increased the price by 75% to get the "free flights" per person. I'm annoyed as if they had answered when I called, I would have got the flights added at no extra cost. Now they want an additional £2200. I wished I'd been unaware as knowing that's happened has left a sour taste.

 

 

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Have just had a quick check on our upcoming cruise in October. We booked it in December 2015 and only paid the deposit, not in full. Since that time it has increased in price by 31%. There are quite a few suites that are waitlisted so that could account for the rise in price as it appears to be quite a full ship.

On our previous Silversea cruises, maybe about the last five, we we have watched the prices as the cruise came closer and found that we were on the right side of the cost and didn't need to take any action.

Maybe we just hit it lucky and everything for us has been straight forward and simple.

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For what it's worth, last September, we booked 2809 (Wind) (March 2018) for £2350pp including the 10% discount. It meant paying 'up front' but interest rates being what they are ... or is that 'are not?'..... The current "discounted" rate is now £3510pp. The 10% EBD is still ongoing ... other offers have been and gone, including cheap business class airfares. However to have taken up that offer it would have meant cancelling the first booking then rebooking. It actually worked out cheaper to keep the original booking and sort out our own airfares.

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For what it's worth, last September, we booked 2809 (Wind) (March 2018) for £2350pp including the 10% discount. It meant paying 'up front' but interest rates being what they are ... or is that 'are not?'..... The current "discounted" rate is now £3510pp. The 10% EBD is still ongoing ... other offers have been and gone, including cheap business class airfares. However to have taken up that offer it would have meant cancelling the first booking then rebooking. It actually worked out cheaper to keep the original booking and sort out our own airfares.

 

Likewise for us and we did pay in full up front. Last month, they did put the price up by £50 on our cruise so we knew to get any offers we'd need to cancel and rebook. We know we would have carried forward our discounts so not a bit deal.

 

The thing that grates, is that if my consultant was online on Saturday, the prices as shown would have given me business class return fares for an additional £50. A few hours later and they hiked that price by £2200. Not sure how they can justify those levels, though I'm guessing the website may have just been late in changing them. It's certainly not Brexit related as US prices have been hiked too. In fact the US bonus is return transatlantic free or +$599 business class.

 

I probably should let things go and not look again after booking!!

 

You certainly won't lose out by booking early.

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Each of the 4 future cruises that we are booked on were booked almost as soon as (and in one case the day that) the itineraries were released. Were we booking these same cruises today - even with the 10% EBD - our total cost would be around £5k higher. In fact, for the Spirit in Jan '18 the cheapest suite today (which we would therefore not book) is about £4k more than we paid. Each! And, as stated earlier in the thread, coughing up the whole cost up front - even for a cruise 2 years ahead - results in pennies lost in interest.

 

The risk of delay is not only that the price may well increase but also that your choice of suite grade could become unavailable - this is particularly a problem with Vista suites on the Spirit and the cheaper Vista/Veranda suites on other ships. For those that aim higher that is maybe a less important factor.

 

As yet nothing we have in the pipeline has been targeted for the incentive programs so I have no idea if SS would give those benefits to my existing booking(s) but they at least guarantee to match the price drop if such were to occur.

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As yet nothing we have in the pipeline has been targeted for the incentive programs so I have no idea if SS would give those benefits to my existing booking(s) but they at least guarantee to match the price drop if such were to occur.

 

 

 

I had been keeping an eye on my one remaining cruise booked and Saturday was the first time it has been targeted for any incentive.

 

My SS rep returned my call this morning my and we both agree the discrepancy I mentioned above was likely down to the time difference from HQ in Florida uploading the new prices on the web. And UK times. The thought had already occurred to me - though they must have done so at about 3 or 4 am to be valid.

 

That said, he agreed that was a huge increased but said it was based on its popularity and was now 89% capacity, so I guess they can afford to try it on a bit! He said that there had been big increases across the board and even 2019 prices increased that far out! At least my initial annoyance on missing out has gone.

 

Had an interesting further chat to get a ship lunch on the Wind in 31 July in London and also in September on the Muse which he then asked for my views. Much of what I'd said he agreed was common feedback but he did say there had been talk about (and this was from Master Echos observation and feedback on the maiden) that La Dolce Vita was used for dining as it's an unused waste of premium space which I completely concur with.

 

Will be interesting to see if it does get implemented and when. It won't be s quick solution for sure.

 

 

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Out of interest, is there an easy way (without going via Silversea or a t/a) to see just how full a cruise is?

 

No. There is a site that supposedly tracks overall booking rates but they don't cover the smaller luxury lines like Silversea. I'm also not sure most TAs have full access to the cabin inventory. That information is managed by the cruise line inventory control department and somewhat closely guarded. It's been five years since I used a Silversea in-house cruise consultant and I can't remember if she ever gave or told us the status of booking for our cruises we booked through her. I got impression that our first cruise was not selling well as Silversea kept reducing the fare and adding incentives almost right up to the sailing. Even with all of that we sailed out of Barcelona at about 80% capacity.

Edited by Randyk47
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