I believe Oceania used to price their air based on their contracts with the airlines. From this statement, depending on the Oceania contracts, I can see that the air may (or may not?) be more expensive when booking closer to the sailing date compared to booking far out.
I believe it’s quite easy to arrange with Oceania while you’re already on board. But it also was possible to include Oceania transfers in your reservation when you book your cruise.
Thank you for posting this information. It will make me assume that Oceania contracts with the airlines are extended that far. This is way before any published flight prices are available. In this case there won’t be any dynamic pricing involved. Still it’s very interesting to see how it all plays out.
This looks like an interesting development. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will affect the prices of the business/premium air booked through Oceania. Though, don’t have much hopes for the bargains there. Also, with dynamic pricing I can’t see how the air price will be determined when booking cruise two years in advance.
The price for Uber heavily depends on the date and time. In any case we were willing to pay because we didn’t want to jump all the ropes in getting from our London hotel to the train or bus station and then to the cruise terminal in Southampton. I understand that some people think differently but when compared to the price of the cruise or any other travel expenses I wouldn’t be on a mission for saving some dollars in exchange of the convenience.
In a very rare case we recently booked PE flight from LHR to LAX through Oceania. They had the best priced one way direct flight that I could find. Also the price for O transfer to the airport was zero dollars. Much better deal than £200+ we had paid for Uber on the way to that cruise from London to Southampton terminal. The same O transfer was available for purchase to the people who booked their own flights. Still a better deal than any private transfer for those who like us don’t want to take any public transportation option.
Oceania never stated that extra tipping was discouraged. As far as I remember it always been common among those people who were willing to share a little bit extra for the good service from the staff. Doesn’t mean that they received anything at the other’s expense. Obviously, there’re some who prefer it to be the other way.
Oceania sell transfers to airports but not into London. I don’t remember the prices. We used Uber from central London hotel to Southampton cruise terminal and the price varied between £140 and £220 depending on the day and time in April. On Monday morning it was on the high end of this range.
We’re not big fans of the organised group tours but there're always some excursions that we’re willing to take on any cruise. When not on the tour we enjoy eating ashore and aren’t missing onboard lunches that we have already paid for. We consider the price of the cruise in whole not the components that may be included or not otherwise.
That were my thoughts too. While I don’t question the credibility of those post I was just wondering why even if we were having some problems nothing remotely similar bad ever happened to us. I guess I’m yet to hear plain NO from anyone on board for such simple requests.
I believe it doesn’t work like that. The onboard booking promotion is a fleet wide. It changes from time to time but not specific to the particular cruise you’re onboard at the moment. You can get the same discount even if you aren’t on board but have a cruise coming within the 30 days time frame.
Well, this is my best answer to your question. By “best results” I didn’t mean after the final payment savings in particular. That being said, if I remember correctly one time we got a cabin upgrade after the final payment date. Our cruises normally don’t go on any sales because of the strong demand for that sailings. But the one we have booked now for some reason have already been through three sales and every time we had our price adjusted correctly. And occasionally there were some other issues that our TA got resolved to our complete satisfaction.
I’ve been following that thread and noticed that you advocated for another person. Sorry he wasn’t successful. I’d suggest that he needs a new TA. We have an excellent one who is always persistent with O and gets us the best possible results.