HAL offers 110% refund if you can get identical shore excursion for less

Thank you for confirming (again) that HAL's guarantee is, in fact, real and not a scam or ruse as LMaxwell, iancal, sammiedawg, kazu and the other HAL Tour Haters keep insisting.

 

What planet are you posting from?

 

My entire original post said "Similar to Carnival offer. good luck finding identical excursions. Any deviation or variation makes it not identical." That's my participation in the thread. Where did I say it is a scam or ruse? What's with the attitude? Take a breath.

Lets settle this. How about sabers on the Lido deck , after lunch.

What planet are you posting from?

 

My entire original post said "Similar to Carnival offer. good luck finding identical excursions. Any deviation or variation makes it not identical." That's my participation in the thread. Where did I say it is a scam or ruse? What's with the attitude? Take a breath.

 

While I totally agree with you, I fear you are wasting keyboard strokes. My post #40 made it clear I wanted quality but he has discounted that and my "claims" with issues on Signature tours. Obviously, my statements are in doubt despite live threads where tour experiences were reported.

While I totally agree with you, I fear you are wasting keyboard strokes. My post #40 made it clear I wanted quality but he has discounted that and my "claims" with issues on Signature tours. Obviously, my statements are in doubt despite live threads where tour experiences were reported.

 

The only reply to my post was someone that called an excursion company and asked for a slight variation to match a HAL tour, sent explanation to HAL, and got the credit. Exactly like Carnivals offer. Many excursions companies do not list identical excursions because they are not allowed to if they have contracts with the cruise lines. In that instance the company made an exception and someone looked at it and the credit issues. Point made.

 

I do not think the offer is a scam, or a ruse at all, just saying it can be tricky to find something to claim on.

 

I said nothing at all having to do with quality of HAL tours at all. I neither said nor meant anything negative at all in any way. Thank you for understanding my very simple and very basic factual statement before other members jumped on me.

The only reply to my post was someone that called an excursion company and asked for a slight variation to match a HAL tour, sent explanation to HAL, and got the credit. Exactly like Carnivals offer. Many excursions companies do not list identical excursions because they are not allowed to if they have contracts with the cruise lines. In that instance the company made an exception and someone looked at it and the credit issues. Point made.

 

I do not think the offer is a scam, or a ruse at all, just saying it can be tricky to find something to claim on.

 

I said nothing at all having to do with quality of HAL tours at all. I neither said nor meant anything negative at all in any way. Thank you for understanding my very simple and very basic factual statement before other members jumped on me.

 

 

I doubt that most members would jump on you - just one or two ;)

For anyone who thinks I "mischaracterized" anyone or any Post, please read Posts # 4, 19, 26, 28, 38 and 42 above - they speak for themselves.

 

How sad that you feel the need to mischaracterize that which needs no explanation and which you apparently do not understand.

 

I have read the entire thread. You cherry-picked people to name, and call "Haters". No mischaracterization on my part. The only thing I don't understand is why you listed those posts as some kind of proof for your position.

 

 

 

Feel free to reply. I know you want the last word.

I wonder if Holland America would refuse a refund if you found an identical excursion that used a 9 passenger van instead of a 54 passenger coach.

I have done it twice on my South America Antarctica cruise. Got approved both times in less than 2 days. Just do your research. Now have an additional $275 OBC plus my shareholder $250 and TA $75 OBC. Works for me. I research before I book with HAL. When I find identical tours, I book with HAL, then send in the email. This way I get more mariner days. Won't work for all, but I am a believer.

 

 

 

Can you give an example? What tour did you match? I thought it could not be in a local vehicle.

 

 

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Two rules of life:

 

1. When a person prefaces her/his comment with "In all honesty", you can be certain that something less than complete honesty will follow.

 

2. When a person says, "It's not about the money", you can be certain it is about the money.

 

JMO YMMV

 

 

 

Not true. We often pay more for private excursions. We do not take them to save money.

 

 

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I wonder if Holland America would refuse a refund if you found an identical excursion that used a 9 passenger van instead of a 54 passenger coach.

;p;p;p Now that is funny!!!!!

It would be simple for HAL or any other cruise line to offer this. It is a ruse.

 

The only thing they need to do is contract their specific contractor NOT to sell any identical private tours. Private tours offered by others will never be identical.

 

True, HAL can contract with their provider terms that limit their ability to sell any identical private tours, but they cannot bar contractor's son, neighbor, friend f ***** selling intial tour privatwely and not through cruise line. Easy for the pair to design same tour and still abide by terms of their contract with HAL. Son and dad design same tour, arrange with their own g uides, drivvers etc and tour is identical as to length, pla ces visited, and time at each attraction etc.

Edited November 18, 2017 by sail7seas

In Ketichikan Alaska, they charged much more than the box office for the lumberjack show. Received the difference for 11. This was on Carnival.

True, HAL can contract with their provider terms that limit their ability to sell any identical private tours, but they cannot bar contractor's son, neighbor, friend f ***** selling intial tour privatwely and not through cruise line. Easy for the pair to design same tour and still abide by terms of their contract with HAL. Son and dad design same tour, arrange with their own g uides, drivvers etc and tour is identical as to length, pla ces visited, and time at each attraction etc.

 

 

Is there an obvious catch to this idea I have not considered?

What planet are you posting from?

 

My entire original post said "Similar to Carnival offer. good luck finding identical excursions. Any deviation or variation makes it not identical." That's my participation in the thread. Where did I say it is a scam or ruse? What's with the attitude? Take a breath.

 

Gosh, you almost got me there - you didn't say "it is a scam or ruse" but you certainly implied it ... and obviously realized that you had done so, as evidenced by your backtracking in Post # 54 in which you stated, "I do not think the offer is a scam, or a ruse at all, just saying it can be tricky to find something to claim on." You disavowed the direct statement that the HAL offer is a scam or a ruse and chose to hide behind the implication that it is. As we all know, innuendo (that is, saying something by implication or clever paraphrasing) can often be more persuasive than a direct statement. And IMO that is exactly what you attempted to do.

 

So, what's with your attitude? Take a breath.

Edited November 18, 2017 by avian777

Is there an obvious catch to this idea I have not considered?

 

No, sail7seas, I do not think you missed anything ... and the fact that no one has stepped up to answer your question or challenge your premise is confirmation of that.

No, sail7seas, I do not think you missed anything ... and the fact that no one has stepped up to answer your question or challenge your premise is confirmation of that.

 

Thank you, Avian... I started to second guess myself that whomever drew the contracts for excursion contra ctors had to have considered such an easy 'way around..... :)

True, HAL can contract with their provider terms that limit their ability to sell any identical private tours, but they cannot bar contractor's son, neighbor, friend f ***** selling intial tour privatwely and not through cruise line. Easy for the pair to design same tour and still abide by terms of their contract with HAL. Son and dad design same tour, arrange with their own g uides, drivvers etc and tour is identical as to length, pla ces visited, and time at each attraction etc.

If the cruise line wanted to push the envelope they could do so and successfully, using the difference in the reputation of the excursion operator as the difference that invalidates the offer. The way it is offered, they can pretty much decide unilaterally how much to honor it, and that's why some people see it as a ruse. I don't. It is what it is: a form of guest recovery when someone highlights an obvious instance of excessive exploitation. My concern would be piqued if we started seeing reports of inconsistencies in WHO is granted the offer (based on demographics).

 

This post may have been entered by voice recognition. Please excuse any typographical errors.

Who are you suggesting 'might' be the more likely to be granted tthe credit? Which demographic?

Is there an obvious catch to this idea I have not considered?

 

Other than they would have to make the competing business financially successful while in competition with their existing company, without using any resources, equipment, etc of the original company? As well as what incentive would they have? After all their major source of income is through the cruise lines and doing what you say would be more likely to threaten or reduce profitability, instead of increase it.

Who are you suggesting 'might' be the more likely to be granted tthe credit? Which demographic?

The concern would be that they would bias it toward their target demographics. This happened with resort hotel discounts at Walt Disney World. Returning-guest offers that previously were offered publicly became "PIN code" offers, sometimes advertised with the legend "Watch your mail for this offer!" Then you'd be sent a postcard (or email) with the specifics of "your" offer and a PIN code. The PIN code became a bit of a fiction since they could look up "your" offer based on your personal info, and, of course, trying to use someone else's PIN code would get you nothing but static. That was their offer, and only for them: And different people got different offers. It didn't take long to realize (though it took some people longer to acknowledge the reality than others) that the offers varied based on how likely you were to return without the discount (the less likely, the better your offer; the more likely, the worse your offer). This left a lot of the most loyal guests getting token discounts while those who were thinking, "Do we really need to go back there?" got some incredible offers.

 

Effectively, it was market segmentation taken to the extreme, locking specific customers into specific buckets rather than segmenting by media choice and granting offers to anyone with knowledge of the existence of the offer, which is the more common approach.

 

And it worked. It's SOP now. While there are some public offers (especially the deceptively-named "free dining" offers), the very best discounts are offered via PIN codes, and the generosity of your discount is based on some interpretation of your demographics and past purchasing habits, in order to provide the greatest incentive not to the guests who pour the most money into Disney but rather those who are least likely to do so.

 

I suppose some cruise lines already do something similar, targeting folks who have previously camped out in the casino, for example, but as far as I know the discount codes are not yet tied to individual people, and so if you learn of an offer and know its code you can still book that discount.

Same as HAL, usually, if you know a discount code, you often can get the discount even if you did not acutally re eive the offer.

bUU's post above reminded me of an old post in which some CCers with high Mariner status said their cruise fare on the HAL website was higher than lower-Mariner friends checking the website on the same day for the same cruise. Shenanigans.

And it worked. It's SOP now. While there are some public offers (especially the deceptively-named "free dining" offers), the very best discounts are offered via PIN codes, and the generosity of your discount is based on some interpretation of your demographics and past purchasing habits, in order to provide the greatest incentive not to the guests who pour the most money into Disney but rather those who are least likely to do so.

 

Just wondering of HAL does the same by using data from other companies under the Carnival Corporation umbrella?

 

My friend (who has done over 30 Princess cruises, but only 3 on HAL) recently received an email offer with very good rates on some HAL cruises. I called and tried to get the same rates, but the only way it finally happened was by me booking the EXACT same cruise as my friend had already booked. Same dates, same itinerary, same ship.

 

I questioned why he had gotten the offer, but the PCC couldn't (or wouldn't) give me an answer, I wonder if they knew his cruising history on Princess?

Gosh, you almost got me there - you didn't say "it is a scam or ruse" but you certainly implied it ... and obviously realized that you had done so, as evidenced by your backtracking in Post # 54 in which you stated, "I do not think the offer is a scam, or a ruse at all, just saying it can be tricky to find something to claim on." You disavowed the direct statement that the HAL offer is a scam or a ruse and chose to hide behind the implication that it is. As we all know, innuendo (that is, saying something by implication or clever paraphrasing) can often be more persuasive than a direct statement. And IMO that is exactly what you attempted to do.

 

So, what's with your attitude? Take a breath.

 

I didn't imply anything of the sort. For the record, I am in support of the policy. I think it is a benefit to guests without any takeaway.

 

You're fabricating total garbage from my original two lines. You're really going overboard with your imagination and you took a very simple statement, obviously, in a tone not intended but that's your problem, not mine. Very rude!

... trying to use someone else's PIN code would get you nothing but static. That was their offer, and only for them...

Same as HAL, usually, if you know a discount code, you often can get the discount even if you did not acutally re eive the offer.

Actually, that's the difference: With the PIN code system at Disney, trying to use someone else's PIN code would get you nothing but static. That was their offer, and only for them. That would be the concern.