Why does HAL charge more to book direct?

[SilvertoGold]

I also prefer to book directly with HAL. Our PCC has been wonderful to work with and I have no complaints. This time I checked around online and at a local travel agency and wasn't able to find any significant price difference for the cruise we wanted to take. I am not saying there isn't a better price out there somewhere but we do tend to book early and watch for the sales on HAL. We have been able to catch good deals that way and even had a very nice upgrade on our Alaska cruise after the initial booking by calling our PCC during a promotion.

diane

 

We would love to book directly with HAL, but every time we try, we are quoted pricing that is substantially higher that a couple of local agencies we deal with.

 

I thought this was because these agencies do a lot of packages and therefore must be receiving "group" pricing.

Recently we found a cruise that no one was advertising, so it was not a group deal, but two agencies were able to beat the HAL 3-day sale price, including HAL air, by $300 per person.

[bepsf]

I originally started by using an agency and found them hard to work with. Then they took my final payment and went bankrupt. I was saved by VISA. I only found out when I went to check my booking and I couldn't see my final payment on the cruise line website.

After that, I've been going direct with the cruise line.

 

This is why you need to select your TA very carefully:

I only work w/ TA's who are affilliated with or franchisees of a larger company and who run charges thru the cruiseline, not their own books. TA's get paid by the travel provider after you've gone on your cruise - not before based on a percentage of your deposit (That's one step away from a Ponzi Scheme)

If the TA is hard to work with, aren't CLIA and BBB members, and are small fly-by-night operations - I wouldn't walk away, I'd run.

[S.S.Oceanlover]

If you telephne General Motors in Detroit and ask them ot sell you a Chevrolet, their price will not be as good as the one you can get form your local showroom.

GM doesn't want to compete with it's dealers.

They also do not want thousands of shoppers visiting GM headquarters to buy a new car. They do not have nearly enough parking spaces or salespeople to handle large numbers.

 

If you visit a winery in California, you can buy a bottle or two there, but the price you pay will be higher than the price at your local bottle shop.

The winery doesn't want to undercut the wine shops who are selling it's products.

They also do not want thousands of extra people visiting their winery just to buy a bottle or two. They do not have nearly enough parking places or staff to handle large numbers.

 

Can you guess why the cruise lines are not encouraging all of humanity to purchase a cruise directly through the cruise line?

 

I'm guessing not enough parking spaces?:p

 

Bill

[S.S.Oceanlover]

:mad: :mad: :mad: PLEASE, PLEASE be very cautious of some of the "too good to be true" offers and discounts you may see with

some online travel sites. We had a terrible experience

in 2009 with a widely advertised online travel agency

located in Florida who was happy to take our money and promised

extremely generous OBC's if I paid in full at the time of

initial reservation. I was under the impression that by using my CC -- my money was safe and protected. Boy,

what a wake up call I discovered 6 months later !!!

 

To make a long story short --- this agency was using new

clients' full payments to keep themselves afloat --- they never paid RCCL for our cruise until 2 days prior to departure even though they had my money for over 6 months !! They also charged an additonal $ 900 to my cc

while I was at sea with NO advance warning or permission on my part. I never got the fuel surcharges

refunded back to me, even though other victums of this agency, did. When I opened a dispute with my cc --- I was told nothing could be done as the dispute needed

to be done within 60 days of initial payment even though

I had 6 months to wait before leaving on the cruise and,

technically, had NOT received the merchandise I had paid for.

 

So please, check with the BBB and State Attorney General's office of the state in which the online agency you are looking at is located BEFORE laying down your money. (this by the way, is still no guarentee they are still not crooks !!)

 

I am not new to cruising and have even worked for a travel agency a number of years ago. This is NOT the

way a reputible agency -- brick and mortar or online ---

operates.

 

You can also read about KweenKaren's experience on the HAL Roll Call -- her cruise was in Sept. 2009 to the South Pacific and Australia.

 

"Frosting on the Cake": Agency is bankrupt but the owners and employees are still doing business under

different names !!!!!!!!!!! :eek::mad::eek:

 

The first red flag would have been when they offered the OBC if you paid in full right away.

 

You went 6 months with the charge for the cruise not showing up on your credit card? Or did the charge go right to the agency?

 

Either way if you had been a travel agent that should have been a couple of red flags.

 

Your info should heed warning to others and hopefully help someone.

 

Bill

[Hlitner]

Some of this discussion makes little sense. When you book any cruise you should always pay by major credit card..which gives you protection (for those who live in the USA) against fraud, bankruptcy, etc. Since in most cases your credit card is processed by the cruise line (not the TA) there is little to fear. If you have doubts who processes your credit card simply call the TA before you book and ask the question. As to why cruise lines use TAs, one only has to look at the history of Renaissance Cruise Lines who handled all their own bookings, refused to work with TAs and paid no commissions. That cruise line went bankrupt. We probably get over 100 e-mails a week from various travel agencies and perhaps another dozen from individual cruise lines. The TAs do a great job marketing and make it easy to compare all the various cruise lines (we are not loyal to any one line). We can go into the database of one TA, put in specific critieria such as dates, ports, length of cruise, etc. and get an immedate print-out of every cruise that meets those criteria. In the end, once we have made a decision on which cruise we simply check the price on 4 or 5 favorite TA websites (this takes only a few minutes) and also on the cruise line web site. Whoever has the best deal gets our business. We have been doing it this way for many years (and more than 50 cruises), have probably saved over $50,000 by this "shopping around" method and see absolutely no down side.

 

Hank

[darienill]

Some of this discussion makes little sense. When you book any cruise you should always pay by major credit card..which gives you protection (for those who live in the USA) against fraud, bankruptcy, etc. Since in most cases your credit card is processed by the cruise line (not the TA) there is little to fear. If you have doubts who processes your credit card simply call the TA before you book and ask the question. As to why cruise lines use TAs, one only has to look at the history of Renaissance Cruise Lines who handled all their own bookings, refused to work with TAs and paid no commissions. That cruise line went bankrupt. We probably get over 100 e-mails a week from various travel agencies and perhaps another dozen from individual cruise lines. The TAs do a great job marketing and make it easy to compare all the various cruise lines (we are not loyal to any one line). We can go into the database of one TA, put in specific critieria such as dates, ports, length of cruise, etc. and get an immedate print-out of every cruise that meets those criteria. In the end, once we have made a decision on which cruise we simply check the price on 4 or 5 favorite TA websites (this takes only a few minutes) and also on the cruise line web site. Whoever has the best deal gets our business. We have been doing it this way for many years (and more than 50 cruises), have probably saved over $50,000 by this "shopping around" method and see absolutely no down side.

 

Hank

Wow, that's $1000 a cruise. That's a lot of money and well worth the time and effort. It must be my choice of cabins because I usually go with a mid level verandah and don't see much change from booking time till sailing.

I also usually book early and get the specials from the cruise lines in the mail. I take advantage of the CCL shareholders benefit and the FCC onboard credits also.

On recent mailings from Princess, I've watched a 11 day euro cruise mini suite drop from 3640 to 3298. A balcony went from 2940 to 2799 all within two weeks. Maybe someday I'll find your online TA.

[iancal]

We believe that we save about 8-13 percent on every cruise we book by going thru an on line TA.

 

That may not seem like much, but the way we look at it is that it represents one free cruise for every 8-10 cruises that we take. Nothing wrong with that and it far exceeds any cruise ship loyalty program that I am aware of.

[Randyk47]

Wow, that's $1000 a cruise. That's a lot of money and well worth the time and effort. It must be my choice of cabins because I usually go with a mid level verandah and don't see much change from booking time till sailing.

I also usually book early and get the specials from the cruise lines in the mail. I take advantage of the CCL shareholders benefit and the FCC onboard credits also.

On recent mailings from Princess, I've watched a 11 day euro cruise mini suite drop from 3640 to 3298. A balcony went from 2940 to 2799 all within two weeks. Maybe someday I'll find your online TA.

 

We believe that we save about 8-13 percent on every cruise we book by going thru an on line TA.

 

That may not seem like much, but the way we look at it is that it represents one free cruise for every 8-10 cruises that we take. Nothing wrong with that and it far exceeds any cruise ship loyalty program that I am aware of.

 

As Iancal properly points out, you can't count on an amount like $1,000 per cabin but the 10% plus or minus is a pretty reasonable target and typical of our savings. Obviously 10% of an inside might be less than $200 for a couple whereas a Deluxe Suite could easily reach a $1,000 savings for even a 10-day cruise.

[canadarocks]

Our big saving must be because we are Canadian and therefore HAL lists online for us in Canadian dollars (perhaps at a high markup from their USA prices. We have 2 HAL cruises booked with a USA travel agency (who do have a website, but I deal with them over the phone) and each of them are just under a $1000 savings for us because the exchange rate is so low. :cool: Honest! :)

[tcook052]

Our big saving must be because we are Canadian and therefore HAL lists online for us in Canadian dollars (perhaps at a high markup from their USA prices. We have 2 HAL cruises booked with a USA travel agency (who do have a website, but I deal with them over the phone) and each of them are just under a $1000 savings for us because the exchange rate is so low. :cool: Honest! :)

 

Sorry but I would doubt it, fellow Canadian, as unlike some other cruise lines HAL will allow Canadian to book either in CAD or USD and I check almost daily and the rate of exchange isn't that great a difference. For example one CAD cruise might be listed as CAD$519 while the USD is USD$499, a difference of only approx 4%.

 

I think it's more likely they have some other sweetener like group space or are rebating some commission or both.

[iancal]

The prices in Canada can go both ways. We always get a quote from our Canadian TA in both US dollars and Canadian dollars. Sometimes the USD quote is better, sometimes the CAD quote is better. It just depends how long ago the cruise line established the exchange rate and what has transpired on the currency market since that time. Then we get a quote from one or two of our favoured US on line TA's.

 

We once had what appeared to us as a 15-17 percent discount on a cruise. When we got the paperwork we discovered that we were part of Bill's Group or something like that. So, we must have lucked out and got a group rate to boot. Never did see any people from that group but we did enjoy the discount. I suspect that the on line TA agency must have purchased a block of cabins at a good rate.

[tcook052]

The prices in Canada can go both ways.

 

Exactly and this applies to Princess also. Comparing the currencies is something, for example, RCI/CEL won't let Canadians do as it offers only CAD as the currency choice.

[iancal]

On our last Feb Equinox trip, our Canadian TA gave us Celebrity pricing in both CAD and US dollars. Some agents say that they cannot do this. They can-they either don't want to or they are too inexperienced to know how to do it. Not sure about Celebrity direct as we never book direct.

[darienill]

The question I have is, what catagory cabin are we talking about. A $700 inside cabin at 15% discount is about $100 pp discount. A top end suite for $3500 pp is about $500 pp discount at 15%.

I think the biggest price changes are at the top and bottem of the price ranges but that's just a guess.

[iancal]

It does not matter. We always book a balcony. Our savings are percentage based. Typically, the more we spend, ie a 10 day cruise vs 7 day, the larger the discount. On some very competitve 7 day trips we have had eight percent, while on one or two ten day trips we have had 13 percent. It adds up to a freebee for us every 8 or 10 trips.

[darienill]

I get the 10% savings times 10 trips is one free trip every ten trips. On post number #30 Hank said he's saved $50,000. That's a very big number to absorb. That's why I questioned his choice of cabin.

 

I will be trying another online travel agency next time and will be watching every move so I don't get burned with another bankruptcy.

[iancal]

Our largest cruise savings come from not buying cruise line air, insurance, transfers, pre/ post hotels, and arranging private tours. This is not a burden for us because we are much happier making our own arrangements. We don't like waiting for buses to fill up, we like to choose our own accomodations, and we find private tours to be of higher quality and much less crowded. I recognize that many find cruise line arrangement to be very convenient and are happy to pay the premium for this service.

[Pete Jackson]

Three times, we had wonderful travel agents, but next time we wanted to book the next cruise, they were no longer in business. Trying to find one online in the blizzard of sites was too daunting. Since travel agents are so ephemeral, we have now gone to just calling HAL. Sure, it might cost more, but the cruise price is small compared to the overall cost of the vacation. Will your travel agent give you a discount on shore excursions, or slots, or bar bills? I doubt it.

 

Travel agents can be useful when you don't know your provider, such as with hotels and resorts in distant destinations. But we know we are going with HAL, so why introduce a middleman?

[iancal]

In many cases HAL, and other cruise lines, are the 'middleman'. They certainly are when it comes to air, hotels, tours, and perhaps travel insurance (not sure about this as we never use their insurance so have never seen the policy).

[darienill]

If you count all the pre, post, excursions and hotels, yes you can save a bundle on each trip. We saved $1000 on the Cairo overnight trip alone last year and stayed at the Cairo Conrad.

 

I also look for private tours, watch for Southwest sales , got a discount I could't match on a hotel through my credit card company. Most of it is a result of my own research. I get the shareholder benefit plus FCC credits. It all adds up.

[tcook052]

Three times, we had wonderful travel agents, but next time we wanted to book the next cruise, they were no longer in business. Trying to find one online in the blizzard of sites was too daunting. Since travel agents are so ephemeral, we have now gone to just calling HAL. Sure, it might cost more, but the cruise price is small compared to the overall cost of the vacation. Will your travel agent give you a discount on shore excursions, or slots, or bar bills? I doubt it.

 

Travel agents can be useful when you don't know your provider, such as with hotels and resorts in distant destinations. But we know we are going with HAL, so why introduce a middleman?

 

Why go through a middleman? You answered your own question earlier when you admitted it actually costs a little more to book direct with HAL so that's why, those rebated OBC's or other TA discounts which as other have noted add up over time. Sure it might only be a hundred or so dollars each cruise but add it up over 10 cruises and it pays for the 11th, for example.

 

Not to mention there actually a chance a good TA will make that one educated recommendation that will add to the experience with an insight you hadn't considered or didn't know about.

[Hawaiidan]

Bruce has it down cold.

Holland is a company that sells cruises... They utilize a network of agencies to act as free /commission only salesmen. Since labor is 80% of the companies costs this is a huge savings.:D

It is not in HOLLAnds best interest to under cut their free sales force...

So, they charge full boat retail... and selll the clients that if they book direct they will be special and get special treatment... which is a line of bull. It is just a myth they promote.

 

Would you ever bargin for a car, a home or any purchase? Or do you alsaya pay the ask full price... never buy on sale because in might be left over or shoddy goods? Cruises are no different

 

I put our bids and make offers.... Travel Agents are wise to shave their prices to get a long term relation started with the client... To prove their worth.

 

I got my present Travel agent 15 years ago... from a bid/offer format. I live in Hawaii, they have their office in Detroit. Think global not restrict to local.

They sold me a $36,000 cruise for $29K. On Holland they cut $700 per person off a cruise and added aNOTHER $300 ON BOARD CREDIT TOO: that Holland refused to give me more than $40 of on board credit

 

And no Hollands level of service doen not come close to my agent... another urban-crusing-myth

 

Booking direct has Holland agents laughing all the way to the bank.... with your money ........ I will bet right after they hang up the phone they let out a laugh and smile... at the sheep they had just shorn..."thanks sucker"

[James_TheVirus]

Exactly and this applies to Princess also. Comparing the currencies is something, for example, RCI/CEL won't let Canadians do as it offers only CAD as the currency choice.

 

Can canadians buy through a US online agency? This would let them buy in $US, would it not?

[tcook052]

Can canadians buy through a US online agency? This would let them buy in $US, would it not?

 

Actually I think my memory is going and RCI/CEL does in fact give Canadians a choice of currency and it's Carnival that so far only quotes in USD. Apologies for my faulty memory mixing up the cruise lines.

[iancal]

Yes, we live in Canada. We usually buy through a US based on line TA. The service and the prices have been excellent. We often get two quotes from a Canadian TA-one in US dollars, and one in Canadian dollars (there is often significant difference in real terms between these two quotes).