Final Payment Date on Celebrity

[Cruzin4Life]

Hope someone can shed some light on this for me. We have booked a cruise with a well known Travel Agent (have seen them advertise through Cruise Critic) and they have given us a final payment date of 01 December 2011 for a cruise starting middle March 2012. That is 106 days before the cruise. I was under the impression that final payment date is 75 days prior to the cruise and 90 days for Holiday sailings. When I queried it, I was told it was because we booked a "special offer" with them and that Celebrity requires the agent to collect final payment so far in advance because of this special offer.

 

Does anybody know if this is actually correct? I have no problem doing the final payment, it just doesn't sound right to me. I cannot imagine that Celebrity will have different Final Payment dates for different bookings on the same cruise - that must be an administrative nightmare.

 

Thanks for any input.

[Orlandocruiser]

Over the years we have used several different travel agents and they all use a final payment date that is different from the cruise lines. One brick and mortar asked for it a week ahead of the "official" date. The large internet one (likely the same one you are using) asked for it a lot earlier. I think the difference lies in the agency wanting to make sure you don't get cancelled out for being one day late in the case of the week earlier due date to the internet ones having actually booked a block of rooms that they need to sell so want to be sure of payment themselves.

 

(Also I believe when we have booked on board we get the cruise line's due date but when we transfer it over to a travel agent we get their due date)

[cruisestitch]

Our brick-and-mortar TA always does final payment one week in advance. This is so that should there be any problem with the credit card there is time to make alternate arrangements. While I have not heard of anyone requiring final payment one month earlier than what is required by Celebrity, I could see circumstances where that might be required. They should have told you the particulars when you booked with them, though.

[Lsimon]

Our TA usually has a final payment date just a few days before Celebrity final payment dates. It makes sense for a TA to add a cushion of a few days or maybe a week but I've never had a final payment date a month before Celebrity's date.

 

I wonder what kind of 'special offer' this could be. I'm just speculating here, as I have no idea how the business works, but is it possible that your TA has some kind of large group booking they've included you in and they have to have a firm and final commitment 100 days before the sailing date? Perhaps someone with more inside knowledge of the TA/Cruise industry can shed light on this.

 

I see we're on the same cruise (why don't you stop by the roll call) and our final payment date given by our TA is 79 days (presumably 75 days + 4 days cushion) for the cruise.

[Cruzin4Life]

Thanks for the replies. To be fair to the TA, the final payment date was written on the cruise document, but I didn't take much notice of it at that stage. In my mind I just remembered that for all of our previous March cruises, the final payment date was somewhere in January. It was just by chance that I checked it earlier this week. She didn't point out to me specifically that their final payment is that much earlier or the reasons for it.

I agree completely with the cushion of a few days or a week in case something goes wrong with the Credit card payment. I was just surprised to see it was that much earlier than previous times.

 

Lsimon, we booked after receiving this offer via email. It was one of those "one week special promotion" things. I am sure we all get tons of them through the mail every week, so it is not anything that is too different. Maybe it does have something to do with putting us in with a large group booking and they need to be sure of there totals.

 

I just though about something else. Will this early Final Payment date affect the "penalties" by Celebrity that kicks in from 75 days prior to the cruise. The TA did mention that they have a $50 pp cancellation fee "prior to final payment". After final payment it is the $50 plus the penalties from Celebrity. If we have to cancel after 01 December, but before the 75 day cut-off from Celebrity, will we then loose our entire deposit as per Celebrity's cancellation policy. We have no intention of cancelling the cruise, but sometimes things happen.

 

I will contact the TA and make sure out about this. I don't want to start worrying about something that may not even be the case. I will let you all know.

[Cruzin4Life]

I just had a reply back from the TA. The Celebrity cancellation fees will still only apply if we cancel within the 75 days prior to the cruise. So, no problem there..:)

 

I guess next time I will pay a little bit more attention to all the "fine print" of these promotional offers. I still think we got a good deal though, so I am not complaining too much. I guess once the final payment is made, it is one less thing to worry about, right? Then we can really start looking forward to the cruise.

 

Thanks for all your responses.

[rucrazy]

Normally a travel agent will build in some buffer time for final payment..

[CarolRick]

This has happened to us. They said it was too make the amenities they gave us were in place: OBC, prepaid gratuities and dinner in a specialty restaurant.

Our concern was cancellation policy and price drops befor the 'real' final payment date. We were told the cancellation policy was the same as outlined on Celebrity website. And there was a price drop between the TA's fai nal payment and the 'real' final payment date and the TA gave us the price drop.

 

So we did final payment 100 days before sailing but got the price drop up to the 70 days ahead. For the 'amenities', it is worth it.

[Keith1010]

Glad you are all squared away with this and learned a valuable lesson which is to read the fine print.

 

Keith