I feel like a victim, not a customer.

[JLSPOOL]

We do last minute specials on impulse. A $299 for a 7 night balcony (one time) was luck.

 

For itinerary and special cabin, we book early

After full payment, we stop checking prices.

 

Worse case scenario would be best cabin, best price, and a 123 offer. We'd be spoiled by complimentary service charge and drink package.

 

jls

[varoo]

I think we see this throughout the travel industry.

 

It is a guarantee when you fly to your cruise port of departure that the 20 people on the plane ALL paid a different price for their airfare. Some bought 6 months early, some later using some kind of promotion, others at the last minute to fill a seat bought their ticket cheap, or maybe there was only 1 seat left a month before the flight and that last seat sold for big $$.

 

It is a guarantee when you spend the night in port the night before your cruise leaves that the 20 hotel rooms around you ALL paid a different price for their hotel room.

 

It is a guarantee that the 20 staterooms on your cruise ship close to yours ALL paid a different price for their stateroom. Some booked in advance, some booked in advance and watched for a price drop before final payment, some booked with Capt Club, or shareholder credit, some paid the "full catalogue price", others bought from an internet site, some at the last minute to fill a room (if there were rooms)..

So true. Pricing fluctuations are similar for cruise cabins, airline seats and hotel rooms in that they are all perishable commodities that cannot be sold after their drop-dead date.

 

The potential cruise customer cannot always predict which way prices will go by the number of available cabins alone. Travel agents may hold blocks of cabins and then dump them if they are not selling well. A category that looks like it has only a few cabins left one day may suddenly have a lot of available cabins the next day.

 

Conversely, a large group may suddenly book a block of cabins that were showing as available only a short time earlier, causing the prices for the remaining cabins to go up just when it looked like they were about to come down.

 

[boogs]

:confused: I am very confused by this statement. Is it not logical that these sales prices occur after the cruiselines know how much stock they have sold?

 

Obviously, when they have too many cabins left as per their quota, then there will be a price drop. On the other hand if they have only small amount of cabins left prices will go up or remain the same:cool:.

 

Interesting point! Since there is no penalty for cancelling your cruise PRIOR to the final payment date, the only thing a person has to lose is the use of the deposit money during the time after they have booked and when final payment is made. I remember reading on these boards a few years ago postings by some people who would book several cruises for the same time frame, and cancelling all but the one they ultimately decide on. They did it to grab the best cabins on every cruise they were considering. That they would tie up that money for several deposits isn't a big deal for some people - they know they will get that money back when they cancel, losing only the relatively small amount of interest they could have earned if it was in the bank. It is like an interest free, with no fee, savings account.

 

I wonder how many people actually cancel just prior to that drop dead final payment date? It would certainly be interesting to know what percentage is the average. Since the cruise line can't be certain how many, if any, people cancel, they can't know until after that date how much excess they have to discount to fill the ship.

[Terpnut]

So true. Pricing fluctuations are similar for cruise cabins' date=' airline seats and hotel rooms in that they are all perishable commodities that cannot be sold after their drop-dead date.

 

The potential cruise customer cannot always predict which way prices will go by the number of available cabins alone. Travel agents may hold blocks of cabins and then dump them if they are not selling well. A category that looks like it has only a few cabins left one day may suddenly have a lot of available cabins the next day.

 

Conversely, a large group may suddenly book a block of cabins that were showing as available only a short time earlier, causing the prices for the remaining cabins to go up just when it looked like they were about to come down.

 

[/size']

While airline seats, hotel rooms and cruise staterooms do all share the similarity of being perishable commodities, the main difference is that the cruise line's customer booking and payment policies are totally different. Cruise lines have near zero control prior to final payment and near total control after it. This is very different from the much more consistent manner in which airlines, hotels, car rental companies, etc. all manage, price and sell their inventory.

 

A cruiseline's ability to match their supply with demand (i.e. load management) and to keep pricing constant is therefore much more difficult, risky and potentially volatile. Thus price fluctuations for cruises are not always similar to airlines and hotels, and in this crazy 2013 season, something went terribly wrong from the perspective of any early bookers who did not cancel, while last-minute travellers scored fantastic deals!

 

And I will add: As more and more people get wise to the fact that the cruise lines often drop fares dramatically after final payment, more and more people will either not book early or will cancel at final payment. This will only further increase pricing volatility!

[jagoffee]

We should be careful what we ask because IMO it is a terrible business model to allow cancellation with a full refund of a deposit only 90 days before the cruise. Can you imagine airlines having the same policy?

 

Obviously in the US market fully refundable deposit is the standard, but that could change especially if more people delay booking until after the final payment is due. Not knowing the booking situation until 90 days before the cruise is a terrible situation for a cruise line.

[fleckle]

We should be careful what we ask because IMO it is a terrible business model to allow cancellation with a full refund of a deposit only 90 days before the cruise.

Don't forget all those terrible hotels that let you cancel up to 48 hours or 24 hours before check-in time with full refund of your deposit. :)

 

We looked at a hotel recently that lets you cancel up to 1:00 p.m. the day of the reservation with full refund.

 

Then there are those terrible rental car companies where you can book a year in advance, cancel at the last minute and be charged nothing.

 

No need to feel sorry for any of them because they use yield management algorithms and will often overbook some categories, knowing the likelihood of getting no shows or last minute cancellations.

[phoenix_dream]

Actually it (meaning X refused a new booking after you cancelled) didn't happen to you because you never cancelled! I refuse to believe, if you had cancelled prior to final payment, that X would've subsequently refused your new booking because that simply defies common sense.

 

It sounds like you got a customer service agent who gave you a bunch of BS and you accepted it! These days, if there is a new promo or lower price, and it is before final payment, your X agent or TA will usually just add the promo and/or make the price adjustment--no need to play the cancel/rebook game.

Believe it or refuse to believe it - that doesn't change the fact that it happened. I am not one who is prone to make up or embellish stories. And to clarify, they were not going to refuse a new booking - we could cancel and rebook but what they would refuse would be to allow us to rebook at the lower rate - so in essence doing a cancel and rebook would be pointless. At the time, I was not a Cruise Critic member and was a relatively new cruiser - I had no idea that if I called back I may get another answer! As far as getting a bunch of BS and accepting it - I argued with them, and then also asked for and spoke with a supervisor who told me the same thing. At the time, I believed that was standard practice because both the customer service agent and their supervisor told me so (and for all I know perhaps at that time it was). As I noted in my posting, this was some time ago - what happens 'these days' may in fact be very different. I am not posting about a postulated scenario - I am stating the facts of what happened to me at that point in time and the information I was given from both a CS rep and a supervisor.

[phoenix_dream]

Don't forget all those terrible hotels that let you cancel up to 48 hours or 24 hours before check-in time with full refund of your deposit. :)

 

We looked at a hotel recently that lets you cancel up to 1:00 p.m. the day of the reservation with full refund.

 

Then there are those terrible rental car companies where you can book a year in advance, cancel at the last minute and be charged nothing.

Valid points, but I don't think there is really a one to one comparison, do you? A cruise is a much larger investment for both passenger and cruise line in both time and finances. Hotels and rental cars turn over inventory a lot faster than cruise lines can and are therefore much more able to ride the waves of changing capacity. Once a ship sails, if she is short a lot of passengers that hit to the bottom line can last for as much as two weeks or more depending on the length of the cruise. That's a lot of cash.

[Terpnut]

Believe it or refuse to believe it - that doesn't change the fact that it happened. I am not one who is prone to make up or embellish stories. And to clarify, they were not going to refuse a new booking - we could cancel and rebook but what they would refuse would be to allow us to rebook at the lower rate - so in essence doing a cancel and rebook would be pointless. At the time, I was not a Cruise Critic member and was a relatively new cruiser - I had no idea that if I called back I may get another answer! As far as getting a bunch of BS and accepting it - I argued with them, and then also asked for and spoke with a supervisor who told me the same thing. At the time, I believed that was standard practice because both the customer service agent and their supervisor told me so (and for all I know perhaps at that time it was). As I noted in my posting, this was some time ago - what happens 'these days' may in fact be very different. I am not posting about a postulated scenario - I am stating the facts of what happened to me at that point in time and the information I was given from both a CS rep and a supervisor.

I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I didn't believe you--I don't believe what X was saying to you. I'm not accusing you of anything especially of embellishing your story. I'm just saying that since you never actually cancelled your booking, you don't actually KNOW that you couldn't have rebooked at the lower price. You are merely saying what they told you. And I get that they were firm and adamant. My point is that most booking systems (airline, car rental, hotel, or cruise) don't allow an agent to book a customer at an older, artificially higher non-market price. Booking systems will usually book you at whatever is currently being offered and available.

 

In any case, that is all ancient history. Today, as long as you do it prior to final payment, you can always cancel a booking and book again at the new lower price with or without any applicable promos too. As many here already know, it's more likely however they'll just save some work and just give you the lower fare and/or the promo on your existing booking. :)

[Terpnut]

Valid points, but I don't think there is really a one to one comparison, do you? A cruise is a much larger investment for both passenger and cruise line in both time and finances. Hotels and rental cars turn over inventory a lot faster than cruise lines can and are therefore much more able to ride the waves of changing capacity. Once a ship sails, if she is short a lot of passengers that hit to the bottom line can last for as much as two weeks or more depending on the length of the cruise. That's a lot of cash.

I think the cruise industry needs to change to a more balanced policy regarding bookings, and deposits and payments. They won't ever be like hotels or car rentals because the cruise line commodity is too expensive to allow fully refundable, last-minute cancellations. Perhaps something closer to the airline load management model, but it must account for the cruiseline's greater risks and higher fixed costs. It would have to be something that perhaps involves a small but non-trivial non-refundable deposit, some partial/incremental payments with gradual non-refundability phased in over a period prior to sailing, and change fees. This might solve the problem of inventory risk and wild price fluctuations, and provide some price protections for both the cruiselines and passengers. Unfortunately, such a scheme is likely to be too complicated to understand, and besides, the existing policy is so entrenched that current customers may not want to change!

[fleckle]

Valid points, but I don't think there is really a one to one comparison, do you? A cruise is a much larger investment for both passenger and cruise line in both time and finances. Hotels and rental cars turn over inventory a lot faster than cruise lines can and are therefore much more able to ride the waves of changing capacity. Once a ship sails, if she is short a lot of passengers that hit to the bottom line can last for as much as two weeks or more depending on the length of the cruise. That's a lot of cash.

In general, yes you are right of course, but some hotel rooms cost more for one night than some cruise cabins do for an entire week, or longer.

 

All are likely to overbook at times, and to use the concept of guarantees (not assigning a specific room in advance) as a way of maintaining flexibility to move customers around to fill available space.

 

Different types of companies use similar methods of giving upgrades, either because they cannot provide the category the customer requested or as a goodwill gesture.

 

For that matter, a valid point can be made that there is not really a one to one comparison between the methods used by different hotels or different cruise lines.

There are some aspects in which their practices are similar, and others in which they differ.

 

The discussion began with the OP complaining about last minute cruise customers paying lower prices than customers who booked early.

Then others merely pointed out that the practice is not unique to cruising, but also occurs under other circumstances that may vary widely.

[Terpnut]

In general, yes you are right of course, but some hotel rooms cost more for one night than some cruise cabins do for an entire week, or longer.

 

All are likely to overbook at times, and to use the concept of guarantees (not assigning a specific room in advance) as a way of maintaining flexibility to move customers around to fill available space.

 

Different types of companies use similar methods of giving upgrades, either because they cannot provide the category the customer requested or as a goodwill gesture.

 

For that matter, a valid point can be made that there is not really a one to one comparison between the methods used by different hotels or different cruise lines.

There are some aspects in which their practices are similar, and others in which they differ.

 

The discussion began with the OP complaining about last minute cruise customers paying lower prices than customers who booked early.

Then others merely pointed out that the practice is not unique to cruising, but also occurs under other circumstances that may vary widely.

I think the big difference between a hotel or airplane, and a cruise is that the fixed cost of a cruise is much higher than the others. A hotel or flight can operate profitably or break even with a higher percentage of the rooms or seats unoccupied. With much higher fixed costs, a cruise ship must fill at much higher occupancy (isn't it near 100%?). Hence the huge giveaway sales for cruises, but because there is no comparable urgency with hotels, flights and car rentals, you won't find this level of discounting with them because further discounting will only diminish the brand. Priceline however is one way that brand-name hotel, airline and car rental companies can dump excess inventory at a discount to fill rooms, sell seats or rent out cars without weakening the brand too much. Unfortunately, the Priceline model probably doesn't work for cruises -- or can it?! :rolleyes::D

[Amerie]

Believe it or refuse to believe it - that doesn't change the fact that it happened. I am not one who is prone to make up or embellish stories. And to clarify, they were not going to refuse a new booking - we could cancel and rebook but what they would refuse would be to allow us to rebook at the lower rate - so in essence doing a cancel and rebook would be pointless. At the time, I was not a Cruise Critic member and was a relatively new cruiser - I had no idea that if I called back I may get another answer! As far as getting a bunch of BS and accepting it - I argued with them, and then also asked for and spoke with a supervisor who told me the same thing. At the time, I believed that was standard practice because both the customer service agent and their supervisor told me so (and for all I know perhaps at that time it was). As I noted in my posting, this was some time ago - what happens 'these days' may in fact be very different. I am not posting about a postulated scenario - I am stating the facts of what happened to me at that point in time and the information I was given from both a CS rep and a supervisor.

 

Hello Phoenix Dream:

 

What you relate was, in fact, the practice for some time, and to tell the truth, I'm not sure how it is handled today.

 

But what you were told was exactly how things were handled for promotions or re-pricings that were listed "for new bookings only".

 

Everything that happens respecting a particular client and a particular ship and sail date is recorded in the passenger's "service history". It took no magic at all to know when a client was attempting to rebook a recently cancelled booking, and if the new pricing was for "new bookings only" you simply didn't get the new pricing. Therefore, as you said, cancelling and rebooking was a waste of effort.

[twosit]

It has been a number of years, but I can tell you that this absolutely did happen to us, and it happened on Celebrity. We could have re-booked, but were told we could not book at the new rate on the same ship for the same dates - we could only keep our previous rate. Whether this still happens I cannot say, but I know for a fact it is something we were told at the time. Now, whether we could have called back and spoken to someone else and gotten a different answer? Who knows - chances are good that we could have. But the foolish cruise line was in fact Celebrity.

 

Was it your travel agent that told you this? We cancelled the second leg of our B2B this spring because the ta we used told us we could not cancel and re-book..and this was prior to final payment. We did cancel and rebooked after final payment--but we won't be using that ta any more.

 

We cancelled and re-booked a cruise while on board in January and then in May while booking another cruise on board we were told by the future cruise salesperson that they had recently been told they did not need to cancel and re-book any longer. They could just adjust...of course, this is all before final payment.

[C 2 C]

Believe it or refuse to believe it - that doesn't change the fact that it happened.

 

I remember the policy at the time.

Celebrity would have a special occasion sale and no-one was allowed to cancel and rebook. It was an infuriating policy that forced cruisers to adjust the way they booked cruises.

Every time that Celebrity adjusts their policy, cruisers burned by the process will remember the "gotcha moment" and adjust.

[pollux]

Here is my take on the game playing.

After 40 some years of cruising I have been from Steerage to full suite.

Right now I really don't care where I sleep.

So I book the cheapest inside when I see a cruise I like.

When prices go down on outside cabins I change.

Next I watch balcony if the price is right I change again.

If no price changes I be happy with the inside cabin.

As for Air Fare there is always a reasonable price some where.

Even to or from Europe just check with Air Berlin.com or other European charters.

[leahsdad]

my plan is simple---I only pay for a cruise what I'm willing to pay----if the cruise is too high I don't book----if it drops after final payment----I paid what I considered to be a fair price to me====nobody made me pay the price I paid---I decided the value or lack thereof at the time of purchase----I never get frustrated as I book what I want and never check after final payment--

 

life's too short----jmho

 

Paul