Interesting Survey By HAL

[QueenGlassHalfFull]

For the first time in many, many years, we do not have a future cruise booked on HAL. Our last cruise on HAL was in January 2014. I did respond to the January post-cruise survey and indicated that we were looking at other cruise lines for our next cruise because of HAL's more liberal smoking policy (just stating the facts, not looking for flames or popcorn). After I submitted my survey responses, I did receive the standard HAL reply of "thanks for your input. We take our guests comments very seriously, blah, blah, blah".

 

Last week I received an e-mail survey from HAL that basically questioned why we haven't booked a future cruise. I responded that we are now working our way through booking with cruise lines that have a more restrictive smoking policy. Our next cruise is on RCL with Oceania and Celebrity following. Perhaps HAL is beginning to feel the pinch of loyal cruisers moving to other lines? Has any one else received this type of survey?

[Krazy Kruizers]

Nope

We had an incident on a cruise several years ago. Wrote a letter to HAL and didn't get a satisfactory answer (in our opinion) so we did cancel a few future cruises.

Never got any type of survey or anyone asking why we had cancelled those cruises and had nothing booked for the future at that time.

[SilvertoGold]

OP: I would be interested to know if you have unused Future Cruise Deposits.

 

I guess we haven't been back from our last cruise long enough to have been sent this email. Will be interesting to see if we get it.

 

Maybe HAL is being more aggressive in marketing to anyone who has sailed HAL. There is a lot of competition out there; no doubt not many sail exclusively with HAL. Likely a good idea to try to get 100% from more.

[mountainmare]

We had unused old FCCs that we let expire (back when they would expire) and got a "we want you back" e-mail several years ago. I wrote back that when we purchased the FCCs it was in the hope that the smoking policy would change, but that we were moving on to different options both on the sea and on land. No drama, just letting them know why we didn't come back after being regular customers for years.

[pv girl]

I get emails weekly about sales, as well as snail mail. No cruise booked right now, but are looking at two itineraries for August, and will book by July 1. Last year we sailed Princess, so no HAL cruise since 2012. Did 2 a year 2009 thru 2012.

 

Over the weekend, I started dummy booking on one of the chosen cruises to see what cabins were left. Today I got an email - "dear ..., we saw you started to book ...., please call us to complete the booking etc"

Scary that they are monitoring this closely and taking the time to try to lure you in. Obviously, they are using some aggressive marketing tools.

 

POA, should I set up a separate email address for my "experiments" to avoid this type of tracking?

[SilvertoGold]

I get emails weekly about sales, as well as snail mail. No cruise booked right now, but are looking at two itineraries for August, and will book by July 1. Last year we sailed Princess, so no HAL cruise since 2012. Did 2 a year 2009 thru 2012.

 

Over the weekend, I started dummy booking on one of the chosen cruises to see what cabins were left. Today I got an email - "dear ..., we saw you started to book ...., please call us to complete the booking etc"

Scary that they are monitoring this closely and taking the time to try to lure you in. Obviously, they are using some aggressive marketing tools.

 

POA, should I set up a separate email address for my "experiments" to avoid this type of tracking?

 

We've been getting these for months. Almost every time I choose a cruise, sign in and go past the first page with the itinerary to the page with the taxes, I get an email: can we be of help, or something like that. I also get phone messages for a PCC once in awhile.

 

The wonder of computers, all automated, even the PCC message.

 

If you use an email that is not registered to your HAL account, you won't get the discounted pricing if there is any for your star level.

[sail7seas]

We've been getting these for months. Almost every time I choose a cruise, sign in and go past the first page with the itinerary to the page with the taxes, I get an email: can we be of help, or something like that. I also get phone messages for a PCC once in awhile.

 

The wonder of computers, all automated, even the PCC message.

 

If you use an email that is not registered to your HAL account, you won't get the discounted pricing if there is any for your star level.

 

 

We have read here that sometimes low star Mariners and newbies get better pricing than long time Mariners, high star level. :rolleyes:

 

I can't say for sure it is true but I surely have read post like that on this forum.

 

[0bnxshs]

I get emails weekly about sales, as well as snail mail. No cruise booked right now, but are looking at two itineraries for August, and will book by July 1. Last year we sailed Princess, so no HAL cruise since 2012. Did 2 a year 2009 thru 2012.

 

Over the weekend, I started dummy booking on one of the chosen cruises to see what cabins were left. Today I got an email - "dear ..., we saw you started to book ...., please call us to complete the booking etc"

Scary that they are monitoring this closely and taking the time to try to lure you in. Obviously, they are using some aggressive marketing tools.

 

POA, should I set up a separate email address for my "experiments" to avoid this type of tracking?

 

Hi pv girl, obviously I'm not POA1, but I can give you some advice about this. You probably should have an email address that you use for your "online experience" because your email address can be retrieved from your browser without you ever providing it to them if you've ever used it filling in forms, etc.

 

Better still, if you are using an anti-virus suite that provides a "Safe Zone" or "Sand Box" or something similar you should use that as it limits access to cookies and other browser-stored information preventing websites from harvesting any personal info.

 

You don't need to sign into websites for them to harvest information.

Edited June 16, 2014 by 0bnxshs

[SilvertoGold]

We have read here that sometimes low star Mariners and newbies get better pricing than long time Mariners, high star level. :rolleyes:

 

I can't say for sure it is true but I surely have read post like that on this forum.

 

 

Sail

 

I know. A lot of cruises I have looked at lately have had green "special" pricing, "not for the general public" or something like that. I think these prices are for any Mariner. Who knows?

 

From the experiences of friends who book HAL as newbies, I find that they don't get better pricing, but very good assignments on guarentees.

[cbr663]

With Carnival Corporation stating that its number of passengers are down and its revenues are down also, and the deep discounting that is currently being offered (Alaska 7 day cruises for less than $300), I would think that it is little more than a corporation trying everything that it can to fill its empty berths.

[pv girl]

Hi pv girl, obviously I'm not POA1, but I can give you some advice about this. You probably should have an email address that you use for your "online experience" because your email address can be retrieved from your browser without you ever providing it to them if you've ever used it filling in forms, etc.

 

Better still, if you are using an anti-virus suite that provides a "Safe Zone" or "Sand Box" or something similar you should use that as it limits access to cookies and other browser-stored information preventing websites from harvesting any personal info.

 

You don't need to sign into websites for them to harvest information.

 

Thanks for the info. I do have a "throw-away" address that I use for coupons, etc. Will use that for surfing HAL from now on and not enter mariner #.

[QueenGlassHalfFull]

OP: I would be interested to know if you have unused Future Cruise Deposits.

 

I guess we haven't been back from our last cruise long enough to have been sent this email. Will be interesting to see if we get it.

 

Maybe HAL is being more aggressive in marketing to anyone who has sailed HAL. There is a lot of competition out there; no doubt not many sail exclusively with HAL. Likely a good idea to try to get 100% from more.

 

Yes - we have unused FCC for 2 cruises. For years we have always booked 2 future cruises while on a cruise. We cancelled 2 booked cruises to try the non-smoking cruise lines.

[POA1]

[quote name=pv girl;43108664

POA' date=' should I set up a separate email address for my "experiments" to avoid this type of tracking?[/quote]

 

If you logged in with your Mariner #, they'll know who you are. If you clicked on a link in response to an email, they'll know who you are. If you want to be anonymous as possible, try using your browser's private browsing mode. (Just search for your your Web browser name & private browsing.) As soon as you reach a point where you supply your credentials, like your email, their system - and most e-commerce systems for that matter - start a transaction. It's nothing sinister. If the system didn't start a transaction, you wouldn't be able to move forward screen by screen.

 

When you reach a point in the process and don't go any further, the system on the other end doesn't know what happened. Did you get a phone call? Was it time for dinner? Did a loved one come into the room and yell, "I swear... If you're booking another cruise!"

 

So the system is sitting there, all sad because you left. Many e-commerce systems try to reach out to users in case they didn't really mean to stop the process. That's all the email was doing. I wouldn't worry about it. If you want to prevent it, you'll have to go into private mode and type hollandamerica.com in manually. As long as you don't provide an email address, they will most likely not get back in touch with you. (There are other ways to remain anonymous, but this is the most straightforward.)

 

You can use a dummy email address if you want, but that's up to you. Many Internet service providers will supply you with dummy addresses for free. These addresses forward to your real address, but you can delete them when you are done with them. The person (or machine) that sends email to you has no idea where it's going.

[POA1]

Hi pv girl, obviously I'm not POA1, but I can give you some advice about this. You probably should have an email address that you use for your "online experience" because your email address can be retrieved from your browser without you ever providing it to them if you've ever used it filling in forms, etc.

 

Better still, if you are using an anti-virus suite that provides a "Safe Zone" or "Sand Box" or something similar you should use that as it limits access to cookies and other browser-stored information preventing websites from harvesting any personal info.

 

You don't need to sign into websites for them to harvest information.

I'll respectfully disagree here. You can't just pull an email from someone's browser. If you supplied your email in a form on a site, the site can retrieve that information when you visit later, but the site's not pulling it from the browser. The site is matching you to information you supplied previously.

 

Want to see what your browser says about you?

 

http://www.mybrowserinfo.com/detail.asp?bhcp=1

 

[cruz chic]

Sail

 

I know. A lot of cruises I have looked at lately have had green "special" pricing, "not for the general public" or something like that. I think these prices are for any Mariner. Who knows?

 

From the experiences of friends who book HAL as newbies, I find that they don't get better pricing, but very good assignments on guarentees.

 

No, those prices are not for every mariner. I quit giving Hal too much business and didn't have an cruises booked with them but had FCC's. The very first special pricing I ever saw was when I didn't have a cruise booked with them and it's very limited now. I hate Hal taking me for granted. Since I'm elite on Princess now I'll likely look at them more especially because they don't allow smoking on balconies.

[luv2cruisenz]

Over the weekend, I started dummy booking on one of the chosen cruises to see what cabins were left. Today I got an email - "dear ..., we saw you started to book ...., please call us to complete the booking etc"

Scary that they are monitoring this closely and taking the time to try to lure you in. Obviously, they are using some aggressive marketing tools.

quote]

They are using marketing tools such as Recommendation Engines and Abandoned Cart, to try and claw back sales. It is very common on many online shopping sites. The legal position on how intrusive a company can be (well marketers don't think its instrusive!) will vary between countries and their privacy & consumer protection laws e.g. it might only be allowed to be used for a logged in user where the assumption is that the customer knows the company knows who they are!

[cruz chic]

Over the weekend, I started dummy booking on one of the chosen cruises to see what cabins were left. Today I got an email - "dear ..., we saw you started to book ...., please call us to complete the booking etc"

Scary that they are monitoring this closely and taking the time to try to lure you in. Obviously, they are using some aggressive marketing tools.

quote]

They are using marketing tools such as Recommendation Engines and Abandoned Cart, to try and claw back sales. It is very common on many online shopping sites. The legal position on how intrusive a company can be (well marketers don't think its instrusive!) will vary between countries and their privacy & consumer protection laws e.g. it might only be allowed to be used for a logged in user where the assumption is that the customer knows the company knows who they are!

I wonder why retailers choose to use those programs. I would think people abandon carts because they have changed their mind for some reason.

[POA1]

I wonder why retailers choose to use those programs. I would think people abandon carts because they have changed their mind for some reason.

For the most part, it's because using them often results in incremental sales. People get distracted. People sometimes run downstairs to get their wallets and their sessions time out. Sometimes a buyer will get part way through the transaction and need to check with their traveling companion. There are a fair number of reasons... LOOK! A SQUIRREL!

 

[cruz chic]

For the most part, it's because using them often results in incremental sales. People get distracted. People sometimes run downstairs to get their wallets and their sessions time out. Sometimes a buyer will get part way through the transaction and need to check with their traveling companion. There are a fair number of reasons... LOOK! A SQUIRREL!

 

 

Or something shiny:D:p........

[SilvertoGold]

No, those prices are not for every mariner. I quit giving Hal too much business and didn't have an cruises booked with them but had FCC's. The very first special pricing I ever saw was when I didn't have a cruise booked with them and it's very limited now. I hate Hal taking me for granted. Since I'm elite on Princess now I'll likely look at them more especially because they don't allow smoking on balconies.

 

Maybe those prices I see in green aren't for all Mariners.

 

However, as a 5 star, I am shocked to get a discount over the basic advertised pricing on the HAL website. Normally, as has been noted, the good pricing is for newbies or low Mariners.

 

I know what you mean about hating HAL taking you for granted. That happened ON our last cruise and we weren't too happy.