50% off deals

[VAVEE]

Is anyone else out there disappointed by the deals offered by several websites, including Cruise ship sites that offer 50% off the second guest but they don't put the actual price on the main page?

 

We were all excited to book a cruise for 5 couples when we called an on-line agent for help. The first couple realized that although the price looked good, by the time the extra fees were added in - there was NO discount, only twice what the advertised price was and no explanations were given except mumbling about

port charges.

 

I've been on 5 cruise, 3 different lines, and booked a number of ways and always the fee advertised was the fee except for taxes. I think there is false advertising going on.

[CaroleSS]

I 'may' have an answer for you.....but it is slightly shady to say the least!

 

I did a mock booking on RCI where the cheapest cabin was advertised as $422.50. I would have THOUGHT that was the fare for the first with the second passenger being $211.25....but when you look at the breakdown....

first passenger is $564 with second passenger being $281....for a total of $845....and half of that is $422.50 - the price per person with the discount.

 

Problem is that they don't make that really clear, so I had originally thought (as you probably did) that the $422.50 was for passenger 1.....not BOTH.

 

Somewhat deceptive if you ask me.....but yes, you are getting the second passenger for 50% off.....off a higher fare!

[marco]

And it's not just whoever that agency is. I'm always getting e-mails and e-blasts about specials, 24 hr sales, blow out sales blah, blah, blah. We booked a cruise for this fall and every time I see these "sales" I check them out. The super duper sale price is the same as what we paid 3 months ago!

[kitty9]

Two for one deals are totally bogus and mean nothing, except for those who fall for that scheme, thinking they're getting a deal. It's nothing more than a marketing ploy to attract those who don't understand how booking a cruise works. What happens is that the cruise line fiddles with the prices, advertise them as being a 2 for 1, but when you do the math, you find out that because of that fiddling, you're not getting any kind of deal at all---you're paying exactly the same price as you would have with no "deal".

 

I personally think it's deceptive pricing and should be illegal. But what can you do? It's business.

[dorisis]

Sale used to mean that the price had gone down. Sale now means that they will sell you a cruise at the price they choose.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

There are some great deals out there ..

[Hlitner]

The entire cruise industry (with the exception of some of the Ultra-Luxury lines) is full of advertising deception. This starts with the cruise lines themselves and extends to some travel/cruise agencies which take it to an even higher level of deception. Lets start with advertised cruise prices. They seldom to never include Port Charges/fees which can add hundreds of dollars to many bookings. On the Mass market cruise lines the marketed price does not include so-called "tips" which have now become a hidden price enhancer often automatically added to all passenger's onboard accounts. This usually adds about $23-$30 a day (per couple). And now, cruise lines are all on campaigns to vastly increase their "onboard revenues" by charging (or charging more) for many items that used to be free (or near free). We can talk about charges for good coffee (because the free coffee is awful), tea, alternative restaurants, add-ons if free restaurants (now happening on a few lines), excursion prices that are inflated beyond reason, etc. And then there is the new trend of offering wonderful drink packages. They are often marketed as "free" and included as part of a promotion, but careful monitoring of prices will usually reveal that they simply increase the price of the cruise during those promotions to cover part or all of the drink package cost. In fact, this drink package stuff can be totally outrageous. A few months ago we booked a long (and expensive) HAL cruise for about $22,800 which included a "free drink package." Within weeks we were able to reduce the total cost of that same cruise/cabin to $12,800 by eliminating the drink package. It is hard to fathom any drink package worth $10,000 :). Granted this is an extreme example, but one does need to carefully monitor prices and book/rebook accordingly. DW and I are long time cruises (about forty years) and enjoy cocktails and wine. Even though we drink more then our share, our total cost per day (over the course of entire cruise) has never been $100 a day (per couple). In fact, on sea days we probably average about $60 a day (per couple) and this drops during long port days. If we had to pay the full cost of a drink package we would lose money! Cruise lines are pretty savvy and those drink packages are priced to generate more profits.

 

Hank

[leaveitallbehind]

Two for one deals are totally bogus and mean nothing, except for those who fall for that scheme, thinking they're getting a deal. It's nothing more than a marketing ploy to attract those who don't understand how booking a cruise works. What happens is that the cruise line fiddles with the prices, advertise them as being a 2 for 1, but when you do the math, you find out that because of that fiddling, you're not getting any kind of deal at all---you're paying exactly the same price as you would have with no "deal".

 

I personally think it's deceptive pricing and should be illegal. But what can you do? It's business.

 

Not entirely true. That may certainly be true for certain TA related websites that advertise their pricing as "sale", "two for one", etc., as what many people don't realize is that with most mass market cruise lines, the stateroom pricing that they will offer direct is the same as a TA's price for the same cruise as they do not discount their pricing through TA's.

 

What typically can be offered through a TA is small credits for group room blocks that a TA may have with a given itinerary, or or perks given back out of their commissions. Otherwise there typically is no "special deal" - other than perhaps some large volume booking or charter - that they have over the cruise lines.

 

But there can certainly be truth to those offers when they are directly from the cruise lines. Yes, many raise their prices before a sale so that the net difference may not be that great with the sale or promotion. But you cannot lump them into a statement that they are all bogus and mean nothing.

 

I have three of my current cruises booked that are a direct result of a similar promotion. And I can verify by two of those reservations that when I first booked them, they were at a normal booking price that was significantly higher than the net price offered through the promotion, and RCI adjusted the bookings to reflect the more favorable resulting price. The third has since increased in price from the original offer which has validated that promotion.

 

So while many itineraries may not show a significant savings, they are not all "bogus" and many certainly do reflect the offer indicated by the cruise line.

Edited June 20, 2014 by leaveitallbehind

[kitty9]

Hank, even the super luxury lines participate in the deceptive pricing. Regent, Crystal and Seabourn have done this two for one stuff, and in quite a few cases, these wonderful offers cost passengers even more than if they had used their old pricing schedules. I remember when Crystal did a 2'fer offer a couple of years ago, and a number of people did a study of pricing the week before and the pricing during this promo, and discovered that on quite a few itineraries, it would cost passengers as much as $800 more per person with the new pricing plan.

 

And you are so right about these drink packages. Celebrity's fares have skyrocketed since they started this 1-2-3 promotion.

[Underwatr]

I get a "2 for 1" brochure for Regent Seven Seas about once a month.

[Hlitner]

Hank, even the super luxury lines participate in the deceptive pricing. Regent, Crystal and Seabourn have done this two for one stuff, and in quite a few cases, these wonderful offers cost passengers even more than if they had used their old pricing schedules. I remember when Crystal did a 2'fer offer a couple of years ago, and a number of people did a study of pricing the week before and the pricing during this promo, and discovered that on quite a few itineraries, it would cost passengers as much as $800 more per person with the new pricing plan.

 

And you are so right about these drink packages. Celebrity's fares have skyrocketed since they started this 1-2-3 promotion.

 

All these promos can make it difficult for some to accurately compare overall prices. But we find the easiest method is to simply take the total cost of the cruise (including cruise price, taxes, fees, tips, and backing out OBCs, our perceived value of promos, etc) and then divide by the number of cruise days to come up with the total cost per person/day. What really is a shocker is how Oceania prices-out when you use such a basic formula. Their older "R" ships will often cost nearly $400 per person/day which we think is absurd for this particular line. When one of their sales staff tried to talk us into a lengthy cruise we asked him how they can justify such cost for a line that is not all-inclusive. His quick answer was "we are a high quality product." We can often grab decent balcony cabins on HAL, Princess and Celebrity for under $150 per person/day and sometimes have snagged deals for balconies that are under $100 per passenger day. And every line has their own marketing strategy. For example, Princess is very liberal at letting passengers combine various OBCs. We recently finished a 25 day Princess cruise where we had over $1800 in OBCs. At the end of the cruise, despite lots of drinking, we still had over $200 left (Princess sent us a check). But RCI/Celebrity are very resistant to allowing the combining (also called stacking) of OBCs. But we have had some success at snagging amazing last minute deals on Celebrity. This is why we always advise cruisers to simply "shop around" for the best deals and price-out cruises on multiple reputable cruise agency web sites. On only one cruise (out of approximately 100) have we ever found a cruise line who offered a comparable deal to some of the cruise agencies. Some of our bookings through agencies have saved us thousands of dollars vs the cruise line's own site. Go figure.

 

Hank

[JimAOk1945]

Is anyone else out there disappointed by the deals offered by several websites, including Cruise ship sites that offer 50% off the second guest but they don't put the actual price on the main page?

 

 

This worked out well for us. We got a nearly $3000 price difference for our cruise next year through this type of deal.

 

Smooth sailing wherever you go!

[iancal]

We do not pay attention to the freebees or the discounts.

 

Our ONLY focus is the bottom line, net of taxes, OBC's. If an offer has value to us, we include the value to us which may not be the 'value' claimed by the cruise line.

 

The rest is noise level for us.

 

We very, very seldom see any deals for cruises other than discounts just prior to the final payment or inside the final payment window that are based on supply and demand.

 

List price...what is that anyway?

[iancal]

We do not pay attention to the freebees or the discounts.

 

Our ONLY focus is the bottom line, net of taxes, OBC's. If an offer has value to us, we include the value to us which may not be the 'value' claimed by the cruise line.

 

The rest is noise level for us.

 

We very, very seldom see any deals for cruises other than discounts just prior to the final payment or inside the final payment window that are based on supply and demand.

 

List price...what is that anyway? No such thing in the travel industry. It is an imaginary number set by the travel vendor and may or may not have any relation to market price. Purely a marketing tool.

[jammen]

Keep looking & try to use someone you have used before & feel good working with.

[geoherb]

I generally start looking a cruise fares a couple of months before booking. For Christmas cruises, I create a spreadsheet to track the prices week by week of the cruises we're considering. There are deals out there, usually after the final payment date.

 

In May, I started tracking prices for our upcoming Caribbean Princess cruise in August. I ended up booking 10 days ago when the price of a balcony cabin came down to less than an inside cabin was initially.

[marco]

And here's a "deal" for ya'. Just got a river cruise brochure advertising FREE Business class air. The trip in a previous brochure was a little over $3K plus air. The SAME TRIP!!!!! With FREE Business Class air is just under $8K! There's a BIG difference between FREE and INCLUDED.

[Keith1010]

I would not pay attention to the 50% off. Look at what the bottom line cost is.

Keith

[dorisis]

Figuring the cost per day after checking total costs is the way I figure whether it is a good deal or not. Agents and cruise lines are not always giving you the actual cost until you get the total price including gratuities.