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Aarp gift cards!!!!!!!!!!

mabones

By mabones,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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cruizinisthebest

cruizinisthebest

Posted
Posted
She is not really pocketing their money - Let's just say she takes their $1000 for their cruise that costs $1000 - They are getting their $1000 cruise - Now just because she uses the tools she has available to her to get a discount on giftcards to pay that $1000 does not change the fact that they are getting exactly what they paid for

 

I mean really my travel agent makes commission from me when I book thru him - Should he just give that all back to me

 

 

 

 

I get a better deal booking thru my TA then I do going thru the cruise line directly - As My TA generally gives me some sort of OBC for booking with them

You see it the way you want. TAs commission is paid from the cruise fare. I know that upfront and have no problem with it. You can't get around it as it's built into the full price. I would much rather be honest with people. Yesterday I got $1,000 in gift cards for someone and they forgot about the discount and gave me $1,000 instead of $900. I reminded them. They told me to go ahead and keep it for all the work I've been doing for a cruise I'm not even going on. Like I said before, my assistance is always repaid somehow, and I'm not worried about making a profit anyway. I agreed to help for free. I'm not a professional agent.

 

 

Like you though, I do always use one and get better deals on top of personalized attention just about anytime of the day or night.

 

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tatt2ed

tatt2ed

Posted
Posted
Curious, better deals directly through Carnival for what exactly?

The cabin on the ship. other places give you say $100 obc but then for me the overall price is $100 more , sometime even more than $100.

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bar1068

bar1068

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The cabin on the ship. other places give you say $100 obc but then for me the overall price is $100 more , sometime even more than $100.

 

The gift cards can still save you about another 10% off that over price you negotiate or find or whichever.

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tatt2ed

tatt2ed

Posted
Posted
The gift cards can still save you about another 10% off that over price you negotiate or find or whichever.

Yes agreed 100% , when i buy the gift cards with my travel rewards credit card i get another 1.5% back.

 

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cruizinisthebest

cruizinisthebest

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Yes agreed 100% , when i buy the gift cards with my travel rewards credit card i get another 1.5% back.

 

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Yes. I thought that was the point you were making in the first place. How good the savings is with buying the gift cards. [emoji6]

 

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tatt2ed

tatt2ed

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The other comment was about going with a TA cuz they give OBC. Ive always found it to be move overall going with a TA even taking into consideration any OBC. Our next cruise for instance , its $2366 per cabin with $100 obc or $2254 without.

Some people hear obc and go gaga over it. Bottom line is how i book.

 

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Organized Chaos

Organized Chaos

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Posted
You see it the way you want. TAs commission is paid from the cruise fare. I know that upfront and have no problem with it. You can't get around it as it's built into the full price. I would much rather be honest with people. Yesterday I got $1,000 in gift cards for someone and they forgot about the discount and gave me $1,000 instead of $900. I reminded them. They told me to go ahead and keep it for all the work I've been doing for a cruise I'm not even going on. Like I said before, my assistance is always repaid somehow, and I'm not worried about making a profit anyway. I agreed to help for free. I'm not a professional agent.
I don't really have a problem with that person taking a "fee" for his time & efforts, but if it were me, I would've told them about the discounted cards up front. If they weren't expecting him to profit from the planning, it would've been a good idea to tell them about the money he saved them. Then let them decide what happens to it. And $750 is a pretty substantial amount for someone to keep for doing some planning work for friends (I'm just assuming friends).

 

For our next cruise, we're taking some members of my wife's family for their first time. They have three kids, we only have one, so we understand their cost is going to be a good bit more. Between AARP & Allstate, I have around 40,000 pts. That's enough for us to pay our own balance, take a few with us on board, and let them use the rest of the points if they want to. Meanwhile, I keep earning more and should have enough for their balance too. I won't make it sound like I'm doing all the work or expect any kind of payment for my efforts. It's family. But even if I was doing this for people I didn't really know, if I were to get paid somehow for my time & effort, that needs to be made clear up front. Like I said, I'm not going to fault iamalmond for wanting compensation, that's reasonable. But I think they should come clean with the group. Especially since we're talking about $750.

 

I don't think being a professional matters. In this case, you mentioned professional agent. A person's time & effort is worth something for providing a service. I'm not a professional computer tech, but since I know a lot about computers, it makes me the go-to "tech" for family, friends, and even some members of my community who hear about me through word of mouth. For family & friends, I do it for free. Sometimes they try to pay me and I refuse, other times they won't take no for an answer, so I take a little something. They know it would've cost them a lot more if they had to go to a professional. For people in my community, I do tell them up front that I charge, but even then, it's only a small fraction of what a professional tech charges. One time, I even accepted chocolate chip cookies as payment. :D

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cruizinisthebest

cruizinisthebest

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I don't really have a problem with that person taking a "fee" for his time & efforts, but if it were me, I would've told them about the discounted cards up front. If they weren't expecting him to profit from the planning, it would've been a good idea to tell them about the money he saved them. Then let them decide what happens to it. And $750 is a pretty substantial amount for someone to keep for doing some planning work for friends (I'm just assuming friends).

 

For our next cruise, we're taking some members of my wife's family for their first time. They have three kids, we only have one, so we understand their cost is going to be a good bit more. Between AARP & Allstate, I have around 40,000 pts. That's enough for us to pay our own balance, take a few with us on board, and let them use the rest of the points if they want to. Meanwhile, I keep earning more and should have enough for their balance too. I won't make it sound like I'm doing all the work or expect any kind of payment for my efforts. It's family. But even if I was doing this for people I didn't really know, if I were to get paid somehow for my time & effort, that needs to be made clear up front. Like I said, I'm not going to fault iamalmond for wanting compensation, that's reasonable. But I think they should come clean with the group. Especially since we're talking about $750.

 

I don't think being a professional matters. In this case, you mentioned professional agent. A person's time & effort is worth something for providing a service. I'm not a professional computer tech, but since I know a lot about computers, it makes me the go-to "tech" for family, friends, and even some members of my community who hear about me through word of mouth. For family & friends, I do it for free. Sometimes they try to pay me and I refuse, other times they won't take no for an answer, so I take a little something. They know it would've cost them a lot more if they had to go to a professional. For people in my community, I do tell them up front that I charge, but even then, it's only a small fraction of what a professional tech charges. One time, I even accepted chocolate chip cookies as payment. :D

I said I'm not a professional agent since the person that quoted me tried to say it was o.k. to keep the 10% difference because a TA would make a profit as well. And really it's not that big of a deal. This conversation was days ago and someone brought it up again. I don't see anything at all wrong with doing something for a group if you have the skills and knowledge and charging them if it's alot of work. People ask me to work on their resumes all of the time. At a certain point yes I started charging something, because it's alot of time consuming work. So I get what you are saying 100% about being the go-to person for computers or whatever. I suppose we all have skills that we could profit off of and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

I simply said that I would never keep that kind of money and they not know it. I know the people I'm helping can use all the breaks they can get. They are using their own points. I might see things differently if I was using my own points or knew they was rolling in the dough or if it wasn't that much. To me, $750 is alot to arbitrarily decide belongs to you as a fee never discussed. That's all. And yes, you bake me a good old fashioned pound cake and I'm prone to help you with most anything.[emoji1]

 

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E@syPe@zy

E@syPe@zy

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Posted
I said I'm not a professional agent since the person that quoted me tried to say it was o.k. to keep the 10% difference because a TA would make a profit as well. And really it's not that big of a deal. This conversation was days ago and someone brought it up again. I don't see anything at all wrong with doing something for a group if you have the skills and knowledge and charging them if it's alot of work. People ask me to work on their resumes all of the time. At a certain point yes I started charging something, because it's alot of time consuming work. So I get what you are saying 100% about being the go-to person for computers or whatever. I suppose we all have skills that we could profit off of and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

I simply said that I would never keep that kind of money and they not know it. I know the people I'm helping can use all the breaks they can get. They are using their own points. I might see things differently if I was using my own points or knew they was rolling in the dough or if it wasn't that much. To me, $750 is alot to arbitrarily decide belongs to you as a fee never discussed. That's all. And yes, you bake me a good old fashioned pound cake and I'm prone to help you with most anything.[emoji1]

 

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The problem I have with this whole situation is that the individuals could have purchased their gift cards at full price from just about anywhere. My local grocery, Krogers sells the cards for face value, but gives fuel points to be used for $ off of gas purchases. The people she got the gift cards for paid full price and didn't receive anything of tangible value. Sorry...it's a bad move and sure to bring her some crappy Karma. You're either going to "help" someone out or you aren't. Just be up front about it. Sneaky Pete move in my opinion.

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Crusin5252

Crusin5252

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Posted

I bought some $500 and $100 cards from Verizon around 6pm last night. They have been available much more than usual the last 3 weeks. I have purchased a total of $6500 from the 2 sites in the last 3 weeks. I purchased a total of 5 times in the last 3 weeks - 3 times from Verizon and 2 times from AARP. Some days cards were available on AARP, but not Verizonand vice versa. In the past, I have found them to be available on both sites the same day.

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