Booking a Cruise... TA or Princess directly

[Napagirl]

We love our cruise TA! He gets us what we want (cabin location is important to us), gets us the lowest price and little perks like OBC. It's also easier to tell him what we want and let him do the work. I'm a hotel concierge and I normally book EVERYTHING when we travel, because I'm so particular and I know how to work the system. But for our cruises, I leave it to our TA.

[mmckm]

Princess has the higher prices.

 

The prices are the same. TA will discount the price or give you some on board credit. That comes out of their pocket, not Princess. Some big TA's buy blocks of rooms and they will get them at a little bit better price but thats a different story. That's how it was explained to me a few years ago from a TA in Canada.

[Ofmyheart]

Rocketman275,

 

Yes I realize we cannot recommend a specific TA, but I never thought to just call and ask if an agency gives additional OBC for cruises. That in itself is a tip for me, thanks!

 

However if someone wants to email me with a TA name I would not be opposed! Lol

 

BTW... I found my beads!!

[sunsetbeachgal]

We almost always start off booking directly with Princess then usually before final payment transfer the booking to a TA, most often getting slightly better price and/or more onboard credit.

 

Just me but I prefer to have control over the reservation and check what I have against the various sales that get announced as time goes along, without having to call and bother TA each time. Yes, I know it is their job, but so much easier for me to pick up the phone and call Princess to see if/how near promos affect my booking.

Edited February 12, 2016 by sunsetbeachgal

[Cruise Junky]

The prices are the same. TA will discount the price or give you some on board credit. That comes out of their pocket, not Princess. Some big TA's buy blocks of rooms and they will get them at a little bit better price but thats a different story. That's how it was explained to me a few years ago from a TA in Canada.

 

The prices are not the same. Princess allows discounting, TAs just can't advertise it. My price is $340 less than Princess. Some agents do give you the discount in form of OBC but not all.

[mmckm]

The prices are not the same. Princess allows discounting, TAs just can't advertise it. My price is $340 less than Princess. Some agents do give you the discount in form of OBC but not all.

 

The prices are the same.Some TA's will discount the price or give you some on board credit. The price starts out the same before any discounts if they give them.

[RocketMan275]

Rocketman275,

 

Yes I realize we cannot recommend a specific TA, but I never thought to just call and ask if an agency gives additional OBC for cruises. That in itself is a tip for me, thanks!

 

However if someone wants to email me with a TA name I would not be opposed! Lol

 

BTW... I found my beads!!

 

What you want to do is ask for a "quote". If you do a websearch, you may encounter TA with a "Request a Quote" button. That's a good sign.

 

BTW, it's also forbidden to ask for someone to email you a TA recommendation. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Cruise Critic gets ad revenue from those TA who advertise on their front page.

 

Glad to hear about your beads.

[billco]

I always book with Princess first and then e-mail my TA to take over the booking. That way I have invoices from both showing the difference in bottom lines, which is always about 10% in favor of my TA. She also includes a bottle of wine and a little OBC.

[RocketMan275]

We almost always start off booking directly with Princess then usually before final payment transfer the booking to a TA, most often getting slightly better price and/or more onboard credit.

 

Just me but I prefer to have control over the reservation and check what I have against the various sales that get announced as time goes along, without having to call and bother TA each time. Yes, I know it is their job, but so much easier for me to pick up the phone and call Princess to see if/how near promos affect my booking.

 

I have used TA once I learned how to get discounts. I'm not sure exactly what "control" I'm giving up by using a TA. Is it only having to call a TA to get price drops?

 

FWIW, I saw a promo maybe 4 weeks after booking a cruise with my TA. I sent her an email asking if I qualified. Maybe an hour later I received a new invoice showing the promo. I honestly think good TA welcome the opportunity to perform services like that since it fosters a loyalty from their clients. Those that charge change fees, etc., lose clients.

 

I've mentioned this on other threads but it's worth mentioning again. Using a PCC or contacting the cruise line direct will work fine. But using a TA has advantages if you are booking on multiple cruise lines. A TA can provide advice on all the lines, not just the one who employs them.

 

I'll give an example. Last November, wife and I cruised Oasis. Nice ship. Good cruise. But we decided we wanted to try some smaller ships. We had Allure booked this March and Silhouette in November. Both cruises were booked with the same TA. We decided to cancel both and rebook on Holland and Princess.

 

I called the TA. I wasn't expecting the response I received. I was a bit concerned that she might be upset but that wasn't the case. I told her that I wanted to rebook from Allure to Westerdam and Silhouette to Caribbean Princess. Her only comment was a cheerful: "That's great. I can get you much better deals on those lines."

 

One call. Ten minutes. Done. If I had booked directly or with a PCC, I would have spent over an hour talking to four different people. Much greater chance of something being screwed up. I had the cancellations and new invoices within 30 minutes.

[Cruise Junky]

The prices are the same.Some TA's will discount the price or give you some on board credit. The price starts out the same before any discounts if they give them.

 

Bottom line, the price to the consumer is not the same. There are also group rates that top TAs put together that Princess does not offer.

[Paula_MacFan]

Our TA is a 'power' agent or something like that with Princess. She books large blocks of rooms as a group, and passes the savings on to her clients in the form of lower fares plus OBC. For example, on our cruise leaving next week, we booked way in advance, securing the specific cabin we wanted at a lower price than Princess had on their website. Our TA gave us OBC, and we also received the Princess promotion for free gratuities. Fast forward to about a month ago, our TA contacted us by phone and said we had an upsell offer from our mini-suite to a full suite for $399 a person. We jumped on it! We ended up paying less for the full suite than Princess currently was offering balcony rooms. Plus we still got the free gratuities and OBC,

 

So I'm not sure how the math works between Princess and our TA, but all I know is we got a better deal than booking directly with Princess.

[RocketMan275]

I always book with Princess first and then e-mail my TA to take over the booking. That way I have invoices from both showing the difference in bottom lines, which is always about 10% in favor of my TA. She also includes a bottle of wine and a little OBC.

 

Thanks, I've never transferred a cruise. Guess I'll check with my TA to see how that would work with her.

[billco]

Thanks, I've never transferred a cruise. Guess I'll check with my TA to see how that would work with her.

It's pretty simple. I e-mail my TA the booking number and tell her to take over the booking. Later on if Princess has a sale, I ask my TA if there is a benefit in rebooking. If there is she takes care of it. For example, I booked a cruise a while back when Princess was offering free gratuities. That sale was replaced with double OBC. Rebooking saved $200. Another booking worked out about the same.

[LewesBeach]

How does one find out if your TA has a good relationship with Princess. ????

 

One way is to go the Princess home page, & somewhere close to the bottom, you'll see "Find A Travel Consultant" option, click and it will give you TAs that work with Princess.

[RocketMan275]

It's pretty simple. I e-mail my TA the booking number and tell her to take over the booking. Later on if Princess has a sale, I ask my TA if there is a benefit in rebooking. If there is she takes care of it. For example, I booked a cruise a while back when Princess was offering free gratuities. That sale was replaced with double OBC. Rebooking saved $200. Another booking worked out about the same.

 

I think that was the promo I asked my TA about. We had booked a cruise so the promo was a bottle of wine, a specialty dinner for two, and included gratuities. I emailed the TA and asked if I qualified. She replied with a new invoice. I figured it was worth $40 for the wine, $175 for the gratuities, and about $60 for the dinner, total $275. The new double OBC would be about $300. I'm not going to bother the TA for $25.

 

One way is to go the Princess home page, & somewhere close to the bottom, you'll see "Find A Travel Consultant" option, click and it will give you TAs that work with Princess.

 

That works but it's not an exhaustive list. Neither of my two TA are listed there and both give 10-15% discounts.

[Sacto Rick]

We like to use our local travel agent when we can. She provides a free r/t bus to the ship for cruises out of SF along with other special gifts and events. It makes it very convenient.:)

[TSM AND JP]

Thank you all for your responses. Its been interesting reading all the different experiences of people who have cruised before. It certainly sounds like there are pros and cons to each. This has been great information. Thank you for sharing.

[MCC retired]

One way is to go the Princess home page, & somewhere close to the bottom, you'll see "Find A Travel Consultant" option, click and it will give you TAs that work with Princess.

 

 

Those TA's listed on the Princess site have completed many hours

of online training for the Princess product . They graduate to be Princess Commodores . They must also complete refresher courses every year to remain Commodore status.

You can be sure that they can answer your Princess questions and qualify you to the best rates .

However , whether they discount is up to them . Many work as Outside agents for large online cruise travel agencies .