Help with name of Feb OBC Promotion for CA Coastal Cruises

[lvreader]

Does anyone know the name of the OBC promotion that was available for CA Coastal cruises in mid February through about 22-24 Feb 2016? 'Twice as Nice'? 'Drop and Go'? something else?

 

Our personalizer showed a $150pp OBC (for 7 day balcony) and then it disappeared last Saturday (27 Feb 16). I thought this was 'Twice as Nice' promotion - since the OBC rates were the same. Our Travel Agent indicates that Princess states that this sailing was not part of 'Twice as Nice' that expired 29 Feb 2016.

 

Background:

We had booked a 7 Day CA Coastal cruise (20 Feb) based, in part, on the extraordinary onboard credit promotion ($150pp). We also booked a 15 day cruise to Hawaii (for next year).

- The OBC promotion promptly showed up for the CA Coastal, but not the Hawaii cruise.

- On 27 Feb, our travel agent was able to get the 'Twice as Nice' promotion annotated on our 2017 Hawaii cruise ($300pp), but the OBC promotion for our CA Coastal cruise vanished about the same time. By that time OBC promotion for the CA Coastal cruise was no longer available for new bookings.

 

Since the CA Coastal cruise had appeared to be ok, I did not print out 'proof' that the OBC promotion had been properly associated with the booking.

 

If anyone else booked under this promotion and has information on that promotion, it would help us help our travel agent. Thank you.

[Dgoodname]

I booked a California Coastal Crown Princess on Feb 23. I don't recall the exact name of the promotion, but I did also get a $150 OBC per person for a balcony. I called the main Princess number to ask a question about my booking later and they said, oh you are booked on the RGE promotion. Don't know what that stands for, but hope it helps.

[jennybenny]

Does anyone know the name of the OBC promotion that was available for CA Coastal cruises in mid February through about 22-24 Feb 2016? 'Twice as Nice'? 'Drop and Go'? something else?

 

Our personalizer showed a $150pp OBC (for 7 day balcony) and then it disappeared last Saturday (27 Feb 16). I thought this was 'Twice as Nice' promotion - since the OBC rates were the same. Our Travel Agent indicates that Princess states that this sailing was not part of 'Twice as Nice' that expired 29 Feb 2016.

 

Background:

We had booked a 7 Day CA Coastal cruise (20 Feb) based, in part, on the extraordinary onboard credit promotion ($150pp). We also booked a 15 day cruise to Hawaii (for next year).

- The OBC promotion promptly showed up for the CA Coastal, but not the Hawaii cruise.

- On 27 Feb, our travel agent was able to get the 'Twice as Nice' promotion annotated on our 2017 Hawaii cruise ($300pp), but the OBC promotion for our CA Coastal cruise vanished about the same time. By that time OBC promotion for the CA Coastal cruise was no longer available for new bookings.

 

Since the CA Coastal cruise had appeared to be ok, I did not print out 'proof' that the OBC promotion had been properly associated with the booking.

 

If anyone else booked under this promotion and has information on that promotion, it would help us help our travel agent. Thank you.

 

Did you book that original cruise with the "vanished" OBC with your TA or directly through princess? When booking directly through princess, they email a document that has all your OBC info for current discounts in the fine print of the document. I have found that TA's do not include that in the paperwork they provide. If you did book through a TA, then contact them and let them know you are missing OBC that was there before.

Is it possible they have documentation proving that your OBC has vanished? Unfortunately if a booking was "changed" they might not honor what you had previously.

 

sorry to hear you are going through this. Good luck

Edited March 2, 2016 by jennybenny

[lvreader]

Dgoodname,

 

Thank you. This helps - alot.

 

Jennbenny,

We booked through the TA, who did not (apparently) keep any record of this promotion.

[Lady Arwen]

On Monday, I booked a California Coastal cruise for 2017 and received $150.00 OBC. On Tuesday, we decided to upgrade our cabin to a better location....less than 24 hours after booking.

 

No problem, got the cabin we wanted and an email sent to confirm booking. OBC is now missing! Called Princess and the agent said that the promo was over and that you can't keep your OBC if you make changes to the booking! Really!!

 

We are Platinum with Princess, so this is not our first rodeo and we have never lost a promo by upgrading our cabin. Sometimes we've upgraded 2-3 times before sailing. I asked to be connected to a customer service rep and he said "It will take at least 15 minutes on hold, so maybe you should call back later". I said I would rather wait!

 

Ten minutes later he came back on the line and said he spoke to customer service and we got to keep our new cabin and the $150.00 OBC. He said "I don't know why you got it..must be because you're Platinum. If you want to upgrade again, you'll probably lose the OBC".

 

Has anyone else had this experience? We've never heard of such a thing and we cruise often and with other cruise lines. Seems to me it was just an error that was quickly resolved by customer service and the agent did not want to appear like he was wrong.

[Cruise Raider]

On Monday, I booked a California Coastal cruise for 2017 and received $150.00 OBC. On Tuesday, we decided to upgrade our cabin to a better location....less than 24 hours after booking.

 

No problem, got the cabin we wanted and an email sent to confirm booking. OBC is now missing! Called Princess and the agent said that the promo was over and that you can't keep your OBC if you make changes to the booking! Really!!

 

 

I think the promo you booked under expired at the end of February and a new promo started on Tuesday, March 1st. The promo that is applied to your booking is valid at the time of the booking only and so it does stand to reason that you would lose it if it was not available at the time when you upgraded your cabin....as all pricing and perks are valid only when you make the booking or the transfer. That's the only way I have ever seen it work.

[Sonoran_cruiser]

Dgoodname,

 

We booked through the TA, who did not (apparently) keep any record of this promotion.

 

Any TA should have access to promotional history for the cruise line offers.

 

That said, there might be nothing on the TA's electronic records that would track the OBC, either before or after it disappeared. OBC's (or Shareholder or Military credits) are only kept on Princess' system.

[Luvmyrotti]

I booked my upcoming cruise under that promotion. It was the Twice as Nice promotion.

[Lady Arwen]

I think the promo you booked under expired at the end of February and a new promo started on Tuesday, March 1st. The promo that is applied to your booking is valid at the time of the booking only and so it does stand to reason that you would lose it if it was not available at the time when you upgraded your cabin....as all pricing and perks are valid only when you make the booking or the transfer. That's the only way I have ever seen it work.

 

We've booked many cruises with promos and never, ever, lost that promo when upgrading our cabin. It makes no sense to me that everyone who received that promo cannot upgrade their cabin before sailing or lose their OBC. We are booked on HAL( the new Koningsdam) and have changed cabins 3 times and we did not lose our promo. Going on NCL Breakaway in May and changed cabins twice and may upgrade again and we kept ALL of our promos. Some of these promos were no longer in effect when we upgraded, but we still kept them.

 

I think that since Customer Service on Princess did not hesitate to re-instate our OBC, that perhaps I'm correct in my thinking.

[Sayra]

We booked the 4/23 California Coastal cruise on 2/19, and we got the Twice as Nice promotion of $150 each.

 

I've been watching the price of the cruise and noticed that not only did the price of the cruise increase, but the on-board credit disappeared when I mocked booking a new cruise.

 

I saved the original email - the fine print at the bottom says:

Offer expires: February 29, 2016

 

But it also says:

This offer has limited space regardless of stateroom availability

 

So perhaps it's like Best Buy on Black Friday, and you have to be one of the first 10 people to book to get the special.

[Lady Arwen]

We booked the 4/23 California Coastal cruise on 2/19, and we got the Twice as Nice promotion of $150 each.

 

I've been watching the price of the cruise and noticed that not only did the price of the cruise increase, but the on-board credit disappeared when I mocked booking a new cruise.

 

I saved the original email - the fine print at the bottom says:

Offer expires: February 29, 2016

 

But it also says:

This offer has limited space regardless of stateroom availability

 

So perhaps it's like Best Buy on Black Friday, and you have to be one of the first 10 people to book to get the special.

 

I'm just happy that Princess did not hesitate to give us back our $150.00 OBC. We paid quite a bit more for our upgrade, so it's nice to get a little bit back! Kudos to Princess for good customer service!

[cruisequeen4ever]

It is correct that per Princess policy, if you re-fare (aka upgrade or downgrade, change the price, switch promos, etc), you will lose the original promo OBC if there was any if the promo had expired. You should have been warned about that, though. Glad it was fixed at least!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Cruise Raider]

It is correct that per Princess policy, if you re-fare (aka upgrade or downgrade, change the price, switch promos, etc), you will lose the original promo OBC if there was any if the promo had expired. You should have been warned about that, though. Glad it was fixed at least!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

That is exactly how I have always seen it work. When we called in recently to have our cruise re-fared (we have two cabins booked), we lost the perks under the 3 for free promotion and joined in on the Twice as Nice Promo for the week when it also gave us the free gratuities. We got a cheaper price, keep the gratuities but got more onboard credit. We did lose the free specialty dinner for two but still saved over $300 on one cabin and over $350 on the other. Under the previous promo, which we switched from, all cabins within the same general category (OW, OY, etc) were the same price. So, when re-fared, we had to agree to give up the 3 for free promo perks as it was no longer available. Thus, we had a slight difference in the savings of each of these 2 cabins as they were previously priced equally under the previous promo.

 

You can only imagine that if one could keep stacking the free perks from previous promos plus any new promos, what would keep people from continually changing their reservations and end up with oooooodles of freebies? I just cannot see that happening.

[mjmalino]

Cruise raider, you sound a lot like us. We booked 2 cabins under 3 for free. Yesterday our cruise dropped, so I called to re-fare and lost the benefits of the 3 for free promotion, but between the price reduction and $50/pp OBC that they are offering now, we still saved big.