A Cabin Pricing Strategy that makes sense?

[ThirstyCruiser]

Hey Royal, stop with the bovine-fertilizer "sales" where the price of the cabin yo-yos. Just establish the price, and discount off that as needed.

 

When you announce a sail date, establish the base price for each cabin, and never change that base price for that cabin for that sail date.

 

Now, apply clearly understandable and transparent discounts to that base price:

 

1. C&A member? Here's your discount/credit, off the base price. The shinier your gem, the bigger your discount. Can be combined with other incentives.
   
2. Booking early? Here's your discount/credit, off the base price. The earlier your book, the bigger your incentive. Can be combined with other incentives that apply.
   
3. Local Resident? Here's your discount/credit, off the base price. Can be combined with other incentives that apply.
   
4. Military? Here's your discount/credit, off the base price. Can be combined with other incentives that apply.
   
5. An actual sale? Here's your discount/credit, off the base price. Can be applied to existing bookings, but if cruiser chooses to do so, it must REPLACE the early booking credit, if worthwhile. Assumption is Sales would never overlap Early Booking period, so no conflict for new bookings.
   
6. 1 month to go, ship not full? Here's your discount/credit, off the base price. Deal with the poorer selection of cabins - should've booked 12-18 months ago if you wanted choice of cabins AND a better price. Can be applied to existing bookings, but if cruiser chooses to do so, it must REPLACE the early booking or previous sale credit. Assumption is Ship Not Full discounts would never overlap Early Booking or actual Sales periods, so no conflict for new bookings.
   

 

 

All discounts/credits off base price, and any and all that apply are cumulative, other than the exception that you can't combine Early Booking, Sales, and/or Ship Sailing Less than Full discounts with each other.

 

No talk about the Tipping / Gratuities / Service Charge in this thread please, that stays the same or changes irrespective of the above.

 

Too logical for Royal to try?

Any suggestions to the strategy to make it better?

[Biker19]

Their bean counters and marketeers have years of data - their bottom line been good - why would they take advice from any consumer?

[ThirstyCruiser]

Their bean counters and marketeers have years of data - their bottom line been good - why would they take advice from any consumer?

 

Nothing should ever change, every good idea ever has already been considered and implemented? Not saying this would make sense for them, don't know, but gotta think it would be easier / nicer for most people.

Edited October 1, 2016 by ThirstyCruiser

[Biker19]

You're right. The world should stop turning on its axis, nothing should ever change, every good idea has already been considered and implemented.

 

If RCI could figure out how wring out even more $ from their customers they would do it. Two years ago they introduced BOGO sales - would you care to guess how that has affected their bottom line?

[ThirstyCruiser]

If RCI could figure out how wring out even more $ from their customers they would do it. Two years ago they introduced BOGO sales - would you care to guess how that has affected their bottom line?

I edited my first reply to you as you were typing a reply to it. I realized my first reply was a bit snarky.

 

Whose to say my idea wouldn't increase their bottom line even more. They are welcome to BOGO, YOYO or BOZO sales, just keep the base price of the cabin stable and make the rules easy to understand.

[destiny217]

Have you seen the new 'bidding' idea on NCL?

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2404812

[Biker19]

Whose to say my idea wouldn't increase their bottom line even more.

 

Their bean counters who have way more info than you ever will about consumer spending habits.

[MrYellowDuck]

The field of pricing theory that you might be interested in here is called "price optimisation". This is about a retailer being proud about facilitating that their customers reward them to the extent they really want to i.e. helping them to pay as much as they are willing to pay (usually viewed over the long run rather than on just the next purchase).

 

A question for you to ponder is why is it that there is a discount for loyal customers? After all, these customers present the least elastic demand.

[Paulxyz2004]

The Problem is your idea is driven By the Goal to make it easier, better, more transparent for the customer.

 

It may or may not increase the bottom line, but non of your Goals are the Goals of the cruiseline and to be honest rightly so.

 

Their only Goal is and should be to increase Revenue.

 

My opinion on this is their Goals are easier to achieve if they are less transparent and logic with their rules. The harder the rules are to understand, the easier it is for them to Twist them like they wish.

 

As a customer like it or not, as a shareholder it´s the way to go.

[drumtech77]

Have you seen the new 'bidding' idea on NCL?

 

 

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2404812

 

 

It worked for EBAY & Ticketmaster.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[first_state101]

Their bean counters and marketeers have years of data - their bottom line been good - why would they take advice from any consumer?

 

I was wondering when RCCL would have another sale. I found out that they are having one now!. But it's very deceptive since the rates for passengers 1 and 2 have been jacked up and then the discount is applied. Bottom line is that we're paying as much now as before. I'm looking at a June 1st cruise. I have time but am not sure when to book. No perks or lower deposit is being offered now.

[destiny217]

It worked for EBAY & Ticketmaster.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

I did not know about Ticketmaster.

[molsonschooner]

Their bean counters who have way more info than you ever will about consumer spending habits.

 

It seems like you have a lot more faith in their bean counters than most people on CC have of their IT department

[ThirstyCruiser]

Their bean counters who have way more info than you ever will about consumer spending habits.

Good to know they have landed on the optimum pricing strategy as of 2016. The future is here! :D

 

But seriously, in the interest of increasing their bottom line, by collecting more cruise fare, might it be possible that if they make if very easy for the consumer to see all the discounts they are getting as line items off the base price, they could start off that base line cabin price high enough to increase their bottom line.

 

Customers love sales and discounts, that are easy to understand, that they feel are fair. A fair fare.

 

J.C. Penny tried a low price every day, no sales ever needed strategy and nearly went under, quickly returning to the sale, sale, sale strategy.

 

What I proposing is a way for them to be able to give the customer lots of sales and line item discounts. Just do it off a stable cabin price (for that sail date), so their customers don't need an abacus and Watson to determine if the sale is actually a sale.

 

Start the base price high enough and they can lather on lots and lots of discounts to dupe the dopes into thinking they are getting a super deal. They make more money, and the rubes (i.e. me) feel like they are getting a super deal. But at least it makes sense, at least you could understand it. Maybe that's it right there, they WANT us back on our heels, never really knowing what the right price is. They want the jamokes to buy a cruise during one of their "sales", feeling they got a deal. Meanwhile they know they bagged a live one and they sold that cruise, on sale, for more than the regular price. To that end, my ideas are completely against their goals.

[pspercy]

It worked for EBAY & Ticketmaster.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Ticketmaster?

 

Priceline perhaps?

[StolidCruiser]

Providing the customer with a clear explanation of how the "sale price" is, in fact, a "sale price" violates every tenet of marketing that has been used since salesmen climbed out of the primordial ooze.

 

Don't hold your breath for it to change and hang on to that abacus. You will continue putting it to good use.

[Biker19]

I'm looking at a June 1st cruise. I have time but am not sure when to book. No perks or lower deposit is being offered now.

 

It's the combination of timing, historical pricing, popularity of that sailing and a few other things that determine the optimum point to book.

 

For an early June sailing you might already be too late - unless it's some weird unpopular route, it is likely to have increasing rates. It's not the fleet wide sale one should look for (rare with not many benefits) , but the individual sailing. Look on the RCI UK web site for cabin inventory and track that once a week for a month. At the same time track pricing. The direction of inventory and price will tell you when to book. I would book now (maybe an inside) and watch for price drops till final payment o/a March 1. Then look for upgrade opportunities.

[first_state101]

It's the combination of timing, historical pricing, popularity of that sailing and a few other things that determine the optimum point to book.

 

For an early June sailing you might already be too late - unless it's some weird unpopular route, it is likely to have increasing rates. It's not the fleet wide sale one should look for (rare with not many benefits) , but the individual sailing. Look on the RCI UK web site for cabin inventory and track that once a week for a month. At the same time track pricing. The direction of inventory and price will tell you when to book. I would book now (maybe an inside) and watch for price drops till final payment o/a March 1. Then look for upgrade opportunities.

 

 

Thank you! Good points - I'm going to book now.

[rockdoctor]

Dynamic pricing has taken over pretty much every business that requires a ticket. I have a friend who helped write the original program that the airlines used. Supply and demand. Dynamic pricing is even being used for post season MLB tickets. But fear not. I've seen stories on the web about when, statistically, is the best and worse time to buy.

[rt1092]

I'm pretty happy with Royal going back to discounting cruises close to sail date again. We are retired and drive to the Florida ports.

So cheaper prices equal more nights at sea for us.

We have been booking an inside and upgrading as prices drop. So far it has worked out great on every cruise but out holiday cruise. That cruise is 3 to 5 hundred dollars more than we booked it, but it still is a ways out.

[hotdog647]

So, which is better: BOGO= buy one get one half off, or regular price with 25% off per person?

[Hlitner]

The OPs post made me smile. RCI (and other cruise lines) do not want to make their discounting, pricing and promos simple and understandable. From their point of view, confusion is a good thing as folks are never quite sure if they are getting a good or bad deal. As to discounting inside the final payment period, over the years we have had several cruise CEOs swear they would stop that practice. And when we heard about those pledges I always would post my opinion that no CEO can survive with that policy because they would have to leave the docks with empty cabins. And an empty cabin (or berth) is "opportunity lost revenue" which means its money that can never be recovered. In the case of RCI an empty berth is even worse then on some other lines since the RCI business model depends on maximizing onboard revenue to generate profits. Every empty berth represents zero onboard revenue.

 

The dirty secret (which is not really much of a secret among long time cruisers) is that the best and most amazing deals are usually found with last minute bookings. That is not going to change.

 

Hank

[kearney]

I tried to make sense of their deals, but noticed that sometimes the gross price changed making the discount meaningless. I have found myself setting up a spreadsheet and attempting to track prices over time to determine a good price. After doing that a while I have found that the best idea is to set your own optimal price for specific class of cabin on a specific class of ship and if the pricing is within that range it is a good deal. I recently booked on board for the first time, the price was a bit higher than what I had booked for the cruise, but I thought I would track prices and ask the cruiseline to match if I found a better deal. So far they have generally been higher. Today was different at it would save me about $35 on cost of cruise, but not sure what happens to the onboard credit..... so I will hold off a while and see if I get a better deal closer to full payment date.

 

Generally the best pricing I have gotten has been when the cruise is about 2-3 weeks out.. But I like the whole looking forward thing.

 

I am curious, but the pricing for a balcony cabin on an Oasis class ship seems a bit better than on smaller ships, I assume that this is because of the margins being better on the larger ship. Another observation is that cruises around 9/11 seem better, I assume people would rather not fly... great for those driving to port

[KansasK]

Every cruise I have booked in the last couple of years has added the percentage off onto the original price and then taken it off, then given me the C&A discount and any other discount that may apply, usually none other than C&A. Once I got a state discount. Then I get the cost of the cruise.

 

I do a trial booking on the web and if I think the price is fair, I call. If the voodoo math they do turns up to be the same or close, I book the cruise.

 

Any system better than this would be welcome.

[Biker19]

So, which is better: BOGO= buy one get one half off, or regular price with 25% off per person?

 

Which ever one provides a cost you can live with.