Looking to book 1st RCL. BOGO sale a continuing marketing ploy or does it end?

[abaci]

We are looking to book our first cruise with RCL for June 2018 to Alaska. My brother's family (4 people) and my parent's are going to be booking cabins too for each of their first cruise. When I started looking the end of June RCL had a BOGO on the 2nd guest and the 3/4 guest as well. That ended in June and was since restarted in July & August.

 

Everyone finally just got the confirmed approval for PTO for the dates we have selected and now I see they have a Labor Day special which only includes the BOGO for the 2nd guest and leaves out the 3/4 guest BOGO sale price. As of right now that sale ends in 47 hours.

 

My question is concerning this "BOGO" sale. Is this a marketing ploy that RCL runs in perpetuity? I'm trying to figure out if we should book now with the Labor day sale even though the price has gone up about $300 per each 3/4 guest since about 2 weeks ago or just wait until the current Labor Day sale ends and book with the normal BOGO sale that was running the last several months that included the 3/4 guest.

 

Any insight from those in the know with RCL would be great. Thank you

[Spurschick]

The sale hasn't ended for as long as I can remember. It's just reworded in some shape or form. All of our cruises are going up in price. One has even doubled since we booked.

[jasper15]

There is always some sort of sale but chances are the longer you wait, the more the price will climb. The best prices for the cruises I have recently booked, have been when the cruise was first released.

[TwoTravelin]

BOGO seems to live forever however every few days there is a smaller sale that may bring an OBC. If you are unsure just book refundable fare and change when you are ready (unless booking suites).

[deliver42]

The only time BOGO was a sale was in May, 2014. Since then, it's been a play with numbers game.

[yuvraj]

Promos don't matter. Just the total price and that fluctuates continuously IMO. Even the 3rd and 4th person price varies significantly in my experience.

 

I regularly monitor the prices and make a judgement based on experience what I consider high, low or reasonable for a given itinerary.

[Husky1987]

What they call it doesn't matter in the least. Figure what it's worth to you. If you want to spend $4000 on a vacation, does it matter if the cruise line markets it as 50% off an $8000 fare or $2000 with a $2000 surcharge?

 

 

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[Pstreet12]

Check some of the big on-line travel agencies. See what they are marking the cruise for. Most will include perks for booking with them that are, in our opinion, worthwhile: free grat., free specialty dinner, on board credit are typical.

 

The agencies can't undercut Royal on the price, but they can offer "incentives" for booking with them.

[Clarea]

... The agencies can't undercut Royal on the price, but they can offer "incentives" for booking with them.

True, but they may have group space obtained when prices were lower, so it can look like they are undercutting the cruise line.

[LarryHD2]

You might book direct with RCL to get the rooms you want as sometimes they have rooms available the TA's don't.... then you can transfer it to a TA to get the perks they offer.

 

I recently did this to get connecting rooms and then transferred it to a big box store TA. Because the TA had a group of rooms already allocated to them they had RCL add us to their group and our fare went down a little..... but we got all the perks of the TA.... free one night dining upgrade, soda package, spa treatment, OBC and a gift card (for the box store) upon our return.

[Artemis908]

I have noticed that no matter what the promo is (BOGO or not) the price remains the same. It's more about timing since pricing can fluctuate. If tomorrow they decide to stop BOGO, the price won't change. All in all it's just a marketing ploy.

[Merion_Mom]