jagoffee Posted November 28, 2018 #101 Share Posted November 28, 2018 (edited) This does not really affect me because I book with my TA because I get a discount on the cruise fare instead of OBC. The only benefit from Princess notifying the Travel Agents is for them not the request or encourage booking transfers that are more than 60 days old. the TA would not even know which customers have direct bookings. Princess certainly messed up the implementation of this change. They should have notified all customers or at least announced the change in policy and given everyone 60 days to transfer their bookings. On on the other hand it is a long overdue change. It never made sense to me that Princess would spend the resources to support a direct booking for up to two years and then allow customers to transfer the booking at the end, thus issuing an unearned commission. The commission is usually split wit the customer. Good for the customer and TA, but bad for Princess IMO. i was surprised to read some of the comments that imply that certain TAs actually encourage this behavior. Let Princess support the booking and then transfer at the end. Questionable business practice IMO. (Not transferring, but encourage waiting until all the work is done) The bottom line is that is another botched change implementation. Edited November 28, 2018 by jagoffee 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Cruise Junky Posted November 28, 2018 #102 Share Posted November 28, 2018 Just received an e:mail from an agent notifying of this. Seems really poor on Princess's part to retroactively put in this policy for all of those that are booked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigTimeCruiser Posted November 28, 2018 #103 Share Posted November 28, 2018 Wow....So much for booking early! Looks like Princess has again rolled out a new policy without letting passengers know anything. We just got an email from our travel agent this morning about this situation.😡 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JF - retired RRT Posted November 28, 2018 #104 Share Posted November 28, 2018 Everyone who got turned down when you requested a TA "takeover"...TRY AGAIN!! We got turned down. Contacted our TA and she suggested these steps: 1) Call Customer Relations 2) Explain why you're calling, when the rep who answers the phone says "no", ask for a supervisor. Note: when I did this the rep put me on hold for about 15 minutes. 3) If you get the supervisor, explain your position: no notice, no grandfather, etc. OR when the rep came back, she told me to have my TA send the transfer request and "it would be approved". And it worked!!! It took 3 days for them to get it done. Well worth the wait. I have 2 cruises booked in 2019/2020 and was 2 weeks past the 60 day mark. Saved me a nice chunk of change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voljeep Posted November 28, 2018 #105 Share Posted November 28, 2018 3 hours ago, jagoffee said: This does not really affect me because I book with my TA because I get a discount on the cruise fare instead of OBC. The only benefit from Princess notifying the Travel Agents is for them not the request or encourage booking transfers that are more than 60 days old. the TA would not even know which customers have direct bookings. Princess certainly messed up the implementation of this change. They should have notified all customers or at least announced the change in policy and given everyone 60 days to transfer their bookings. On on the other hand it is a long overdue change. It never made sense to me that Princess would spend the resources to support a direct booking for up to two years and then allow customers to transfer the booking at the end, thus issuing an unearned commission. The commission is usually split wit the customer. Good for the customer and TA, but bad for Princess IMO. i was surprised to read some of the comments that imply that certain TAs actually encourage this behavior. Let Princess support the booking and then transfer at the end. Questionable business practice IMO. (Not transferring, but encourage waiting until all the work is done) The bottom line is that is another botched change implementation. and other posters have posted that they " didn't want to bother their TA's" - isn't that their job ??? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanandjim Posted November 28, 2018 #106 Share Posted November 28, 2018 Well, We got the good news today from our travel agent. We have a number of cruises booked, two of which were outside the 60 day policy. A seven day Europe and a fourteen day T/A. these were booked in early May for November 2019. They were able to transfer over our bookings because they are tenacious. They are a small 2 woman firm in Ohio. We received a notice today from them to all their Princess clients that instructs anyone in this position to call Princess Customer Relations department directly and demand they transfer your booking(s). Once that is done the travel agent will then fax in the necessary paperwork. I hope this helps and we can get back to planning our excursions, etc. We were able to lock in a decent discount, some added OBC, a bottle of wine, and coupon books. We are once again Happy Campers. Jim (and Jean) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colo Cruiser Posted November 28, 2018 #107 Share Posted November 28, 2018 4 hours ago, BigTimeCruiser said: Wow....So much for booking early! Looks like Princess has again rolled out a new policy without letting passengers know anything. We just got an email from our travel agent this morning about this situation.😡 Why can't you book early anymore? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caribill Posted November 28, 2018 #108 Share Posted November 28, 2018 4 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said: Why can't you book early anymore? You can. Bigtimecruiser was basically saying any advantage of early booking and then transferring to a TA much later is now a lost "benefit." From my viewpoint, I see no reason not to transfer a booking early to my favorite TA if the initial booking was not with them. More chance that the TA still has group space available. And any better offers from Princess before final payment can also be handled by contacting the TA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colo Cruiser Posted November 28, 2018 #109 Share Posted November 28, 2018 3 minutes ago, caribill said: You can. Bigtimecruiser was basically saying any advantage of early booking and then transferring to a TA much later is now a lost "benefit." From my viewpoint, I see no reason not to transfer a booking early to my favorite TA if the initial booking was not with them. More chance that the TA still has group space available. And any better offers from Princess before final payment can also be handled by contacting the TA. Like I said 2 months is plenty of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Cruise Junky Posted November 28, 2018 #110 Share Posted November 28, 2018 57 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said: Why can't you book early anymore? A lot of agencies with big OBC charge a cancellation fee. I understand the two months and I agree, it should be enough time, it's the retroactively changing policy for those that have current bookings that I find out of line. They didn't give 60 days notice of this, they said too bad so sad that you booked over 60 days ago. That's unprofessional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chamima Posted November 28, 2018 #111 Share Posted November 28, 2018 51 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said: Like I said 2 months is plenty of time. 2 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said: A lot of agencies with big OBC charge a cancellation fee. I understand the two months and I agree, it should be enough time, it's the retroactively changing policy for those that have current bookings that I find out of line. They didn't give 60 days notice of this, they said too bad so sad that you booked over 60 days ago. That's unprofessional. Again - no one is arguing that 2 months isn't plenty of time to assign your cruise to a TA. The problem is the change of policy with absolutely no notice . 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colo Cruiser Posted November 28, 2018 #112 Share Posted November 28, 2018 8 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said: A lot of agencies with big OBC charge a cancellation fee. I understand the two months and I agree, it should be enough time, it's the retroactively changing policy for those that have current bookings that I find out of line. They didn't give 60 days notice of this, they said too bad so sad that you booked over 60 days ago. That's unprofessional. I am not disagreeing with you on the way Princess handled it. The fact that they screwed it up is not factored in my answer. IMO any agency that charges a cancelation fee or any fee for that matter is nickel and dimming and not a good TA. IMO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colo Cruiser Posted November 28, 2018 #113 Share Posted November 28, 2018 6 minutes ago, chamima said: Again - no one is arguing that 2 months isn't plenty of time to assign your cruise to a TA. The problem is the change of policy with absolutely no notice . Again..........I am not disagreeing with you on the way Princess handled it. The fact that they screwed it up is not factored in my answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smf81 Posted November 28, 2018 #114 Share Posted November 28, 2018 Following the advice here, I called Princess directly and politely asked that they make an exception for me given the lack of notice, etc. I have a feeling the agent had heard all this before, because she quickly agreed to forward the request someone in customer relations who could make the decision. It took 20 minutes for them to pick up, but once they did I got an immediate "yes" and he made the change without me even needing to fax in another transfer request form. So in my case at least, patience and persistence paid off and I can get back to planning the rest of the trip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JF - retired RRT Posted November 28, 2018 #115 Share Posted November 28, 2018 3 minutes ago, smf81 said: Following the advice here, I called Princess directly and politely asked that they make an exception for me given the lack of notice, etc. I have a feeling the agent had heard all this before, because she quickly agreed to forward the request someone in customer relations who could make the decision. It took 20 minutes for them to pick up, but once they did I got an immediate "yes" and he made the change without me even needing to fax in another transfer request form. So in my case at least, patience and persistence paid off and I can get back to planning the rest of the trip! 👍 Good for you!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wulfwyn Posted November 30, 2018 #116 Share Posted November 30, 2018 On 11/28/2018 at 3:54 PM, smf81 said: Following the advice here, I called Princess directly and politely asked that they make an exception for me given the lack of notice, etc. I have a feeling the agent had heard all this before, because she quickly agreed to forward the request someone in customer relations who could make the decision. It took 20 minutes for them to pick up, but once they did I got an immediate "yes" and he made the change without me even needing to fax in another transfer request form. So in my case at least, patience and persistence paid off and I can get back to planning the rest of the trip! Thank you. I followed same advice and I was able to get mine transferred to travel agency today. I was on hold 30 minutes. This was after I got the email on Monday saying I was past the transfer window and Princess was not going to transfer the booking. Politeness, Patience and Perseverance made it happen. Back to planning. Thanks OP for letting everyone know about the update on new policies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chamima Posted December 3, 2018 #117 Share Posted December 3, 2018 I just called Princess to transfer my booking to my travel agent. The phone rep never even questioned the fact that my booking was WAY over 60 days old (like maybe 6 months over) and just verified my email to send me the transfer form. So I think Princess has officially backed off enforcing the new policy on old cruises. As a side note - we sail a lot on Celebrity also and I really have found that Princess listens to and responds to passenger concerns a LOT better than Celebrity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare TracieABD Posted December 3, 2018 #118 Share Posted December 3, 2018 I just learned about this yesterday from my TA who is not happy with this... We did book our next cruise on board, and I am very, very glad that we did. It is a rather iconic cruise. In the space of 3 days- it partially sold out AND went up in price by $400 pp. I have completed the paperwork to turn it over to my TA- who could discount it some and offer a bit more OBC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyVeteran Posted December 3, 2018 #119 Share Posted December 3, 2018 It looked like Princess may have fixed this customer relations mistake. On Friday, November 30th, I faxed a request to transfer three 2020 cruises from direct booking to a travel agent. I booked these three during the last Sip & Sail promotion - way more than 60 days ago. I had previously transferred all of my 2019 bookings. I faxed the same information I had used before - I did not use the new form or mention any knowledge of the new policy. I received the following email from Revenue Support Department (PCL) this morning: "We have recently implemented a new transfer policy which went into effect November 12, 2018. Booking may only be transferred within 60 days of booking creation so long as (a) the request is made outside of final payment period, and (b) the booking is not paid in full. We have reviewed your request and will make a one-time exception for these transfers. For your reference we are attaching the form that should be used with any future request. Thank you for your time." I checked Cruise Personalizer, and all the cruises now show with the travel agent information. I recommend anyone who has had a transfer rejected contact Princess to resubmit it. Princess automatically and quickly approved a one time exception for me without any special requests. I recommend you transfer all of your current bookings that you want to transfer in a single request - I suspect they will not approve a second request from the same person. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrak Posted December 14, 2018 #120 Share Posted December 14, 2018 I have 3 cruises booked with Princess. They were booked in May, July, and September. All are outside the 60 day limit. This was a pretty nasty surprise. I just found out about it as I have been sailing on Princess cruises for the past month - we sailed 2 days before the "non-announcement" of this change. What a crock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renmar Posted December 14, 2018 #121 Share Posted December 14, 2018 17 minutes ago, Thrak said: I have 3 cruises booked with Princess. They were booked in May, July, and September. All are outside the 60 day limit. This was a pretty nasty surprise. I just found out about it as I have been sailing on Princess cruises for the past month - we sailed 2 days before the "non-announcement" of this change. What a crock. Try what NavyVeteran suggests. As you mentioned before, if you really nice in your correspondence with Princess they might accommodate you. Theo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colo Cruiser Posted December 14, 2018 #122 Share Posted December 14, 2018 24 minutes ago, Thrak said: I have 3 cruises booked with Princess. They were booked in May, July, and September. All are outside the 60 day limit. This was a pretty nasty surprise. I just found out about it as I have been sailing on Princess cruises for the past month - we sailed 2 days before the "non-announcement" of this change. What a crock. If you try you may get them transferred by the end of the month. They are making a bunch of exceptions right now. Or at least they were over the last couple of weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare dickinson Posted December 14, 2018 #123 Share Posted December 14, 2018 I got an email from my TA who said that Princess is making one time exceptions til Dec 31. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagoffee Posted December 14, 2018 #124 Share Posted December 14, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Thrak said: I have 3 cruises booked with Princess. They were booked in May, July, and September. All are outside the 60 day limit. This was a pretty nasty surprise. I just found out about it as I have been sailing on Princess cruises for the past month - we sailed 2 days before the "non-announcement" of this change. What a crock. I recently received an e mail from my TA stating that Princess will allow transfers outside the 60 day window until the nd of December. Better Hurry Princess has recently implemented a new transfer policy which went into effect November 12, 2018. Bookings that are booked directly with Princess may only be transferred to an agent within 60 days of booking creation so long as (a) the request is made outside of final payment period, and (b) the booking is not paid in full. Princess will make a one-time exception until 12/31/18. Don’t wait, send me your bookings now! Edited December 14, 2018 by jagoffee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sea Day Cruiser Posted December 14, 2018 #125 Share Posted December 14, 2018 1 hour ago, dickinson said: I got an email from my TA who said that Princess is making one time exceptions til Dec 31. I got the same email. Before I got the email I had already transferred 2 cruises booked almost a year ago. The customer relations person at Princess that I spoke with said she was making the exception because I was transferring them to an agent I had dealt with before. The impression I got was that it would not have been allowed if it wasn’t an agent that I had already booked a cruise with in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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