Regent implements new cash/non refundable booking option

[DocJames]

19 hours ago, Travelcat2 said:

It has not been offered in the years that we have sailed with Regent (2004).  Silversea had some type of deal that is similar to what is being described.  

 

With the price of Regent cruises as high as they have become and the fact that we book upper suites, I'm not sure that we would want to put that much money at risk.  On the other hand, my DH may be interested if we were booking something that wasn't too far in the future.

Agree that Silversea has a similar program that offers a 10% price reduction if you pay in full.  But, the total fare is refundable up to their normal 121 days out from sailing date (minus the $100/pp booking fee)- a much better and lower risk program than paying in full and nonrefundable as Regent has introduced.

[Travelcat2]

10 minutes ago, DocJames said:

Agree that Silversea has a similar program that offers a 10% price reduction if you pay in full.  But, the total fare is refundable up to their normal 121 days out from sailing date (minus the $100/pp booking fee)- a much better and lower risk program than paying in full and nonrefundable as Regent has introduced.

 

Obviously you are correct.  I did not recall the rules surrounding Silversea's program.

 

[IndiTravler]

On 5/7/2019 at 9:34 AM, UUNetBill said:

Discount sounds good.

 

Non-refundable doesn't.

 

Still being in the workforce, I've had to shuffle some vacations in the past.  Don't like to do it but I'm sometimes forced into it.  I wouldn't be able to make that kind of commitment.  Maybe when I'm retired it'll be a different story, but can't do it now...

 

 

Same here. Just told hubby and he said just wait till we retire!

[poss]

Just piping in to say that after retirement, at least as people become oldsters (as we are), non-refundable doesn't work for other reasons, viz. health concerns.

[Dolebludger]

Would most travel insurance cover it if cancelation were due to health problems? And I have heard of cancel for any reason insurance, but know little about it. Would it cover in case of a cancelation for reasons not covered by traditional travel insurance?

[rallydave]

2 hours ago, Dolebludger said:

Would most travel insurance cover it if cancelation were due to health problems? And I have heard of cancel for any reason insurance, but know little about it. Would it cover in case of a cancelation for reasons not covered by traditional travel insurance?

Yes and yes.  Problem with cancel for any reason is expensive that doesn't usually cover 100% refund.

[boblerm]

On 5/10/2019 at 6:55 PM, poss said:

Just piping in to say that after retirement, at least as people become oldsters (as we are), non-refundable doesn't work for other reasons, viz. health concerns.

 

On 5/12/2019 at 3:02 PM, Dolebludger said:

Would most travel insurance cover it if cancelation were due to health problems? 

That is pretty much why we take out travel insurance.  If I book a cruise , I am unlikely to change my mind about it, but you never know what health issues may arise.  (This is true of any age not only for us oldies!😉)

But it is very important to take out a  policy that waves pre-existing condition provision, and typically these policies have to be taken out within a few weeks or so after booking.

[poss]

Because I don't like to book travel insurance straight-away (because it costs a lot), I always end up booking CSA (through Trip Insurance Store) because I believe that's the only insurance that one can get prior conditions covered late in the game.   I wonder if that's a mistake, i.e. whether it might be better to bite the bullet and pay for insurance soon after booking.   Need to study that option.

I once looked into cancel for any reason, and as rallydave said, it's incredibly expensive.   

[rallydave]

2 minutes ago, poss said:

Because I don't like to book travel insurance straight-away (because it costs a lot), I always end up booking CSA (through Trip Insurance Store) because I believe that's the only insurance that one can get prior conditions covered late in the game.   I wonder if that's a mistake, i.e. whether it might be better to bite the bullet and pay for insurance soon after booking.   Need to study that option.

I once looked into cancel for any reason, and as rallydave said, it's incredibly expensive.   

poss, you can have the best of both worlds and save money if you have to cancel early.  You can buy any insurance policy to cover pre-existing conditions as soon as you have any non-refundable costs and simply purchase enough insurance to cover the pre-existing costs.  As more and more of your cruise becomes non-refundable, you simply purchase more insurance up to the amount you have at risk and even past final payment you only pay for the increased insurance as the non-refundable amount goes up.

 

This way yo.  u might just be paying at a lower age by buying immediately and not waiting  until late in the game plus you have a policy based on rates from the time you first pay and if rates go up believe you are locked in based on your original small purchase date.  You might check with Steve on that but, no reason to cover more dollars when they are not at risk and no reason not to pay a very small amount when booking and thus also avoid CSA which might just be more expensive than others where you only need to get the insurance started.  Also, should the cost of the cruise go down and you get a discount, you have not overbought.

 

All good reason to buy when you book and increase the amount covered as more and more becomes non-refundable.  Did that with a very expensive cruise and then got the Chase Sapphire Reserve card which had enough coverage that I never increased the value of the policy.  Turns out DW had to go to the Doctor onboard and he medical visit was paid in full and was a little more than the entire policy since I only covered $1000 of the full cruise value.  Actually got more money back from the insurance company for the doctors visit than we paid for the full policy.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

We did what Rallydave outlined, although we're in Canada so experience is different.  For our world cruise, we paid insurance with pre-existing coverage, but just on the non-refundable part of our deposit (less than $2K.)  When penalties kick in, we'll pay the rest of the coverage they offered and still get that pre-existing coverage.  (Not germane to this discussion is that we have been unable to find coverage for the whole cost of our cruise.)

[poss]

Thank you very much, rallydave and Wendy.   This is something I'd not thought of (and sort of surprised that Steve didn't mention it, though maybe he did and I simply forgot — happening a lot lately!)

[Travelcat2]

On 5/8/2019 at 11:40 AM, Kinkajou said:

Wes, A question off topic, I have been thinking about getting a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, right now use AmEx Platinum. Why would you charge a cruise over $15000 on Chase Sapphire? Does that card offer more benefits, or is that just a personal choice? Thanks, Susan 

 

Chase Sapphire offers some different benefits than Amex Platinum (which we gave up three years ago since their OBC's no longer worked with most TA OBC's).  The most important thing is the travel insurance.  While it does not cover 100%, it covers enough to make it worth the annual fee to have the card.  I've heard that the Chase Sapphire card is hurting Amex and if that is the case, perhaps they will up their travel benefits.

 

Wondering if there is information on the Regent website (can't find it) about this new offer. Which sailings have this "benefit"?  What are the percentages for the covered sailings?  It feels that we are discussing something based on very little information.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Travelcat2

[rallydave]

On 5/8/2019 at 1:40 PM, Kinkajou said:

Wes, A question off topic, I have been thinking about getting a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, right now use AmEx Platinum. Why would you charge a cruise over $15000 on Chase Sapphire? Does that card offer more benefits, or is that just a personal choice? Thanks, Susan 

Susan, Wes and I have come up with this value together and while the insurance with the Reserve card vs. much less insurance with the platinum card, the $15K value is a mathematical calculation.

 

It is where the value returned in dollars with the Chase Reserve card exceeds the value returned in dollars with the Amex Platinum.  You see there is generally the $300 with the Amex Platinum Cruise privileges plus dollar value of the points from both cards because at $15K the triple points per dollar with the Reserve exceeds the single points per dollar with the Amex Platinum plus teh $300 from Cruise privileges.  This is all based on $.01 per point for both programs.  Depending on your transfer of points, Amex may be more or less valuable to you but, dollar per dollar, $15K is where the Reserve card returns more value in dollars.

 

Hope this gives you the correct answer to your question and how Wes and I calculated that point.

[Travelcat2]

Whew - wish that were in plain English.  We pay attention to the benefits vs. the cost of the card and Chase Sapphire won.  Cannot imagine figuring out points based $.01, etc.  However, for those of you into tiny details, the above posts may be of interest.  We want simplicity and good benefits and that is what Chase Sapphire provides for us.

[1985rz1]

On 5/15/2019 at 9:57 AM, Wendy The Wanderer said:

We did what Rallydave outlined, although we're in Canada so experience is different.  For our world cruise, we paid insurance with pre-existing coverage, but just on the non-refundable part of our deposit (less than $2K.)  When penalties kick in, we'll pay the rest of the coverage they offered and still get that pre-existing coverage.  (Not germane to this discussion is that we have been unable to find coverage for the whole cost of our cruise.)

Our approach also, except to maintain the pre-existing condition waiver, we up the insurance within a week or two (depending on insurer) of each new required payment.  I'm not sure if the waiver is maintained for US policies, if you only up the insurance in lock step with penalties.  At least that's what the fine print of our policies suggested. 

[Kinkajou]

Thanks RallyDave (and Travelcat2), I always get good advice on this board. I have copied the info into my file and am still digesting the information. We are not as interested in the points as getting the coverage. Wish I'd known about this sooner, having recently paid with our AmEx cards.

 

Interesting info from Wendy about the insurance payments, but we won't be going on an extended cruise in the immediate future—cats. 

 

We don't pay as much attention to the travel programs as we did when we were working. American Airlines started the frequent flier program. It took them a couple years before they figured out not to give miles on free first class trips. We went to England and Hawaii twice free and got miles for the trips. The good old days—LOL.  

[Travelcat2]

20 minutes ago, Kinkajou said:

Thanks RallyDave (and Travelcat2), I always get good advice on this board. I have copied the info into my file and am still digesting the information. We are not as interested in the points as getting the coverage. Wish I'd known about this sooner, having recently paid with our AmEx cards.

 

Interesting info from Wendy about the insurance payments, but we won't be going on an extended cruise in the immediate future—cats. 

 

We don't pay as much attention to the travel programs as we did when we were working. American Airlines started the frequent flier program. It took them a couple years before they figured out not to give miles on free first class trips. We went to England and Hawaii twice free and got miles for the trips. The good old days—LOL.  

 

Totally under the cat situation - this keeps our cruises much shorter and we repeatedly choose to have cats rather than taking longer cruises.

 

As mentioned, we really like the insurance part of Chase Sapphire Reserve - even though it is only $20K.  And, although we also do not use frequent flyer miles anymore (or even have any), we do like to book our own First Class flights when we have to fly into or out of Miami as it quite a long way - going diagonally across the U.S.  I believe this is the 3rd year that we have the Chase card and do miss Amex.  Some people like having both cards but we don't feel that the cost is worth it.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I never collected many frequent flyer miles since I didn't travel much for work.  But if I stick to Air Canada, which is Star Alliance, I can collect gobs of miles indirectly from my Amex Gold card.  So that's what I do.  I have this card strictly for travel, and it works well without a huge fee--I assume the American equivalent has some kind of arrangement where Membership Rewards can be funnelled into a FF program?

[captjohn]

A side note and personal story.

We. made a trip to SF Bay Area to see family. We rented a car through Hotwire, they put us with NU car rental ( do not rent from them). Anyway returned car and went to the airport. Then the call came saying there was damage to the rear bumper. We had looked the car over before and after - no damage  !Long story but they turned us over to a collection agency! $ 600.00 , I wanted to dispute since we were not present for discovery.

We have Chase Sapphire Reserve, so with my tail between my legs I call Chase,

Bottom line all taken care of. Well  worth the cost plus all the points that you can actually use. I am a big fan!!