Reduced Fare

[MixerDave]

We are booked on a 6/9/2020 Med cruise.  The price dropped $277 p/p.  But I will have to pay an increased deposit of $464, and lose the small photo credit, as well as a couple of coupon books.  Are these books worth anything?  I think not.  Please advise.

[lx200gps]

If they are the same coupon books we get from our TA, they have marginal value, which will vary from person to person. For us, the only useful things about the books are a free Specialty restaurant meal (i.e. two for one), on Embarkation Day only (maybe a $30-$35 value), and a free bottle of water. The rest of the coupons are for Spa treatments, photo package discounts, shop discounts, etc, which we never use.  If you are getting a much better price, go for it, losing the Coupon Books is very minor.

[Thrak]

31 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

For us, the only useful things about the books are a free Specialty restaurant meal (i.e. two for one), on Embarkation Day only (maybe a $30-$35 value), and a free bottle of water.

 

That is the only value for many folks. For us, that isn't even valuable as we really don't care for eating in the specialty restaurants!

[DrivesLikeMario]

I like the 10% off in the onboard shops. 

[cruisingrob21]

My travel agency says it's too hard to track all the amenities...they say obc and/or wine is all we give to clients now.

[skynight]

2 hours ago, MixerDave said:

We are booked on a 6/9/2020 Med cruise.  The price dropped $277 p/p.  But I will have to pay an increased deposit of $464, and lose the small photo credit, as well as a couple of coupon books.  Are these books worth anything?  I think not.  Please advise.

Very little of value in the books. There may be a specialty restaurant BOGO for boarding day worth $29. If you don't purchase photos the  photo credit isn't worth anything.

[JF - retired RRT]

3 hours ago, MixerDave said:

We are booked on a 6/9/2020 Med cruise.  The price dropped $277 p/p.  But I will have to pay an increased deposit of $464, and lose the small photo credit, as well as a couple of coupon books.  Are these books worth anything?  I think not.  Please advise.

Get the price drop. You may pay a larger deposit, but your insurance will likely go down. That usually happens to us when we grab a price drop.

The booklets aren't worth much and we never get photos. So it ends up depending on how many photos you think you'll get & how much $$ it might save you.

 

BTW: once you're on the ship, get at least one Future Cruise Deposit each. Then your deposits for the next cruise are paid ($100) and you don't have to worry about paying more if you get another price drop.

Edited June 27, 2019 by JF - retired RRT

[Ombud]

4 hours ago, MixerDave said:

We are booked on a 6/9/2020 Med cruise.  The price dropped $277 p/p.  But I will have to pay an increased deposit of $464, and lose the small photo credit, as well as a couple of coupon books.  Are these books worth anything?  I think not.  Please advise.

I can replace everything in the book for under $100 & I'd pay the $464 eventually anyway.  The bigger question is the deposit refundable if something comes up that means you have to cancel 

[Steelers36]

When we had coupon books earlier this year, we used one of the BOGO for specialty to try La Mer.  We also got two free 1.5L bottles of water.  I also had value from the BJ Tournament BOGO ($20 value).  We used the second BOGO for specialty dining to go to Sabatini on Regal on our most recent cruise (coupons were dated to end of 2019) and we did not receive booklets on the most recent cruise.  I could live without them, but did receive some value (not bad for nothing paid).

 

[MixerDave]

10 hours ago, Ombud said:

I can replace everything in the book for under $100 & I'd pay the $464 eventually anyway.  The bigger question is the deposit refundable if something comes up that means you have to cancel 

 

Yes it is refundable.  Looking at your logic makes the decision a no brainer.

[MixerDave]

I am the OP - I did the refare and it turns out I did not have to pay more deposit, and keep the coupon books an Photo package.  It seems the new rules only apply to new bookings Yay me!

[shanecindy21403]

Great news! Just shows it never hurts to ask!