Error in Deluxe Beverage package pricing?

[Clarea]

9 minutes ago, awestover89 said:

 

The primary purchase portal  ...

 

I'm not sure about that.  I thought I read that travel agencies were still the primary purchase point for Royal's cruises, and travel agencies use a different website.

[Tasm3n]

8 minutes ago, PMGS247 said:

Legally it’s easy...they’re perfectly entitled to cancel & refund. PR-wise it’s tricky.

 

If it were $0.18/day it would be so ridiculous that most people probably wouldn’t even bother trying to book it. While $18 is shockingly low for those of us familiar with cruise pricing, it’s not cartoonishly low. I’ve got the feeling some kid was typing 18 for gratuity percentage and it went in the wrong field. 

 

How they handle it will be interesting to watch. If they want to really impress this long time princess / first time RCI cruiser they’ll come back and offer a replacement package that stays 18/day but with full gratuities for the crew. I won’t judge too harshly regardless and I’ll make sure the crew is taken care of properly but it’ll be pretty lame if they just say too bad so sad and cancel/refund.

 

Very lame.  As you said, legally, they have an out.  PR-wise, though... That's a lot of egg on the face there if they up and cancel/refund everyone.  

 

I would be bummed but understanding if they took stuff down/refunded immediately after I booked 5 hours ago.  My issue comes not so much with them not honoring the deal but with them keeping the site up after they stated they would not honor the deal.  It's horrible customer service.

[BunnyHutt]

2 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

The Entitled Nation.....  

 

Somebody made a mistake....  I want, I want .....

 

Drink Packages have been hovering around $50 a day plus grats for a couple of years now. If $18 is not too good to be true, I don’t know what is. 

 

I don’t feel entitled to anything. If the company wants to cancel, cool, I just ask that they refund my money as fast as they took it (which we know they won’t). 

 

My issue is the fact that people can STILL book this deal HOURS after the ‘error’ was noticed. RC is too big of a company to have any excuse to allow this to happen - all they had to do is pull the plug on the site and fix the issue. I mean, how many times have you been thrown an error message when trying to login? However, by not doing this, all they’re doing is creating a much larger headache to fix. 

[Beav1279]

13 minutes ago, PMGS247 said:

How they handle it will be interesting to watch. If they want to really impress this long time princess / first time RCI cruiser they’ll come back and offer a replacement package that stays 18/day but with full gratuities for the crew. I won’t judge too harshly regardless and I’ll make sure the crew is taken care of properly but it’ll be pretty lame if they just say too bad so sad and cancel/refund.

 

DH and I instantly said (after we booked this amazing deal) that we would take a good chunk of our savings for tips. We are both former service industry people and we want to make sure the crew isn't losing out.

[Milwaukee Eight]

6 minutes ago, mommao729 said:

I understand it it was a mistake. But according to someone on this page it says it has been like this since yesterday. 

 

When I called to purchase it the person did say it was a mistake and they had to honor the price that is listed. 

 

They have allowed all of us to purchase it. Took our money and sent a confirmation. 

 

It it would be in poor taste to cancel. 

 

If they do, they are going to have a lot of angry people to deal with. This is going to be interesting to see how they handle this. 

Try anger management, it might be helpful. 

[mommao729]

Excuse me. Where did I come off as needing anger management? I was Just stating my thoughts. I wasn’t rude or nasty. I just think if they cancel it they are going to have a lot of people upset. 

 

We saw the price and purchased it. If they cancel it that’s fine.  But I bet that people who wouldn’t normally purchase a package did. And they still made money. 

 

Why did you single me out. 

[Beav1279]

RCI twitter is responding to everyone that they are not going to honor the price. They will be canceling all purchases and refunding the money to the credit card on file. 

[sandebeach]

2 minutes ago, Beav1279 said:

RCI twitter is responding to everyone that they are not going to honor the price. They will be canceling all purchases and refunding the money to the credit card on file. 

Yes they are posting on social media. But RC is getting some angry comments! 

[LeeW]

3 hours ago, ryano said:

Thing is, I bet they are still making money at this price, especially on MOST guests. I seriously doubt they have over a dollar in every drink they pour.   

 

Yup.  In our case we drink a couple of glasses of wine with dinner (now using Diamond free drinks) plus a bunch of Diet Coke.  Maybe one more drink during the day.  Since we had already bought the soda packages I figured we need to just average one drink a day and maybe a juice or water bottle to break even.  Wasn't even sure I wanted to book at this price but did so for two cruises next year.  Might try a couple of drinks we would not normally buy, but they will still make money on us.  Last cruise bought exactly one alcoholic beverage plus the wine with dinner.

 

These show up in Order History as "Deluxe Drink Package Special Offer".

 

As of 9:30 MT still showing in Order History.  If they cancel we will just go back to the soda package and they will make less money from us.

Edited July 2, 2019 by LeeW
more

[Hollya]

I saw the same offer for my June 2020 cruise. It was for $18 per person but when I went to book it, it came up as $892 total for the two of us. I cancelled transaction.

[BunnyHutt]

I wonder if the kids soda + voom deal is going to stand. 

[Tasm3n]

2 minutes ago, BunnyHutt said:

I wonder if the kids soda + voom deal is going to stand. 

 

I am curious about that one too.  Wouldn't surprise me if they yank that one as well.

[twangster]

It's clearly an incorrect price that was corrected within hours. 

 

Did I grab some just in case they honor it?  Yes.  Do I expect them to honor it?  No.  

 

When it's cancelled I will smile to myself thinking about what could have been.  I'll also hope what ever human made this mistake isn't terminated and Royal appreciates a valuable lesson was learned.  They will most likely never make such a mistake again.  In fact many people in that department learned a valuable lesson from this.

 

 

 

[awestover89]

Just now, twangster said:

It's clearly an incorrect price that was corrected within hours. 

 

Did I grab some just in case they honor it?  Yes.  Do I expect them to honor it?  No.  

 

When it's cancelled I will smile to myself thinking about what could have been.  I'll also hope what ever human made this mistake isn't terminated and Royal appreciates a valuable lesson was learned.  They will most likely never make such a mistake again.  In fact many people in that department learned a valuable lesson from this.

 

 

 

Hasn't been corrected yet 🙂 

[Milwaukee Eight]

10 minutes ago, mommao729 said:

Excuse me. Where did I come off as needing anger management? I was Just stating my thoughts. I wasn’t rude or nasty. I just think if they cancel it they are going to have a lot of people upset. 

 

We saw the price and purchased it. If they cancel it that’s fine.  But I bet that people who wouldn’t normally purchase a package did. And they still made money. 

 

Why did you single me out. 

Go back and read your post. I was generically replying to it. Last paragraph. If it doesn’t apply to you, no worries. Those that will get angry could use anger management. Ship happens. 

[twangster]

2 minutes ago, awestover89 said:

Hasn't been corrected yet 🙂 

 

Mine have.  Showed 18 before but now going through checkout yields prevailing rates.

[John&LaLa]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Doubt it's an IT issue.  More likely a summer intern in marketing or revenue management who got Refreshment and DX confused.  

 

Someone's having a bad night.  Poor kid, might be the end of their internship.  

 

I'll buy him a drink

[Milwaukee Eight]

12 minutes ago, LeeW said:

 

Yup.  In our case we drink a couple of glasses of wine with dinner (now using Diamond free drinks) plus a bunch of Diet Coke.  Maybe one more drink during the day.  Since we had already bought the soda packages I figured we need to just average one drink a day and maybe a juice or water bottle to break even.  Wasn't even sure I wanted to book at this price but did so for two cruises next year.  Might try a couple of drinks we would not normally buy, but they will still make money on us.  Last cruise bought exactly one alcoholic beverage plus the wine with dinner.

 

These show up in Order History as "Deluxe Drink Package Special Offer".

D+ get 30% off and P’s 40% and the majority I know still don’t buy the package. 

[John&LaLa]

50 minutes ago, awestover89 said:

 

My company is much smaller than Royal Caribbean and we have at least one customer service rep, one devops engineer, one developer, and one manager on call 24x7x365, If there's a major production issue somebody will be on it within 15 minutes of the report getting in, and we'll revert the change or have a fix in within an hour at absolute worst

 

What about leap year 🤔🍺

[Ourusualbeach]

4 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

Mine have.  Showed 18 before but now going through checkout yields prevailing rates.

Just bought 2 packages for November cruise on Oasis 5 minutes ago.

[John&LaLa]

48 minutes ago, karena1 said:

Right now, all my 2020 cruises from Feb 2020 through Dec 2020 are booked at the $18 rate.  Just checked and still showing the $18 rate and still all in my history.  Would be nice if they honor it, but will be shocked if it happens.  It was worth a try and will just wait and see how it all plays out.

 

My December 2020 Jewel shows $50

[Milwaukee Eight]

6 minutes ago, twangster said:

It's clearly an incorrect price that was corrected within hours. 

 

Did I grab some just in case they honor it?  Yes.  Do I expect them to honor it?  No.  

 

When it's cancelled I will smile to myself thinking about what could have been.  I'll also hope what ever human made this mistake isn't terminated and Royal appreciates a valuable lesson was learned.  They will most likely never make such a mistake again.  In fact many people in that department learned a valuable lesson from this.

 

 

 

Sound response. Thank you. 

 

If if I had cruises booked in this timeframe with this price, I would have booked it too. However, I would have fully expected Royal to cancel and refund. I’m hopefully smart enough to know it was too good to be true and I sure wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. 

[John&LaLa]

48 minutes ago, PMGS247 said:

Legally it’s easy...they’re perfectly entitled to cancel & refund. PR-wise it’s tricky.

 

If it were $0.18/day it would be so ridiculous that most people probably wouldn’t even bother trying to book it. While $18 is shockingly low for those of us familiar with cruise pricing, it’s not cartoonishly low. I’ve got the feeling some kid was typing 18 for gratuity percentage and it went in the wrong field. 

 

How they handle it will be interesting to watch. If they want to really impress this long time princess / first time RCI cruiser they’ll come back and offer a replacement package that stays 18/day but with full gratuities for the crew. I won’t judge too harshly regardless and I’ll make sure the crew is taken care of properly but it’ll be pretty lame if they just say too bad so sad and cancel/refund.

 

Why does everyone think it was a kid or an intern. Could have been anybody 

[John&LaLa]

49 minutes ago, awestover89 said:

 

Personally I'm just hoping for a small gesture like some OBC. Having it honored would be amazing, but extremely unlikely. 

 

I'd probably put the odds at 90% cancel, refund, and just a verbal apology. 9% some sort of apology gesture like OBC. 1% the bookings are honored

 

$5 off the prevailing rate😉🍺

[goldfish65]

1 minute ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Why does everyone think it was a kid or an intern. Could have been anybody 

That's a valid point, where I work, the kids make a lot fewer computer mistakes than I do!!