Questions about booking and refaring later

[jat1977]

We are going to receive a FCC for cancelling an upcoming cruise.  However, in looking ahead at possible replacement cruises, it appears they are much more expensive than our current cruise, not to mention there is currently no OBC promo to make up for a large amount of OBC that we are going to lose by cancelling.

My question is, if we rebook at the current price, but later, Princess offers a lower price or an OBC promo, can we refare the cruise to take advantage of that?  Just weighing my options and trying to decide if booking a cruise now is worth it or if we should hold off on booking until a better price or promo comes out.  

*We are first-time Princess cruisers so I am not sure how they handle it as compared to other cruise lines. 

[BigGuy25]

Yes you can ... it’s an easier procedure if you have a refundable deposit and do it before the final payment date.  We’ve re-booked many voyages when a better fare or “special” is offered.

[crystalspin]

I re-fared my June 2020 Alaska cruise NINE times before finally applying the Best.Sale.Ever add-ons around Black Friday.

 

Make sure not to accept a non-refundable deposit in any of the promotionals, and you can just keep re-faring until final payment date. You will in general lose the perks if any from previous booking to get fare/perks for the new one. The BSE add-ons were a BIG exception.

 

Sadly I will have to cancel the cruise I put so much effort into following and re-faring. 

[dgc2861]

16 hours ago, crystalspin said:

I re-fared my June 2020 Alaska cruise NINE times before finally applying the Best.Sale.Ever add-ons around Black Friday.

 

Make sure not to accept a non-refundable deposit in any of the promotionals, and you can just keep re-faring until final payng ment date. You will in general lose the perks if any from previous booking to get fare/perks for the new one. The BSE add-ons were a BIG exception.

 

Sadly I will have to cancel the cruise I put so much effort into following and re-faring. 

Did you book directly through Princess. That is what we are planning to do for 2021 and hoping we can get a better price.

[nini]

5 minutes ago, dgc2861 said:

Did you book directly through Princess. That is what we are planning to do for 2021 and hoping we can get a better price.

We never book through Princess; but we use our big box TA. You do not get a better price directly

through Princess- quite the opposite.

[satxdiver]

On 3/11/2020 at 6:14 PM, jat1977 said:

We are going to receive a FCC for cancelling an upcoming cruise.  However, in looking ahead at possible replacement cruises, it appears they are much more expensive than our current cruise, not to mention there is currently no OBC promo to make up for a large amount of OBC that we are going to lose by cancelling.

 

 

While indeed the prices of cruises particularly in 2021 is higher than this year, they were set back when their ships were running mostly full.  The law of supply and demand caused the prices to go up.  Now with recent activities, the cruise market is going to be very soft for the next several years because of the COVID19 scare and what happened to the Diamond with a little Grand thrown in.  I expect the prices to decrease as demand decreases until the cruising public gets back into the cruising mood.  Nice thing with Princess is that if they drop the price to fill their ships, they will allow pax to refare their cruise.  The down side of that is that any original special offers such as free gratuities, OBC, etc could be lost in the new fare as well as making the deposit non-cancel.  In short beware when re-faring to look at all the offers included.  Look for cheaper fares however.

[crystalspin]

4 hours ago, dgc2861 said:

Did you book directly through Princess. That is what we are planning to do for 2021 and hoping we can get a better price.

I booked and re-fared all those times with my Certified Vacation Planner. There was a little hiccup at the start because my original assigned CVP went on medical leave just when I needed her, so I think my FIRST booking was through a phone operator but it got switched in time for all the re-farings. 

[Steelers36]

5 hours ago, dgc2861 said:

Did you book directly through Princess. That is what we are planning to do for 2021 and hoping we can get a better price.

You might get a better price down the road depending on what promo's Princess feels they need to do in order to attract bookings.  The norm is to book early as often fares for a particular voyage just go up.  That can well change for the next year.

 

But you can save even more with a good discount TA as they also offer the same Princess promotions, but give you a cash discount or a bunch of OBC (from what I read the big box does this, but I prefer cash discount).