"Offer expires June 30, 2020"

[ClevelandKid]

On Viking's webpage where the give the details of the itinerary, there is usually a blurb that goes along the lines of "On board ship credit of $1,000 plus airfare from $999", and is then followed by "offer expires June 30, 2020".  I have been following some of the potential cruises for awhile now, and I can't say that I have seen very much difference between a current offer, and say one that shows up on July 1.  I thought I would put it out to this group what their experience is with "offer expires" - have you ever noticed a significant difference (except when the cruise is actually getting closer to the sailing date)?  Is it just a promo pitch to get you to sign up early, or do they really have a different offer?

[duquephart]

32 minutes ago, ClevelandKid said:

On Viking's webpage where the give the details of the itinerary, there is usually a blurb that goes along the lines of "On board ship credit of $1,000 plus airfare from $999", and is then followed by "offer expires June 30, 2020".  I have been following some of the potential cruises for awhile now, and I can't say that I have seen very much difference between a current offer, and say one that shows up on July 1.  I thought I would put it out to this group what their experience is with "offer expires" - have you ever noticed a significant difference (except when the cruise is actually getting closer to the sailing date)?  Is it just a promo pitch to get you to sign up early, or do they really have a different offer?

 

One of the pitches you always from a new car salesman is that you should think about buying now because there is a deal, blah, blah, blah, that expires soon. What they don't tell you is that there is always another deal.

[Heidi13]

When we booked the World Cruise the same perks were on offer each month for another 6 to 8 months, but from about 8 months to a year before departure, the perks were reduced by 50%. Wasn't even a case of the ship being almost sold out, as the website still had numerous cabins available.

[Peregrina651]

11 hours ago, duquephart said:

 

One of the pitches you always from a new car salesman is that you should think about buying now because there is a deal, blah, blah, blah, that expires soon. What they don't tell you is that there is always another deal.

 

 

Cars or cruises, there is always another deal. The question is: do you want to go with the deal on the table or do you want to gamble and hope that the next deal will be more to your liking. Sometimes it is an easy decision and sometimes it isn't --and lurking in the background is always the question of the availability once you decide that this is the deal you have been hoping for.

[Squawkman]

Sometimes promotions aren't noted on the website, particularly if they are available only to those in the Explorer Society and/or those with at least one other cruise booked. This happened to me in early May. I was checking out the Viking website and saw an added sailing I liked. I called my Viking agent to see if there were any additional discounts - there was one.

[Redtravel]

Viking has a scheme that sends you promos until you book.   Once booked, you will not see promos until after you cancel or sail.  Guess they don't want you to see lower fares or see a different cruise.  The dumb part is for people who often book several cruises, being cut off from Viking cruises once you booked tends to make you find cruises on other lines.  We became aware of this practice when our friends called us with a Viking promo for a cruise.  We never got it.  It was not the cruise we were booked on.  It was a new itinerary and very interesting. Before pandemic, we got lots of cruise promos via email and regular mail.  They often persuaded us to book.  It wasn't unusual to have 2-3 future cruises booked.  Some years we sailed 5-6 times often b2b.  Viking could get more bookings if they changed their model.

[Squawkman]

I generally agree with Redtravel. We have several cruises booked, but we still receive occasional emails with special offers - maybe 3 or so a year. I never received snail mail promos. But we do get calls from our Viking agent, plus I regularly check the website for new itineraries, added salivates, and price changes.

[ClevelandKid]

Thanks all - today (June 30) is the end of one promo cycle - tomorrow is the start of the next.  Will see what is different (if anything) tomorrow.

[zalusky]

Yea I am kind of pissed about this.  We booked a midnight sun cruise on April 25 or so and May 1st they come out with the $1000 ship credit thing.  I emailed our travel agent and she said their was a lot of turnover with their senior people.  Anyway the only way we could get the deal was to cancel and rebook.  They did get us a nominal credit but nothing like we would have gotten.  Maybe if we would have one of the pros that bailed it might have been different.  The problem is our insurance is nonrefundable and we had to book it right away to get the pre-existing thing waived.

 

Next time I will look at the third party stuff or even annual insurance if we ever get back to some sort of normal schedule.

[vnb2003]

On 6/30/2020 at 8:34 PM, ClevelandKid said:

Thanks all - today (June 30) is the end of one promo cycle - tomorrow is the start of the next.  Will see what is different (if anything) tomorrow.

 

World Cruise Los Angeles to London lost $8,000 per couple ($9,000 for repeated customers) offer.

 

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, vnb2003 said:

 

World Cruise Los Angeles to London lost $8,000 per couple ($9,000 for repeated customers) offer.

 

 

Wow! for the 2020 WC we had US $3,000 pp, for 2021 it is CAN $1,300 per couple (DV4). Quite a reduction.