The Cancel and Repurchase strategy doesn’t always work

[Ourusualbeach]

Just sharing my experience on purchasing shore excursions and cancelling them and repurchasing them at a lower price.

 

A bit of background.  We had our Alaska cruise cancelled last summer that we had already purchased a lot of shore excursions for and opted for the 125% in OBC which we applied to this years replacement Alaska cruise.

 

Making  cruise planner purchases with OBC is great because if You cancel the OBC goes right back to your account so there’s no waiting for a refund and with the cost of some of these Alaska excursions that would be a lot of cash tied up.

 

A couple months ago I purchased all our excursions at regular prices knowing that over the next year I just had to watch the sales And cancel and repurchase....or so I thought.  
 

A month after my original purchase there was a sale.  All my purchases dropped between 15 and 25% which was a substantial savings with the exception of one excursion...the most expensive one which was the Extended Glacier Trek at $770.  I ended up cancelling it and going with the same excursion but an hour shorter for $475.  Fast forward to the today’s sale and the extended version is now on sale at $615 so I ended up cancelling the one that I previously booked and booked the longer version.  This also happened with a Seaplane Tour in Victoria, I purchased it on sale during the previous sale and this time it is not on sale.

 

What I feel is happening is that Royal has a computer algorithm that calculates how well that excursion has sold and bases the sale discount on that.  The two excursions that I’m talking about most likely have limited spaces available  and  4 people booked would make a difference in whether they were on track with sales projections or not.  My less expensive excursions that would have a higher number of spaces available were not affected and the sale price dropped the same this month as it was last month.  
 

Tough call for people who want to book some of these limited excursions early to guarantee their spot yet still want to try to get the lowest price as it may not go on sale because you booked early.

[Ocean Boy]

3 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

 

Tough call for people who want to book some of these limited excursions early to guarantee their spot yet still want to try to get the lowest price as it may not go on sale because you booked early.

That is the same issue as I have been saying for years about people booking cruises early to get the cabin catagory that they want. There won't be any price drop if things are selling early and well. That is the tradeoff if what you want is that important to you.

[bobmacliberty]

Thanks Ken (as always).  For the higher demand/smaller crowd excursions like your glacier trek, I would be more worried about getting it reserved before it sells out.  That assumes that the initial price is at least acceptable.  If it then later drops in price due to a sale...great.  Good to know that such a price drop may not happen.  

[Ourusualbeach]

1 minute ago, bobmacliberty said:

Thanks Ken (as always).  For the higher demand/smaller crowd excursions like your glacier trek, I would be more worried about getting it reserved before it sells out.  That assumes that the initial price is at least acceptable.  If it then later drops in price due to a sale...great.  Good to know that such a price drop may not happen.  

There were a couple that I wasn’t willing to cancel or wait on but this one at least had a couple versions of the same tour and for $300 a person I was willing to sacrifice that extra hour but with the difference now down to $140 I’m back in for the extended version.  These sale prices actually brought the costs down to the same or lower than the independent operators.

[Ourusualbeach]

7 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

That is the same issue as I have been saying for years about people booking cruises early to get the cabin catagory that they want. There won't be any price drop if things are selling early and well. That is the tradeoff if what you want is that important to you.

Definitely agree, I always book the cabins/category I want early (when they are released) And watch the price from there.  I also am not opposed to changing cabins/categories if something else happens to be a better price, there have been very few cabins that I have reserved that I would never consider changing although those cabins certainly do exist for many...thinking of certain suites, corner afts etc....me, in the vast majority of cases just wants to be on the ship, I have an upper limit of what I’m willing to pay and will look for the best cabin in that price range, which sometimes is an inside cabin on our Christmas cruises.

 

[ReneeFLL]

We also book early so we can get the cabin we want. Unfortunately as Ocean Boy said price drops are less likely to occur. We always watch just in case.

[RFerrington]

2 hours ago, ReneeFLL said:

We also book early so we can get the cabin we want. Unfortunately as Ocean Boy said price drops are less likely to occur. We always watch just in case.

Exactly my process.

[ipeeinthepool]

On 10/9/2020 at 9:04 AM, Ourusualbeach said:

A month after my original purchase there was a sale.  All my purchases dropped between 15 and 25% which was a substantial savings with the exception of one excursion...the most expensive one which was the Extended Glacier Trek at $770.  I ended up cancelling it and going with the same excursion but an hour shorter for $475.  Fast forward to the today’s sale and the extended version is now on sale at $615 so I ended up cancelling the one that I previously booked and booked the longer version.  This also happened with a Seaplane Tour in Victoria, I purchased it on sale during the previous sale and this time it is not on sale.

 

I don't want to get too far off track, but a quick thought on the glacier trek.  We took the shorter version of the trek a couple of years ago and it was one of our most memorable excursions.  Perhaps you have done detailed research into these excursions, but I have a word of warning about the physical requirements for these excursions.  I thought the word trek meant the helicopter laded on the glacier and you walked around.  Not exactly.  Before you leave you are outfitted with a parka, boots, crampons and an ice axe.  Even on the shorter tour you are doing some serious hiking up and down some steeper hills, over cracks and numerous areas of uneven footing.  The longer tour was even more strenuous.  It's a great excursion, but please understand the physical requirements.  

 

I hope cruising resumes again next summer, enjoy your trip.

[Ourusualbeach]

37 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

I don't want to get too far off track, but a quick thought on the glacier trek.  We took the shorter version of the trek a couple of years ago and it was one of our most memorable excursions.  Perhaps you have done detailed research into these excursions, but I have a word of warning about the physical requirements for these excursions.  I thought the word trek meant the helicopter laded on the glacier and you walked around.  Not exactly.  Before you leave you are outfitted with a parka, boots, crampons and an ice axe.  Even on the shorter tour you are doing some serious hiking up and down some steeper hills, over cracks and numerous areas of uneven footing.  The longer tour was even more strenuous.  It's a great excursion, but please understand the physical requirements.  

 

I hope cruising resumes again next summer, enjoy your trip.

Thanks for the heads up but we are quite active and bringing our 2 teenagers.  Really looking forward to this trip, I’m just hoping it’s not cancelled for the second year.