Yet another promotion. I can’t keep track of them all.

[wrk2cruise]

15 hours ago, kearney said:

I need help understanding the section I highlighted... does this mean the price drop has to have occurred within 48 hours of when I booked it? I booked after the final payment date of around Sept 8 and it has obviously been more than 48 hours... if that is what they mean..looks like it might make sense to cancel and rebook... get FCC and apply that to one of my later cruises... am I reading this right?

 

For a request submitted after the due date of final payment AND the booking is within 48 hours from creation, the following applies:
Request for a Lower Cruise Fare

Celebrity will apply an onboard credit to the booking in the amount of 110% of the difference in price.

Request to Add or Change an Added Value Offer

Celebrity will 1) apply an Added Value Offer to booking and 2) go to prevailing eligible cruise fare

NOTE: If either the new cruise fare or Added Value Offer is not combinable with any promotion associated with the existing booking, or changes are being made outside of promotional booking window, the existing promotion will be removed from the booking. No refund or exchange will be given on a promotion offer (added value)

NOTE: An Added Value Offer refers to an amenity added to your booking, such as an onboard credit, specialty dining, shore excursion, etc.

 

The issue is this is the "Best Price Guarantee" program that existed BEFORE covid and isn't the one associated with CwC.  Many people seem to be using the link here to apply but get the terms of CwC if they qualify.

 

You want to look here for terms the "Best Offer Guarantee" of CwC if your sailing is before 5/4/2022 when CwC ends.

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/cruise-with-confidence

[ak1004]

All those promotions are a fiction, a pure marketing tactics.

 

Here is what we paid for our May 2022 cruise:



And here is the price now:

 

 

That includes the so called 20% discount. So the price after the discount is higher by 11% compared to what we paid.

[Denny01]

The sales aren't 'fiction', they are just not as low as some of us got earlier. Kind of the same as all commercial promotions. I got a lower price for the Alaska cruise in June 2022, but not as low for my other cruise in Oct 2022.....kind of how most sales and promotions go. 

 

den

[Ken the cruiser]

23 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

All those promotions are a fiction, a pure marketing tactics.

 

Here is what we paid for our May 2022 cruise:



And here is the price now:

 

 

That includes the so called 20% discount. So the price after the discount is higher by 11% compared to what we paid.

From what I can tell, the price has definitely gone up on your cruise since you booked it, especially since your booking confirmation suggests you booked a refundable fare and the "fake booking" reflects a nonrefundable fare. The fare on a couple of our more popular booked itineraries have gone up $1,700 pp for an AQ since we booked them last winter. But, then, on some of our others the price went down and we were able to cash in via either getting a refund posted back to our CC or having OBC posted to our account if it was after FP.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Ken the cruiser

[Bo1953]

10 minutes ago, Denny01 said:

The sales aren't 'fiction', they are just not as low as some of us got earlier. Kind of the same as all commercial promotions. I got a lower price for the Alaska cruise in June 2022, but not as low for my other cruise in Oct 2022.....kind of how most sales and promotions go. 

 

den

Additionally, IMO, no different than the published Promo's pre-pandemic.

 

Thanks buddy and bon voyage

[kearney]

Okay, so I filled out the price guarantee form for three cruises.... then decided i should call about the Dec cruise which was past final payment. I was told that the promotion did not include "Always included".. and that the price with that was actually higher than what I paid. What pisses me off is that... the web site specifically noted the Always included for all three cruises I am taking. And the flags still appears this way a day later. You would think that their Web group would fix it. I wonder how many booked a new cruise thinking that they were getting the Always included. Which gets back to the term Always.... I think they should call it the "sometimes included" or "In this promotion included".  

[Bo1953]

19 minutes ago, kearney said:

Okay, so I filled out the price guarantee form for three cruises.... then decided i should call about the Dec cruise which was past final payment. I was told that the promotion did not include "Always included".. and that the price with that was actually higher than what I paid. What pisses me off is that... the web site specifically noted the Always included for all three cruises I am taking. And the flags still appears this way a day later. You would think that their Web group would fix it. I wonder how many booked a new cruise thinking that they were getting the Always included. Which gets back to the term Always.... I think they should call it the "sometimes included" or "In this promotion included".  

Or possibly read more about the promo???

 

bon voyage

[wrk2cruise]

8 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

Or possibly read more about the promo???

 

bon voyage

 

Yes but as I mentioned in my above posting there is nothing in the booking process that exposes the T&C.   Here is the screen shot from Monday of the booking summary just before you hit the commit button.  They have since corrected it to not display Always Included and the list of perks but on Monday it was clearly deceptive.

 

Since I had the screen shot it's been sent to resolutions to see if they will honor. 

 

I've seen this happen on multiple promos.  At some point they have to take ownership for not having a web booking system that can handle these things properly

 

 

 

[ak1004]

41 minutes ago, kearney said:

Which gets back to the term Always.... I think they should call it the "sometimes included" or "In this promotion included".  

 

"Always deceptive" maybe?

 

Or "Always read the fine print"?

[Denny01]

Oh Please, not again (again, and again and....)!!!

 

den

[kearney]

2 hours ago, Bo1953 said:

Or possibly read more about the promo???

 

bon voyage

I went back to the email and noticed the 4pt font exclusions...too bad that the 16 pt font flag said different. But live and learn. The error was up until just a few minutes ago.

[DaKahuna]

5 hours ago, canderson said:

After final payment?  Wonder how that transaction worked.  I could understand part of the difference going back to your card if the difference was more than the canvellation penalty, but that would be a cancel/rebook, so you would net only that difference.  Normally after final, it only comes as OBC for the full difference.

 

Can your TA elaborate?

I think this was because the finial payment date was reduced from 90 to 60 days and I am inside that window.  

[kearney]

I was more pissed at myself for going through the hassle of filling out the forms for a discount than I am at Celebrity for having a banner indicating that the deal included the Always Included benefits... I think deep inside I knew it was too good to be true... I had seen so many say how much they saved.. and thought perhaps there were big savings for me as well.   I do wonder if anyone went to reprice their cruise and ended up with a cheaper cruise but with none of the wifi, drinks and gratuities.. that they expected.  I may still go back and reprice.. I need to think about how much drinking I plan to do to see if it is worth the extra $500-$850. I have to say that we usually do not get perks..but we had 4 on our last cruise and it was nice not to have that feeling of needing to keep track of expenses during the cruise.

 

I did reach out to Celebrity to complain about how after clicking on booking in the Resident discount email... I ultimately found my cruise with the banners saying always included.... and they did fix that..so that this will not keep happening.  

 

So to those who said..read the fine print...you are correct... I do wish they would use a larger font.

[peanut head]

If your stateroom/suite category is fully booked for a specific cruise and you are not able to make a dummy booking to see if the new fare would be less, how do you know if you can get  a Best Price guarantee form properly filled out?