New 35% Discount

[ChiefMateJRK]

I have a cruise that I put on hold yesterday, and had them reprice today.  The total (out the door) price dropped 5.34%, so it is a "real" sale.

[CruiseMH]

I booked a caribbean cruise on the epic yesterday and i was able to watch what a complete bu****it their promos are. They offered 30% off til november 2nd, with a banner on their homepage with the remaining time and the message "limited offer, exceeds soon".

I only got my vacation confirmed by my boss yesterday, so i had to wait with booking till yesterday. At that time the offer was 35% off.  So the first thing i thought to myself was "they are really hurrying you to book a limited time offer just to offer an even bigger discount after the initial offer ends? "

That felt strange to me. As i was planning to book this cruise for quite a long time i checked the prices daily and guess what? The cruise price with the 35% off was slightly higher than the one with the 30% off ! It was only around 90 Euros, so no that much ,but it clearly shows that their promotions are nothing else but fooling their guests.

The final cruise price is the only thing that counts.

 

[wacruiselover]

My April 30, 2022 Alaska cruise on the Bliss had a slight increase in "regular price" but the total went down about $60 with the 35% off. Even better, my TA has a new promotion that gave me about $350 in benefits (OBC, picture package, phone package, wine & strawberries, etc.). We had to do a cancellation and new booking to get the promotion. We had our ideal stateroom and I wanted to keep it. I spent several hours on hold to make it happen but for me it was worth it.

[ChiefMateJRK]

20 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I have a cruise that I put on hold yesterday, and had them reprice today.  The total (out the door) price dropped 5.34%, so it is a "real" sale.

 

1 hour ago, CruiseMH said:

The final cruise price is the only thing that counts.

Yes.  Not sure what isn't working for you, but as I posted above, it was a real sale for one of my cruises.

 

[mertziek]

2 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

 

Yes.  Not sure what isn't working for you, but as I posted above, it was a real sale for one of my cruises.

 

It was a savings for me, too, of $630+ On my Alaska cruise next Oct but all other cruises I have booked would have cost more to rebook/reprice.  You just have to run the numbers and see if you can get any savings.

Edited November 4, 2021 by mertziek

[ChiefMateJRK]

1 hour ago, CruiseMH said:

That felt strange to me. As i was planning to book this cruise for quite a long time i checked the prices daily and guess what? The cruise price with the 35% off was slightly higher than the one with the 30% off !

You must be doing it wrong.

[julig22]

1 minute ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

 

Yes.  Not sure what isn't working for you, but as I posted above, it was a real sale for one of my cruises.

 

NCL cruise prices seem to fluctuate daily - just like the stock market or gas prices- so a %off sale is based on today's prices.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

Awhile back, I had one cruise go down about $300 for a single day - no change in promos or sale terms. So my base price is lower than usual and a slight increase in the %off doesn't make up the difference.

[jcscv]

I have 2 cruises this year, and I checked to see if I could get better pricing. Both were less than a $20 difference....not worth the hassle of rebooking again.

 

[ChiefMateJRK]

1 hour ago, jcscv said:

I have 2 cruises this year, and I checked to see if I could get better pricing. Both were less than a $20 difference....not worth the hassle of rebooking again.

 

It's not a rebooking.   You just call NCL reservations and have them reprice.  They did five for me in a ten minute phone call.  That's 2 minutes per reprice.  You would save $40 for four minutes of your time.  That a $600 per hour pay rate.  Are you a high priced lawyer?  (jk)

[lgdesign]

Over the last month, my March 2022 cruise dropped about $900 per person.  It happened in 4 separate drops. I contacted my PCC each time and it just took minutes to adjust the pricing of the reservation.  This is, of course, before final payment.  It always pays to check... I had booked this in Dec of 2020 and the price had been higher since then til these recent drops.

[nferr]

Just checked my April transatlantic cruise, price is $7 less. Funny thing is when I went to my reservation it shows a reduction of $38 already applied. Who knows?

[CruiseMH]

19 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

You must be doing it wrong.

 

Believe me,i`m not doing it wrong. 😉

 

The base price where they calculate the discount from has increased. So the 35% off the base price were more expensive than the 30% of the earlier base price.

To me this only means that all the promotions are only a marketing gag, the actual cruise prices are raised and lowered completely independent from any promotion.

Of course it will work for many many cruises where the price is lower with the new promotion. But the price would have also gone down without the promotion. 😉

 

It`s nothing i am angry or mad about, it just the modern business.

[CruiseMH]

19 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

 

Yes.  Not sure what isn't working for you, but as I posted above, it was a real sale for one of my cruises.

 

I absolutely believe you that it was a sale for you.

In my case they simply raised the base price where they calculated the discount from. 😉

 

 

[ScubaKat]

Thank you for posting this.  Just called and saved $177 off our cruise to Alaska next May.  The whole phone call was just under 6 minutes.  Awesome.  

[ChiefMateJRK]

34 minutes ago, CruiseMH said:

 

Believe me,i`m not doing it wrong. 😉

 

The base price where they calculate the discount from has increased. So the 35% off the base price were more expensive than the 30% of the earlier base price.

To me this only means that all the promotions are only a marketing gag, the actual cruise prices are raised and lowered completely independent from any promotion.

Of course it will work for many many cruises where the price is lower with the new promotion. But the price would have also gone down without the promotion. 😉

 

It`s nothing i am angry or mad about, it just the modern business.

You may be connecting some dots that aren't there.  Yes, cruise prices fluctuate by the day, but enough of us have reported real price drops to discount the idea that the 35% promo is a simple gimmick that doesn't really reduce prices.  In most cases, my price drops were well under $100, but there were drops across the board.  I had price drops on seven out of eight future cruises, ranging from $3 to $260.  I didn't reprice two of them because they were less than $15 and I would have lost a double bonus point promo.

[nferr]

2 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

You may be connecting some dots that aren't there.  Yes, cruise prices fluctuate by the day, but enough of us have reported real price drops to discount the idea that the 35% promo is a simple gimmick that doesn't really reduce prices.  In most cases, my price drops were well under $100, but there were drops across the board.  I had price drops on seven out of eight future cruises, ranging from $3 to $260.  I didn't reprice two of them because they were less than $15 and I would have lost a double bonus point promo.

 

He's not wrong. The actual price before the discount changes. So 35% off a hundred comes to $65 price, while 30% of off $90 comes to $63.  The 30% can be lower depending on what they're calling the current cruise price which varies. Doesn't mean there can't be real savings but it all depends. 

 

I'm seeing the same thing on a RCL cruise I have booked. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by nferr

[ChiefMateJRK]

22 minutes ago, nferr said:

So 35% off a hundred comes to $65 price, while 30% of off $90 comes to $63.

Thanks for the math lesson.  That said, if the current price is $100, then 35% off $100 is cheaper than 30% off $100.  All nonsense aside, for some of us the final prices of our cruises dropped.  That's all that really matters in the end.  Folks can call this meaningless marketing, but if they don't want those $$$ savings I'll gladly take them off their hands.

[jlkb]

Just checked and made a mock booking, and my December cruise price has gone down over $1450!  NCL is closed for the night.  Hoping they will do something for me even though we have already made our final payment.

 

[julig22]

20 minutes ago, jlkb said:

Just checked and made a mock booking, and my December cruise price has gone down over $1450!  NCL is closed for the night.  Hoping they will do something for me even though we have already made our final payment.

 

After final payment, prices often drop - a clearance sale so to speak.  NCL might give you some allowance in the form of obc (25% of the difference) or they might allow you to pay the difference for an upgrade.  But they will also factor in any perks (such as airfare or 2/3x points) that came with your original booking.  So you can always ask but don't expect a refund.

[jlkb]

I am not expecting but I am hoping for something! 🙂

[Wink87]

On 11/3/2021 at 6:55 AM, mertziek said:

Just a reminder to everyone to recheck your cruise pricing.  There’s a new 35% discount promo that saved me over $600 on a future Alaska cruise.  But no savings on the 4 other cruises I have booked so look at each cruise separately to determine if you can save anything.

Mine dropped $300! TY!!

[casofilia]

I keep watching the cruises we are on.   Especially the 2022 cruises from Athens to Cape Town which I started making notes on early in September.   Here are the changes for the last 3 weeks

 

 

Jade 2022 Nov-Dec		4-Sep		18-Oct	31-Oct	3-Nov	4-Nov	6-Nov
Athens-Dubai		4601		6468	7011	7460	6977	7586
Dubai-Cape Town		4763		6223	6780	7242	6747	7370

 

Note the drop when the 30% changed to 35%.   That stayed for 2 days and it then went back above the last 30% off price.

 

Those are NZD prices and include the DSC.

 

Caveat Emptor.

[SireDoime]

On 11/3/2021 at 1:40 PM, nferr said:

My cruise went down exactly $7 lol.

🤑

Mine went down by 2.90$ 😕

Edited November 6, 2021 by SireDoime
sigh...

[CruiseMH]

16 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

 That said, if the current price is $100, then 35% off $100 is cheaper than 30% off $100.  All nonsense aside, for some of us the final prices of our cruises dropped.  That's all that really matters in the end.  Folks can call this meaningless marketing, but if they don't want those $$$ savings I'll gladly take them off their hands.

IF the price would remain at 100$ then it would be cheaper. 😉

 

But you are absolutely right and thats what i already said earlier: the final cruise price is what counts,not the discount.

If the cruise is getting more expensive the discount increase is useless.

If the price drops although the discount is maybe decreased then the discount also doesn`t matter.

 

All i want to say is that the people should check the final cruise price and not listen to much to the promotion phrases.

But i think most people on this forum are smart enough to do exactly that.

 

[ChiefMateJRK]

3 hours ago, CruiseMH said:

All i want to say is that the people should check the final cruise price and not listen to much to the promotion phrases.

But i think most people on this forum are smart enough to do exactly that.

Exactly.  In this case, it was this thread's announcement of the 35% promo that caused me (and likely others) to immediately check for price drops.  Many got lucky.  I do this periodically anyways, but the promo announcement was helpful in letting us know that NCL was mucking with pricing again.  It's all good if I save a few $$$ in the end. 😎