What Are The Disadvantages Of Booking Directly With Celebrity?

[grandgeezer]

On 11/23/2021 at 12:48 PM, Pickels said:

It may be a bit  more, dollar-wise, dealing directly with the cruise line, but, we've always felt it was more of an advantage dealing directly with the cruise line , if something went wrong and needed to be addressed. 

If is the key word. If nothing goes wrong you missed an opportunity to save some money. My best guess is that we have averaged over 10% of cruise price (not including taxes and port fees) in cruise perks, a major part of it being refundable obc. 47 cruises 494 days at seas, with a big majority in balcony’s and have never talked to the cruise lines or tas about any problems. Estimate 47 (cruises) times $250 ($2500  x 10% savings for two people) = $11,750 more than booking direct and all of the obc went back as a credit to our card. To some of us that’s more than a little bit.

Everybody should do what helps them sleep at night so nobody is wrong, the world revolves around differences of opinion.

[miched]

On 11/25/2021 at 7:19 PM, grandgeezer said:

Our online travel agency doesn’t work nights or Sundays so we don’t check pricing then. We book it and maybe check prices once a week and only around business hours. The only time I’ve ever contacted them, besides price drop or cabin change is to change credit cards. We do our homework, 47 cruises and 0 issues. Easy Peasy.

The big problem we had was we boarded on Sat.   Out TA was closed.   We had booked a cruise that gave us all 4 perks and we then paid extra for the upgrade to premium.   None of that was shown on our SeaPass card.   We went to GR a and they said we didn’t have it.   I showed them my invoice and emails from the TA. And they said it didn’t mean anything, that we should contact our TA and  have them call 
 

They told us to order drinks and if we had it we wouldn’t be charged.   
 

Around  9 pm they said that they found our reservation and confirmed everything. They told us that it was the TAs fault and tried to blame him.  

No sorry or anything about our inconvenience for having to wait in a long line at GR because of all the passengers looking for a free upgrade and wanted to be put on the list and also others with legit issues.

 

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

Edited November 27, 2021 by miched

[canderson]

18 hours ago, miched said:

 

Around  9 pm they said that they found our reservation and confirmed everything. They told us that it was the TAs fault and tried to blame him.  

If the correct information was finally found in their system, how in the world could the problem be the TA's fault?  I don't suppose they volunteered an explanation for that.

[dadroy]

For my first tender soul cruisers, I went directly through the cruise line. After reading so much about OBC here on Cruise critic I switched over to a big online agency. I’ve been happy with them until recently. Have two cruises booked And got an offer from my American Express card for $250 credit if I use the card to book a cruise. This big box TA does not except American Express. So could not get that statement credit. We do not sale in suite, so $500 is a chunk of change. 

[mfs2k]

23 minutes ago, dadroy said:

For my first tender soul cruisers, I went directly through the cruise line. After reading so much about OBC here on Cruise critic I switched over to a big online agency. I’ve been happy with them until recently. Have two cruises booked And got an offer from my American Express card for $250 credit if I use the card to book a cruise. This big box TA does not except American Express. So could not get that statement credit. We do not sale in suite, so $500 is a chunk of change. 

You Can use your Amex to reserve and prepay for restaurants and excursions 

[SHIP TRAVELER]

Someone here said "homework" and that is the key to me.  Post shut down several of the on line TAs have lost experienced workers and the people you get on the phone now have to be walked through exactly the cruise you want to book.  They are just order takers, they are not planners or advisors.  It also seems that the main line phone people at X are less experienced and have to be given guidance.  We have learned a ton from Cruise Critic and get most of our info about price drops and deals here.  I would not blindly trust anyone to plan my vacation or spend my money for me.

We do occasionally book with a CVP and sometimes they match some of the OBC offered on line.  This makes It is then easier to manage the reservation personally later if needed.  We do it both ways.

Knowing what you want and making sure that it is properly booked is the important part of not being disappointed later when you hear what others paid for the same cruise.

 

[Ken the cruiser]

3 minutes ago, SHIP TRAVELER said:

We do occasionally book with a CVP and sometimes they match some of the OBC offered on line.

Would you mind elaborating on this statement you made. We use a CVP to book all of our =X= cruises and we have never heard of this option. How exactly does it work?

[SHIP TRAVELER]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Would you mind elaborating on this statement you made. We use a CVP to book all of our =X= cruises and we have never heard of this option. How exactly does it work?

We have just asked.  We say I see that ____ is offering the same price with _____ OBC.  Can you match that offer?  All they can say is NO, we can't match that offer.  If they can't ,we make our decision based on that information.  This was before the pandemic.  The extra is not applied until after final payment and close to the sail date.  It does not work with membership TAs offers because they must be able to verify the offer.  Things may have changed now,  have not booked a new cruise with a CVP in a while because of all the  L and S we have moved forward.

[Ken the cruiser]

22 minutes ago, SHIP TRAVELER said:

We have just asked.  We say I see that ____ is offering the same price with _____ OBC.  Can you match that offer?  All they can say is NO, we can't match that offer.  If they can't ,we make our decision based on that information.  This was before the pandemic.  The extra is not applied until after final payment and close to the sail date.  It does not work with membership TAs offers because they must be able to verify the offer.  Things may have changed now,  have not booked a new cruise with a CVP in a while because of all the  L and S we have moved forward.

Thanks. We tried that once 3-4 years back. My CVP asked his supervisor and they said no. Never tried it again. 

[morpheusofthesea]

On 11/22/2021 at 7:53 AM, ChucktownSteve said:

We get the identical perks/OBC/pricing whether we use Celebrity directly or our TA. However our TA either rebates us 10% cash, discounts the cruise by that or gives us refundable OBC depending  which cruise line we're using.

 

What I really like during these covid times of reduced cruise line staffing is that my TA sits on hold for hours instead of me.  Mine does a lot of bookings so they tend to have more clout with the cruise lines than me doing it myself.

 

All my deposits and payments are applied directly by the cruise line and not the TA. Make sure your online TA does not charge a cancellation or change fee.  Also make sure that the OBC they're giving you is refundable and not a cruise line cross promotion which is not refundable.

 

You can still work directly with the cruise line's air program even with a TA.

You have some of the best advice. How does one 'follow' someone on CC ?