Please check the prices of all of your current bookings

[OCSC Mike]

1 minute ago, FionaMG said:

 

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I have actually had my TA re-price for less than that. A lot less. 😳 I did say to her to only do it if she had nothing better to do at the time, but still. I cringe now whenever I think of it. 😄

 

Where's the "I love it" button? 🤣👍

[CruiszBug]

On 6/25/2022 at 7:16 AM, Surfguyxxx said:

I just went on to RC's site for my August sailing on Explorer OTS to see what I could find.  I just saved $874.81 on my already paid for cruise so it looks like OBC will be coming.  Thanks.

My September sailing on Explorer dropped $400. Royal would only give me $180, because I had a refundable rate and they wouldn't change it to the non-refundable. 🤔

Edited June 26, 2022 by CruiszBug

[mets123]

Has anyone noticed price drops for 2023 sailings? I haven't seen any yet for my six sailings next year.

[OCSC Mike]

3 minutes ago, mets123 said:

Has anyone noticed price drops for 2023 sailings? I haven't seen any yet for my six sailings next year.

 

Yes, see my posts #133 and #135. Had price drops on Wonder in June 2023 twice in less than 24 hours recently.

[nancy2vues]

I have been working with an agent for about an hour and a half.  We got a price drop of about $350 for our January Brilliance cruise and discovered that they had somehow lost the $75 on board credit that we had for this from booking on the ship.  They are having a difficult time getting this resolved.  I have my receipt for the purchase, so hopefully they don't deny the OBC.  Just saying--double check any OBC that should "stick" with a previous booking.  I know that some go away with repricing.

[Basketball wife]

I am noticing that people are getting price adjustments for cruises after September but on the Royal site, it says

”The Cruise with Confidence Best Price Guarantee program allows guests to take advantage of better rates up to 48 hours prior to sail date! Guests must have booked on or before March 31, 2022, for sailings that depart before September 30, 2022 and they can request the difference of their booked rates versus any rate reduction. The difference in pricing will be added to the booking as an onboard credit, inside final payment, and it’ll be applied within 14 business days, and a new confirmation will be generated with the Onboard Credit value.”

 

I have asked a TA to reprice a Xmas cruise and she tells me I can’t because of this. Anyone else have this issue??

[OCSC Mike]

You're not the only being given that same bad info.

 

Repricing has been around forever and has nothing to do with the Cruise With Confidence program quoted above. Two different things.

 

Tell your TA they are wrong.

[poocher]

Boy it looks like my October Explorer cruise has gone down BUT I can’t tell for sure because the JSs are sold out.  All lower categories have dropped.  My TA says she called & they told her “No drop for you!”.  Wish there was a means of checking myself. Lots of drops reported 🤷‍♀️

[ARandomTraveler]

32 minutes ago, poocher said:

Boy it looks like my October Explorer cruise has gone down BUT I can’t tell for sure because the JSs are sold out.  All lower categories have dropped.  My TA says she called & they told her “No drop for you!”.  Wish there was a means of checking myself. Lots of drops reported 🤷‍♀️

They're correct that you can't get a price drop on a category that isn't available for sale. Technically, there is no current price attached to it because there aren't any. They don't post arbitrary prices on something they can't sell. Keep an eye out though because someone might cancel or change categories and as soon as one Junior suite is available, a price will be associated with it. 

[ARandomTraveler]

4 hours ago, Basketball wife said:

I am noticing that people are getting price adjustments for cruises after September but on the Royal site, it says

”The Cruise with Confidence Best Price Guarantee program allows guests to take advantage of better rates up to 48 hours prior to sail date! Guests must have booked on or before March 31, 2022, for sailings that depart before September 30, 2022 and they can request the difference of their booked rates versus any rate reduction. The difference in pricing will be added to the booking as an onboard credit, inside final payment, and it’ll be applied within 14 business days, and a new confirmation will be generated with the Onboard Credit value.”

 

I have asked a TA to reprice a Xmas cruise and she tells me I can’t because of this. Anyone else have this issue??

Price drops are completely different than cruise-with-confidence. Think of a price drop like going into a store, buying a pair of pants, and then going back the next day and seeing those same pants on sale for 50% off. You could return the pants, get your money back, and re-purchase them at the new sale price. This is essentially what people are doing with price drops.

 

The difference is that with a price drop, you don't have to wait for money to be refunded and then put new deposits down, they just adjust the price and give you a new, lower balance due to save everyone the hassle of canceling and rebooking. 
 

Price drops make the most sense for people who have refundable rates, because with a refundable rate, you can cancel anytime before the official final payment date and get all of your deposits and other payments refunded to you in full. So, if you see a price drop of any dollar amount, it's a savings for you. 
 

If you have a non-refundable rate, then any changes or cancellations will cost you $100 per person, making it so that getting a price drop (which is, essentially, returning your pants and re-purchasing them), costs you $100/person every time. So, your price drop needs to be more than the money you're losing to be worth it. 
 

If you have 2 people in a room with a non-refundable rate, the price drop would have to be at least $201 to see any savings, and with that example, your savings would only be $1. With a refundable rate, your savings would be the full $201.

 

I think cruise with confidence had something to do with waiving those fees for non-refundable people, or people who were booking after the official final payment date. 
 

I hope that helps make more sense of it for you. 
 

edited to add: This is all assuming that the price drop is happening before the official final payment date. After the final payment date, even "refundable" fares become somewhat non-refundable, so price drops don't exist. Think if it like the pants example - you have a receipt that says you can return the pants within the next 30 days, and after 30 days, you can't return them.

 

This may be another area where cruise with confidence comes in for people, I'm not sure. But it's possible that for people who booked their cruise prior to March 31st 2022 are eligible for receiving the amount of any price drops after that final payment date in the form of on board credit. I'm not certain on that though. With the pants example it's like having a receipt that says you can return within 30 days, and any returns after 30 days you just get store credit. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by ARandomTraveler

[poocher]

I’ve never had to pay $100 fee to get a price drop?  Even pre-covid, I had a cruise booked that I got a few drops on, never charged a fee to do it and had non-refundable fares. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[Surfguyxxx]

5 hours ago, mets123 said:

Has anyone noticed price drops for 2023 sailings? I haven't seen any yet for my six sailings next year.

I have not.  I looked but they are all the same.

[ARandomTraveler]

55 minutes ago, poocher said:

I’ve never had to pay $100 fee to get a price drop?  Even pre-covid, I had a cruise booked that I got a few drops on, never charged a fee to do it and had non-refundable fares. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

🤔 hmmm. Maybe I've always misunderstood the rules with that. Are you sure it's not just in the last couple of covid years that you've been able to do this? Have you done it recently with a cruise booked after March 31st 2022?

[poocher]

My prepandemic cruise was booked  January 2020 for a March 2021 sailing.  I got at least 3 price drops prior to April 2020.  So at least a couple of those were before the shut down.  
My understanding was that if you canceled or moved the booking to a different cruise, you paid a $100pp penalty but not just for a reprice.

Looked at some old cruise records and was also able to reprice October 2018 cruise without penalty.

Edited June 27, 2022 by poocher

[ARandomTraveler]

8 minutes ago, poocher said:

My prepandemic cruise was booked  January 2020 for a March 2021 sailing.  I got at least 3 price drops prior to April 2020.  So at least a couple of those were before the shut down.  
My understanding was that if you canceled or moved the booking to a different cruise, you paid a $100pp penalty but not just for a reprice.

You might be right. My understanding of it comes from years ago, when they first introduced the non-refundable option, and people were upset upon finding out that when they booked non-refundable rates, they couldn't get price drops, but that may have changed since then. 

[Merion_Mom]

2 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

If you have a non-refundable rate, then any changes or cancellations will cost you $100 per person, making it so that getting a price drop (which is, essentially, returning your pants and re-purchasing them), costs you $100/person every time. So, your price drop needs to be more than the money you're losing to be worth it. 
 

If you have 2 people in a room with a non-refundable rate, the price drop would have to be at least $201 to see any savings, and with that example, your savings would only be $1. With a refundable rate, your savings would be the full $201.

 

 

I'm not sure what you are thinking of, but none of this is correct.  At least, not for North American-originated bookings.

[ARandomTraveler]

17 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

I'm not sure what you are thinking of, but none of this is correct.  At least, not for North American-originated bookings.

It sounds like I've either always misunderstood that rule with non-refundable bookings, or it changed since they originally implemented non-refundable in the USA. 
 

I always understood it that price drops were allowed with refundable bookings because people could otherwise just cancel and re-book, while non-refundable bookings could not do that as easily. That either changed or I always misunderstood it. 
 

That being said, it sounds like the person whose travel agent said they weren't eligible for a price drop is wrong, and it has nothing to do with cruise with confidence or non refundable bookings, so, they should definitely call their agent back.

 

 

Sorry everyone for my spreading of vicious lies 😂

Edited June 27, 2022 by ARandomTraveler

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

That being said, it sounds like the person whose travel agent said they weren't eligible for a price drop is wrong, and it has nothing to do with cruise with confidence or non refundable bookings, so, they should definitely call their agent back.

There are some TAs who may charge for price drops, but that's  a TA rule not RCI.

[cruiselvr04]

I repriced one last week.  Moved to a large balcony on Allure from a regular balcony.  I did lose $100 OBC but saved $100.  So it was a wash to move to a bigger balcony.  We enjoy a little more space out there on the big girls but  not worth it for $300-400 more.  
 

Our cruise next month was one of those “ how did we get that deal? “ I called for a price drop of what I thought was $100 or so and it was almost $600.  In all our Jr suite dropped almost $800 from booking.  I wish that would happen more often.

 

We have 7 others that have only gone up.  But then most of those were booked when they first opened.  

[BecciBoo]

17 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

If you have a non-refundable rate, then any changes or cancellations will cost you $100 per person, making it so that getting a price drop (which is, essentially, returning your pants and re-purchasing them), costs you $100/person every time. So, your price drop needs to be more than the money you're losing to be worth it. 

Not the case with our December Odyssey.  It was non refundable as well as the Wonder 2023.  She "adjusted" the pricing.  I asked right up front if we would be penalized, the key word is "change".  I didn't change anything, I just asked for the price adjustment.  This was a price decrease.  No problem!

[DiamondDiva23]

On 6/23/2022 at 1:01 PM, Jimbo said:

you can do it

I tried to do it but they wouldn't let me. She said we could check on my cabin price but not on any other bookings. It all worked out because when my daughter called them after work she saved $190. She paid it off on the spot because she was so happy lol

[Jimbo]

1 hour ago, DiamondDiva23 said:

I tried to do it but they wouldn't let me. She said we could check on my cabin price but not on any other bookings. It all worked out because when my daughter called them after work she saved $190. She paid it off on the spot because she was so happy lol

I assumed you were just going to answer the Royal Rep questions like you were her?

[Abby323]

So my situation is that for my cruise next month, it is cheaper now for 2 GTY balconies than the 1 GTY balcony that I paid for.  I wanted to move the 3 & 4 passengers in my room to a second room but they won't do it.  I fall within the CWC guidelines and past final payment.  Part of the issue is that technically the GTY balcony category with my TA is neighborhood (which I didn't realize until after booking) and on Royal's website even though it just says GTY balcony, it must be an oceanview balcony so they will not make the change.  Very frustrating to know that had I booked now, I would be getting 2 rooms for the same category at a cheaper price.  They don't have any GTY balcony rooms available now for 4 people so technically I don't think I can reprice either.

[Morecruisesplz]

47 minutes ago, Abby323 said:

So my situation is that for my cruise next month, it is cheaper now for 2 GTY balconies than the 1 GTY balcony that I paid for.  I wanted to move the 3 & 4 passengers in my room to a second room but they won't do it.  I fall within the CWC guidelines and past final payment.  Part of the issue is that technically the GTY balcony category with my TA is neighborhood (which I didn't realize until after booking) and on Royal's website even though it just says GTY balcony, it must be an oceanview balcony so they will not make the change.  Very frustrating to know that had I booked now, I would be getting 2 rooms for the same category at a cheaper price.  They don't have any GTY balcony rooms available now for 4 people so technically I don't think I can reprice either.

Thats why you wait til after final payment to book for the lowest rate. 

[Jerseygirl1416]

52 minutes ago, Abby323 said:

So my situation is that for my cruise next month, it is cheaper now for 2 GTY balconies than the 1 GTY balcony that I paid for.  I wanted to move the 3 & 4 passengers in my room to a second room but they won't do it.  I fall within the CWC guidelines and past final payment.  Part of the issue is that technically the GTY balcony category with my TA is neighborhood (which I didn't realize until after booking) and on Royal's website even though it just says GTY balcony, it must be an oceanview balcony so they will not make the change.  Very frustrating to know that had I booked now, I would be getting 2 rooms for the same category at a cheaper price.  They don't have any GTY balcony rooms available now for 4 people so technically I don't think I can reprice either.

If your reservation is protected by CWC why couldn’t you cancel that reservation without penalty and rebook the two gty cabins and apply your credit to those new reservations?