Any Advantage of booking future River cruise while Onboard Ocean cruise?

[NavyCruiser]

We've done a few V river previously.

Will be on our first V ocean cruise next week.

Looking at booking another V river cruise with a good promo code that expires end of month.

So any additional advantages or perks if we wait until next week to book while onboard V ocean cruise?  or just go ahead & book now?

Understand that there may be a few less avail cabins if we wait a week, but site currently shows there's plenty of that cabins in that category left.

Thanks,

[Squawkman]

There are 2 options: you will be offered to book on board, and the perks increase with the length of the cruise. Unless things change, one perk will be SBC for your current cruise which you can use towards gratuities if you haven’t prepaid them. The other option is to book with a Viking agent within 2 weeks of disembarkation which gets you $200pp SBC for for the new cruise. Might be a better deal especially for a short cruise.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Squawkman
Spelling

[MikeyB]

Squawkman-

We previously discussed this.  Your Viking agent seems to have the power to always offer you the post cruise discount.  My experience, as I previously stated is that the post cruise offer is targeted.  Not everyone will get the call.  You certainly will never get a post cruise call if you transfer your booking to a TA.

If you book while onboard an Ocean cruise, you get two discounts, one for the current cruise and a discount for the new booking cruise.

If it was me, I would wait till your on your cruise.  Set up a date immediately to speak to the future cruise consultant.  They get very busy as the cruise progresses.

[NavyCruiser]

Update:

I've printed out on paper the exact river cruise we wanted for later this year.

Once onboard ocean ship, I've handed paper info to cruise consultant, & she booked exact cruise for us.

Here's the perks/promos we received by booking onboard:

RCR promo code:  Per person

-$500  Booking discount

-$200  Past Guest Level 1 discount

-$200  Onboard booking savings

-$1399  Free Air discount promo

 

Notes:

Agent was completely booked up with 30 minutes appointments, but she added extra appt for us at 9:30pm for after dinner appt.   Very professional & efficient.

We've added $100 pp Air Plus.

So just called Viking Air Plus dept this morning & get our exact flights we wanted...

 

[NavyCruiser]

Edit to the update above: (Sorry, it won't let me edit...)

I've printed out on paper the exact river cruise we wanted for later this year.

Once onboard ocean ship, I've handed paper info to cruise consultant, & she booked exact cruise for us.

Here's the perks/promos we received by booking onboard:

RCR promo code:  Per person

$25  pp Deposit, & we got $100 pp ($200 total for our cabin) OBC for current cruise

-$500  Booking discount

-$200  Past Guest Level 1 discount

-$200  Onboard booking savings

-$1399  Free Air discount promo

 

Notes:

Agent was completely booked up with 30 minutes appointments, but she added extra appt for us at 9:30pm for after dinner appt.   Very professional & efficient.

We also have $200 pp discount certificate/voucher, that we bought for $100 on a previous river cruise last year, that we'll add to reservation later

We've added $100 pp Air Plus.

Just called Viking Air Plus dept this morning & get our exact flights we wanted.

So we have up until mid-May for final payment, if we cancel, we'll lose the $50 deposit, but still came up $150 ahead from our $200 OBC we've just used...

[Silly Gilly]

We are trying to book a viking river cruise for march or april and we can not find the promo code that ends tomorrow.  Do have that code

[CDR2001]

9 hours ago, Silly Gilly said:

We are trying to book a viking river cruise for march or april and we can not find the promo code that ends tomorrow.  Do have that code

 

Look here for current promotions. Thanks to other cruise critic members…..
https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2863068-post-viking-promos/page/20/#comment-64740098

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by CDR2001

[OneSixtyToOne]

13 hours ago, Silly Gilly said:

We are trying to book a viking river cruise for march or april and we can not find the promo code that ends tomorrow.  Do have that code

They may have extended that promo with FR23 which ends Feb 28th

https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/topic/2863068-post-viking-promos/?do=findComment&comment=64734559

 

[NavyCruiser]

RCR promo code

[phil1107]

I read some advice somewhere that it is best to pre-pay as much as possible - drinks package and gratuities. And of course, excursions have to be paid upfront to secure the booking.

 

So if I book a future cruise and receive an onboard credit, I am not sure how I could use it.

[millybess]

9 minutes ago, phil1107 said:

And of course, excursions have to be paid upfront to secure the booking.

 

I’m not sure what this means. We have never had to pay for excursions upfront to “secure the booking”. 

9 minutes ago, phil1107 said:

 

 

So if I book a future cruise and receive an onboard credit, I am not sure how I could use it.

Gratuities. 

[phil1107]

4 minutes ago, millybess said:

I’m not sure what this means. We have never had to pay for excursions upfront to “secure the booking”. 

Gratuities. 

The excursion page shows ‘payment is required to secure the reservation’

 

And if I prepay the gratuities as I have seen recommended, I would nothing on my account to be paid. I would lose the OBC.

[LindaS272]

Not sure where you’ve seen the recommendation to pre-pay SSP & gratuities. In fact, our man @Clay Claytonhas a nice tutorial about why not to pre-pay gratuities. And since the gratuities are not required, why would you want to prepay them? As for the SSP, there’s no advantage in prepaying either. Whenever we’ve been given OBC for booking a cruise onboard, we’ve always used it to pay the gratuities (because we don’t pre-pay). Now, if you do want to use OBC for the SSP, you have to pay at the beginning of the cruise—not sure if they give you a day or two beyond embarkation day—so you’d have to book right away.

[longterm]

On 1/7/2023 at 4:35 PM, NavyCruiser said:

So any additional advantages or perks if we wait until next week to book while onboard V ocean cruise?  

In addition to some onboard credits that you'll be offered, your final payment date will probably b e pushed back significantly. On our upcoming cruise in mid-2024, we don't have to make our final payment until January 2024 (6 months out), rather than more than a year away.

[millybess]

28 minutes ago, phil1107 said:

The excursion page shows ‘payment is required to secure the reservation’

 

And if I prepay the gratuities as I have seen recommended, I would nothing on my account to be paid. I would lose the OBC.

Do you mean the reservation for the excursion?  
 

We never prepay gratuities. In our case, we never know what we’ll get up to on board to generate Viking OBC which would pay for the gratuities. 

 

It would be helpful if you posted a link to where you got these recommendations. They are very different from our experience. 

[phil1107]

So can I still get the 3.3% discount if I pay onboard?

[Clay Clayton]

The only reasons I would ever prepay gratuities or Silver Spirits is if:

 

1. I was using a voucher that stated it had to be used before boarding (this was the case with many (most? all?) that folks got when covid canceled so many cruises

 

2. Had personal reasons to not have to deal with paying for these after the cruise. 

 

3. To be able to get the 3.3% by paying by electronic transfer. Someone with experience with paying this way will need to confirm but I think anything paid for onboard has to be done with a credit card.  

 

You are correct, if you want to reserve an excursion, you have to pay for it ahead of time. You’re also correct that if you pay for everything ahead of time, you might have trouble using any shipboard credit you receive by booking another cruise onboard….unless you enjoy buying a Viking shirt or getting a haircut while onboard. 

[molymoo]

We generally pay ahead for SSBP and have paid ahead for gratuities once ... we had a voucher ... if you pay ahead and use the electronic transfer you do get a discount.  Charges onboard are by credit card only.  We paid ahead for the SSBP for our Spring and Summer Cruises and got the electronic transfer discount and paid the $19.95 / pppd price rather than the new $25.00 / pppd.  Not a huge deal but every little bit helps!

 

[SempreMare]

On 1/7/2023 at 5:40 PM, Squawkman said:

 The other option is to book with a Viking agent within 2 weeks of disembarkation which gets you $200pp SBC for for the new cruise. 

 

Great tip! 

 

Edit:  Just saw the caveat in a later post that not every Viking agent offers this

Edited February 23, 2023 by SempreMare

[Squawkman]

25 minutes ago, SempreMare said:

 

Great tip! 

 

Edit:  Just saw the caveat in a later post that not every Viking agent offers this

I can’t speak for all Viking agents, but I’ve been using the same one for over 5 years and always get the “welcome back” credit of or all cruises booked within 2 weeks. I guess I can email you his name and extension if you’re interested.

[SempreMare]

1 minute ago, Squawkman said:

I can’t speak for all Viking agents, but I’ve been using the same one for over 5 years and always get the “welcome back” credit of or all cruises booked within 2 weeks. I guess I can email you his name and extension if you’re interested.

Yes Please!    

 

I believe I still have my semi-public email in my sig but if not it's 

travelinsurancecompared@gmail.com 

 

(From the days when I had a public google doc comparing travel insurance. 

Now i just call Steve Dasseos & team at Trip Insurance Store and do whatever they recommend for the situation.)

 

Thank you @Squawkman

 

[longterm]

15 hours ago, millybess said:

I’m not sure what this means. We have never had to pay for excursions upfront to “secure the booking”. 

Gratuities. 

I have ALWAYS had to pay for excursions to secure the bookings. If you don't, you haven't actually booked the excursion.

[LindaS272]

Sure, I didn’t think about the 3.3% discount when paying from home in advance. But I’ve also seen folks have difficulty getting their cash back for advance gratuities if they have to cancel before the cruise.

[millybess]

4 hours ago, longterm said:

I have ALWAYS had to pay for excursions to secure the bookings. If you don't, you haven't actually booked the excursion.

Yes, us too. I misunderstood what he was referring to. However, is it unusual to pay 3 months out for excursions?  We’ve only cruised with Viking, so we just thought that was the norm. Do other lines do it differently?

[Clay Clayton]

3 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

Sure, I didn’t think about the 3.3% discount when paying from home in advance. But I’ve also seen folks have difficulty getting their cash back for advance gratuities if they have to cancel before the cruise.

Or it like us something causes the cruise to be shortened.