Future Cruise Package: Any Experiences?

[Sulialto]

36 minutes ago, dog said:

My email says this too.

Hard to say - there ARE indeed Princess Packages, being offered by a third party, but identify themselves as Princess- Not sure why they’re allowed to do that. In the future cruise area on our ship they actually have a brochure (albeit a photo copied sheet), with the packages on it. I’ll try and get one and take a pic. Being you’re in the UK, I just don’t know. The actual company in the US is called Open Network Exchange, they’re basically a travel agency.

[dog]

44 minutes ago, Sulialto said:

Hard to say - there ARE indeed Princess Packages, being offered by a third party, but identify themselves as Princess- Not sure why they’re allowed to do that. In the future cruise area on our ship they actually have a brochure (albeit a photo copied sheet), with the packages on it. I’ll try and get one and take a pic. Being you’re in the UK, I just don’t know. The actual company in the US is called Open Network Exchange, they’re basically a travel agency.

In Canada

[Sulialto]

On 1/25/2024 at 6:27 PM, dog said:

In Canada

Here you go - they have these at the Future Cruise Office on board - 

[JJean]

I just called princess to book a cruise and the advisor told me about

this package and I can use it toward the cruise I book and is good for

2 years.

[Sulialto]

4 minutes ago, JJean said:

I just called princess to book a cruise and the advisor told me about

this package and I can use it toward the cruise I book and is good for

2 years.

So totally up to you - will You use the hotel credits, etc that you’re paying for? And do you trust the fact that the 3rd party will

be in business by the time you use all your investment? Not at all being contrary- just be sure you know what you’re buying😉

[wallyj]

On 1/25/2024 at 2:42 PM, Sulialto said:

Hard to say - there ARE indeed Princess Packages, being offered by a third party, but identify themselves as Princess- Not sure why they’re allowed to do that. In the future cruise area on our ship they actually have a brochure (albeit a photo copied sheet), with the packages on it. I’ll try and get one and take a pic. Being you’re in the UK, I just don’t know. The actual company in the US is called Open Network Exchange, they’re basically a travel agency.

FYI, Princess has contracted with O.N.E. to handle Future cruises(as of 1/1/2023)on board and now Loyalty(Captains Circle). Just like the Spa, Photo, Casino and other contracted departments, they all wear Princess badges. O.N.E. has access to everyone’s profile and Princess cruising history since they now administer Future cruise and Loyalty.

[Sulialto]

8 hours ago, wallyj said:

FYI, Princess has contracted with O.N.E. to handle Future cruises(as of 1/1/2023)on board and now Loyalty(Captains Circle). Just like the Spa, Photo, Casino and other contracted departments, they all wear Princess badges. O.N.E. has access to everyone’s profile and Princess cruising history since they now administer Future cruise and Loyalty.

Are you saying the Future Cruise people on board are their employees now? Might explain why, when we booked our next cruise on board, the guy we who “helped” us was clueless! We came armed with the blue printed sheets they have available & expected him to be like a travel agent, at least knowledgeable about what was available, cabin locations, etc. All he did was type into the computer to try & get answers. That company really needs to get their act together & train their people. We HAD to use them a few cruises ago, bc we had $1000. vouchers from Verizon- sadly they were also clueless & we couldn’t wait to get back to our regular agent. Oh well - I guess the routine is to just be prepared!

[wallyj]

6 hours ago, Sulialto said:

Are you saying the Future Cruise people on board are their employees now? Might explain why, when we booked our next cruise on board, the guy we who “helped” us was clueless! We came armed with the blue printed sheets they have available & expected him to be like a travel agent, at least knowledgeable about what was available, cabin locations, etc. All he did was type into the computer to try & get answers. That company really needs to get their act together & train their people. We HAD to use them a few cruises ago, bc we had $1000. vouchers from Verizon- sadly they were also clueless & we couldn’t wait to get back to our regular agent. Oh well - I guess the routine is to just be prepared!

Yes, Future cruises and Loyalty on Princess ships are in reality O.N.E. employees. Some previous Princess future cruise agents did decide to become O.N.E. Employees so you may encounter a previously knowledgeable agent/counselor. I believe the changeover was around 1/1/2023. Future cruise is now handled by a contracted third party like the Casino, Spa, Photo, and I think the Shops on Board, and wear Princess badges. I believe Effy, rents the space and they work for Effy, but again will wear a Princess badge.

[Sulialto]

5 hours ago, wallyj said:

Yes, Future cruises and Loyalty on Princess ships are in reality O.N.E. employees. Some previous Princess future cruise agents did decide to become O.N.E. Employees so you may encounter a previously knowledgeable agent/counselor. I believe the changeover was around 1/1/2023. Future cruise is now handled by a contracted third party like the Casino, Spa, Photo, and I think the Shops on Board, and wear Princess badges. I believe Effy, rents the space and they work for Effy, but again will wear a Princess badge.

Good to know - thanks!

[Gert2011]

On 2/9/2024 at 12:23 PM, wallyj said:

Yes, Future cruises and Loyalty on Princess ships are in reality O.N.E. employees. Some previous Princess future cruise agents did decide to become O.N.E. Employees so you may encounter a previously knowledgeable agent/counselor. I believe the changeover was around 1/1/2023. Future cruise is now handled by a contracted third party like the Casino, Spa, Photo, and I think the Shops on Board, and wear Princess badges. I believe Effy, rents the space and they work for Effy, but again will wear a Princess badge.

Could you please supply a source for your information?

[wallyj]

8 minutes ago, Gert2011 said:

Could you please supply a source for your information?

I have been sailing with Princess for over 20 years and have become acquainted with many former Captain Circle hosts and Future cruise consultants. They will confirm this information if you ask them directly they are O.N.E. Employees contracted by Princess.

 

The Future cruise packages are available to see on board as posted and there have been previous threads regarding them and the company O.N.E.

It is known most cruise lines contract out the Spa, Casino, Photo and Shops. A few will keep in house, I was told MSC still controls most of these venues instead of contracting out.

 

Are you doubting my information?

Edited February 11 by wallyj

[Gert2011]

36 minutes ago, wallyj said:

I have been sailing with Princess for over 20 years and have become acquainted with many former Captain Circle hosts and Future cruise consultants. They will confirm this information if you ask them directly they are O.N.E. Employees contracted by Princess.

 

The Future cruise packages are available to see on board as posted and there have been previous threads regarding them and the company O.N.E.

It is known most cruise lines contract out the Spa, Casino, Photo and Shops. A few will keep in house, I was told MSC still controls most of these venues instead of contracting out.

 

Are you doubting my information?

Absolutely, I doubt all information until I investigate and see the sources.  I did see the advertisement on the Sapphire in November while passing by the Future Cruise desk. 

 

You notice, I didn't say you were wrong, but I've learned not all information shared in print is true so I need more information before I make up my mind.

 

I've had little interaction with Future Cruise consultants as I am a TA.  I know none by name.  In 64 cruises, I've only booked one while onboard with consultant.

 

I'm glad you have cruised over 20 years, you got me beat.  I only started in 2004.

Edited February 11 by Gert2011

[wallyj]

3 hours ago, Gert2011 said:

Absolutely, I doubt all information until I investigate and see the sources.  I did see the advertisement on the Sapphire in November while passing by the Future Cruise desk. 

 

You notice, I didn't say you were wrong, but I've learned not all information shared in print is true so I need more information before I make up my mind.

 

I've had little interaction with Future Cruise consultants as I am a TA.  I know none by name.  In 64 cruises, I've only booked one while onboard with consultant.

 

I'm glad you have cruised over 20 years, you got me beat.  I only started in 2004.

I agree to take info on forums like these lightly and at least figure I may learn something. I am sure many novice cruises are not aware some of the departments are contracted since they all wear Princess badges.

 

As far as the Future cruise packages, a few passengers have shared disappointment and redemption issues. Like any investment in future travel, research and ask as many questions and get everything in writing if possible.
 

You missed out by not talking to the Princess consultants on board since 1/1/23 as Princess introduced an on board booking promo with select sailings at 50% off the Princess web rate and surprisingly the Plus package was also discounted 50%. Many times you would then be able to upgrade to Premier for only $10/day on these promos. On board, with these promos, Premier pricing was not available, but you were many times able to upgrade in the Personalizer. 

 

On a couple of sailings where the cruise Personalizer would not let me upgrade and  calling shoreside, you would be told only the cruisefare was suppose to be discounted and not the packages. They were aware but never closed this loophole, as I was able to book promo sailings in Oct 2023 and upgrade in the Personalizer to Premier for only $10/day. The 50% off promo ended at the end of Oct 2023 and it was reported some cruises were then available at 20-30% off. My last conversation with the on board consultants was bookings are doing well without promos so Princess does not need to offer any additional discounts.

 

I was able to book at least 6 additional sailings during the 50% off promo. 

 

Previously on Princess, there were very few xtra discounts/savings by booking on board.

 

I will be boarding the Discovery soon to see if any offers are available, but a friend who disembarked a few days ago said he asked and was told there were no more on board booking discounts.

[SCX22]

I didn't purchase an FCP, but know someone who did.  I asked if I could look at hotel bookings via their login.  The prices aren't really that great.  Randomly, I put in Manhattan for 3 nights in May 2024 and the prices below are what I got.  Not sure if you can use your entire point balance to redeem hotels stays.  I think, you can only use partial points, which decreases the cost of the stay.  The Princess Promotions hotel booking engine very much resembles Expedia.

[Ombud]

Is there any benefit to solos?? I found their stated hotels higher than I book and O.N.E. less willing to work with me. In fact, one O.N.E. rep actually apologized stating she had the same issue when she was assigned to work on RCCL!! 

[NAP79]

I can’t speak to other people’s experiences with this, and I do hope someone has had good luck with it, but we did not. We were looking at booking a Princess cruise for 2025 and were contacted by a Princess Cruise Travel Expert (I don’t know their official title). We asked for best pricing he could offer on the cruise and he gave it and then told me how we could save even more by buying a FCC package before booking, showed us samples of the hotel website and broke everything down. He kept trying to push the higher priced packages but they made zero sense for the cruise we wanted to book, but the $3499 with $3000 FCC package did make sense. We would be booking two specific rooms on a specific cruise and we priced it all out and talked about how the full $3000 from two FCC packages would be able to be applied (one to each room since my husband and I would each buy one and we would each be assigned to the associated staterooms). I had read this and other boards and asked him flat out if the full credit could be applied to each of the rooms based on the price and whether it was applicable to the full room fee or just the portion for the person who’s name was on the FCC. He told me it applied to the full room fee as long as the FCC holder was in that room. He said it applied to all costs associated with booking the room including Princess Plus and travel protection and that we could use the FCCs the same way whether booking through Princess or with a different travel agent/company of our choosing. And we could cancel within 7 days if we changed our minds (this he did not tell me but I found it on their website before we purchased the packages). On Tue we bought two of the $3000 FCC packages, one in my name and one in my husband’s name. Tonight (3 days later) I went to book the cruise we wanted with the very rooms we discussed and, surprise surprise, even with one room cost of $4400+ they would only apply $2300 of the one $3000 FCC to that room. Hmmm. Not what I was told. The $4400 rate quote included Princess Plus and taxes only for the room with double occupancy. Even if taxes and fees are excluded, they are nowhere near the remaining $2100 of the room rate we were quoted that they excluded from eligibility for FCC use. After a long discussion with Princess Cruises themselves, I find out that the $2300 really was the absolute max they would apply to the $4400 room. I would be stuck paying an additional $700 (per room) to book this cruise and have $700 FCC remaining (per package) that I already paid for wasted unless I booked another cruise that would fit the criteria to use them in full before the expiration date. We bought these specifically for this cruise and these rooms as the sales guy knew so I finished with Princess (and DID NOT book the cruise) and immediately called the number listed online to cancel both FCC purchases. Those requests have been submitted (3 days after purchase and well within the 7 day cancelation grace period). Of course, the person they have you talk to to cancel can’t actually issue the refund, they just submit the request. We’re supposed to be contacted by the department who can issue the refund on Monday where they want to ask questions and find out why we’re cancelling. The other hang up is we can’t book anything with Princess without using the FCCs until they are removed from our Princess accounts so the rooms we want could disappear before this gets resolved. We’ll see how it goes. If they drag their feet or give me the run around in the refunds, I’ll file with my credit card company and will never sail with Princess. Fingers crossed it won’t come to that.  Like I said before, I hope our experience is not representative of the experiences of others but the Princess Travel “expert” flat out lied, repeatedly and to very direct questions. I really hope they all aren’t doing that. Not ok.

[NAP79]

 

I can’t speak to other people’s experiences with this, and I do hope someone has had good luck with it, but we did not. We were looking at booking a Princess cruise for 2025 and were contacted by a Princess Cruise Travel Expert (I don’t know their official title). We asked for best pricing he could offer on the cruise and he gave it and then told me how we could save even more by buying a FCC package before booking, showed us samples of the hotel website and broke everything down. We saw plenty of hotel options in places and at prices we could easily use with the two year window. He kept trying to push the higher priced packages but they made zero sense for the cruise we wanted to book, but the $3499 with $3000 FCC package did make sense. We would be booking two specific rooms on a specific cruise and we priced it all out and talked about how the full $3000 from two FCC packages would be able to be applied (one to each room since my husband and I would each buy one and we would each be assigned to the associated staterooms). I had read this and other boards and asked him flat out if the full credit could be applied to each of the rooms based on the price and whether it was applicable to the full room fee or just the portion for the person who’s name was on the FCC. He told me it applied to the full room fee as long as the FCC holder was in that room. He said it applied to all costs associated with booking the room including Princess Plus and travel protection and that we could use the FCCs the same way whether booking through Princess or with a different travel agent/company of our choosing. And we could cancel within 7 days if we changed our minds (this he did not tell me but I found it on their website before we purchased the packages). On Tue we bought two of the $3000 FCC packages, one in my name and one in my husband’s name. Tonight (3 days later) I went to book the cruise we wanted with the very rooms we discussed and, surprise surprise, even with one room cost of $4400+ they would only apply $2300 of the one $3000 FCC to that room. Hmmm. Not what I was told. The $4400 rate quote included Princess Plus and taxes only for the room with double occupancy. Even if taxes and fees are excluded, they are nowhere near the remaining $2100 of the room rate we were quoted that they excluded from eligibility for FCC use. After a long discussion with Princess Cruises themselves, I find out that the $2300 really was the absolute max they would apply to the $4400 room. I would be stuck paying an additional $700 (per room) to book this cruise and have $700 FCC remaining (per package) that I already paid for wasted unless I booked another cruise that would fit the criteria to use them in full before the expiration date. We bought these specifically for this cruise and these rooms as the sales guy knew so I finished with Princess (and DID NOT book the cruise) and immediately called the number listed online to cancel both FCC purchases. Those requests have been submitted (3 days after purchase and well within the 7 day cancelation grace period). Of course, the person they have you talk to to cancel can’t actually issue the refund, they just submit the request. We’re supposed to be contacted by the department who can issue the refund on Monday where they want to ask questions and find out why we’re cancelling. The other hang up is we can’t book anything with Princess without using the FCCs until they are removed from our Princess accounts so the rooms we want could disappear before this gets resolved. We’ll see how it goes. If they drag their feet or give me the run around in the refunds, I’ll file with my credit card company and will never sail with Princess. Fingers crossed it won’t come to that.  Like I said before, I hope our experience is not representative of the experiences of others but the Princess Travel “expert” flat out lied, repeatedly and to very direct questions. I really hope they all aren’t doing that. Not ok.

[NAP79]

 

I can’t speak to other people’s experiences with this, and I do hope someone has had good luck with it, but we did not. We were looking at booking a Princess cruise for 2025 and were contacted by a Princess Cruise Travel Expert (I don’t know their official title). We asked for best pricing he could offer on the cruise and he gave it and then told me how we could save even more by buying a FCC package before booking, showed us samples of the hotel website and broke everything down. He kept trying to push the higher priced packages but they made zero sense for the cruise we wanted to book, but the $3499 with $3000 FCC package did make sense. We would be booking two specific rooms on a specific cruise and we priced it all out and talked about how the full $3000 from two FCC packages would be able to be applied (one to each room since my husband and I would each buy one and we would each be assigned to the associated staterooms). I had read this and other boards and asked him flat out if the full credit could be applied to each of the rooms based on the price and whether it was applicable to the full room fee or just the portion for the person who’s name was on the FCC. He told me it applied to the full room fee as long as the FCC holder was in that room. He said it applied to all costs associated with booking the room including Princess Plus and travel protection and that we could use the FCCs the same way whether booking through Princess or with a different travel agent/company of our choosing. And we could cancel within 7 days if we changed our minds (this he did not tell me but I found it on their website before we purchased the packages). On Tue we bought two of the $3000 FCC packages, one in my name and one in my husband’s name. Tonight (3 days later) I went to book the cruise we wanted with the very rooms we discussed and, surprise surprise, even with one room cost of $4400+ they would only apply $2300 of the one $3000 FCC to that room. Hmmm. Not what I was told. The $4400 rate quote included Princess Plus and taxes only for the room with double occupancy. Even if taxes and fees are excluded, they are nowhere near the remaining $2100 of the room rate we were quoted that they excluded from eligibility for FCC use. After a long discussion with Princess Cruises themselves, I find out that the $2300 really was the absolute max they would apply to the $4400 room. I would be stuck paying an additional $700 (per room) to book this cruise and have $700 FCC remaining (per package) that I already paid for wasted unless I booked another cruise that would fit the criteria to use them in full before the expiration date. We bought these specifically for this cruise and these rooms as the sales guy knew so I finished with Princess (and DID NOT book the cruise) and immediately called the number listed online to cancel both FCC purchases. Those requests have been submitted (3 days after purchase and well within the 7 day cancelation grace period). Of course, the person they have you talk to to cancel can’t actually issue the refund, they just submit the request. We’re supposed to be contacted by the department who can issue the refund on Monday where they want to ask questions and find out why we’re cancelling. The other hang up is we can’t book anything with Princess without using the FCCs until they are removed from our Princess accounts so the rooms we want could disappear before this gets resolved. We’ll see how it goes. If they drag their feet or give me the run around in the refunds, I’ll file with my credit card company and will never sail with Princess. Fingers crossed it won’t come to that.  Like I said before, I hope our experience is not representative of the experiences of others but the Princess Travel “expert” flat out lied, repeatedly and to very direct questions. I really hope they all aren’t doing that. Not ok.

[Jmoondance]

Thanks for the detailed info.NAP79

 

 

[PescadoAmarillo]

@NAP79, thank you for sharing your experience. I’m very sorry you’re having to deal with all that. Princess needs to either end this business relationship or manage it more closely than they are. It’s leaving a very bad impression on most of us. 

[memoak]

This is the third party vendor that now runs the future cruise department on board. “Princess Promotions” has no idea about cruising and are just sales people pushing these so called “deals”. I won’t go near them with a ten foot pole 

[memoak]

Just learn to say NO

[memoak]

ONE employees are just sales people trying to push product. They know nothing about cruising 

[wallyj]

5 hours ago, memoak said:

ONE employees are just sales people trying to push product. They know nothing about cruising 

Many are former Princess future cruise consultants that decided to accept position with O.N.E. There are some that are quite knowledgeable So YMMV.

 

Most of what is posted here is not many have had a good experience with packages and getting max value as promised/eluded in the packages.

Edited 43 minutes ago by wallyj