USD prices vs CAD - something ain't right

[nbsjcruiser]

So I was looking at possibly booking a 7 day western out of Miami in March 2024. I priced it in Canadian and it totalled $1489. Pricing in US dollars was $789. Now I'm no mathematician but that conversion rate MSC is using to book in CAD seems quite a bit off. Going on my own bank site just now I was able to purchase $789 USD for $1077CAD for a conversion rate of appx $0.73. MSC is over charging about $400 to book in Canadian. Is this normal?

[bigblue1952]

I found this to be fairly normal after pricing out several cruises.  I now book on the US website for better pricing.

[perakcruiser]

1 hour ago, nbsjcruiser said:

Is this normal?

Yes, all countries have different prices. 

[mackfam]

One thing I’ve noticed is the Canadian website includes all the taxes and fees in the price from the get go while the US site adds them on at the end (click on ‘fare summary’ to see this.) I recently priced a cruise on both sites and until I noticed this I also thought that they were using a really bad exchange rate, but when you get the final price from the US site it’s actually quite comparable with whatever the going rate is (within about $50).

[Selion]

27 minutes ago, mackfam said:

One thing I’ve noticed is the Canadian website includes all the taxes and fees in the price from the get go while the US site adds them on at the end

Because a lot of people are attracted to low & splashy initial costs, click baits if you will.  Can't sell them cruises if they won't even look at your listing!  It's like eBay of 20 years ago: $1 PlayStations with $899 in shipping & handling.

[Lugger11]

I used a US-based online travel broker/agent and got a fantastic price. Paid in USD.

HOWEVER, I couldn't sign up for loyalty club as the US site recognized my booking number, but wouldn't accept my Canadian address. The Canadian site wouldn't recognize my booking number.

SIGH.

Maybe if I get bored I'll deal with it on the ship, if they have a loyalty desk.

[styles27]

2 hours ago, bigblue1952 said:

I found this to be fairly normal after pricing out several cruises.  I now book on the US website for better pricing.

I thought you had to use the website from the country of your residence?

[bigblue1952]

Apparently not.  I have used a US travel agent and have logins for both the Canadian and US MSC sites.

[kelleherdl]

1 hour ago, styles27 said:

I thought you had to use the website from the country of your residence?

Yes, you can log into another country website, but doing a successful booking on the public website of the other country did not work for me.  Maybe the travel agents using their booking engine can bypass borders. 😀 I tried to book a cruise I know to be popular with our UK friends, but the UK site reminded me to go home. 

[Morgsmom]

4 minutes ago, kelleherdl said:

Yes, you can log into another country website, but doing a successful booking on the public website of the other country did not work for me.  Maybe the travel agents using their booking engine can bypass borders. 😀 I tried to book a cruise I know to be popular with our UK friends, but the UK site reminded me to go home. 

BWHAHAHAHA.  I've often found better rates on the MSC Italy site but can't book because the default country of address origin is Italy and you can't override it...

[lienf]

3 hours ago, Lugger11 said:

I used a US-based online travel broker/agent and got a fantastic price. Paid in USD.

HOWEVER, I couldn't sign up for loyalty club as the US site recognized my booking number, but wouldn't accept my Canadian address. The Canadian site wouldn't recognize my booking number.

SIGH.

Maybe if I get bored I'll deal with it on the ship, if they have a loyalty desk.

I also use s US TA but I got my loyalty club membership before I booked our first MSC cruise so that she could apply the number to get any discount that would apply. I also book in US funds which seems to be better for us. I don’t think it’s only MSC because I have seen a 40% differential price on some Celebrity cruises. It wouldn’t hurt for Canadians to check both prices. 

[nbsjcruiser]

18 hours ago, mackfam said:

One thing I’ve noticed is the Canadian website includes all the taxes and fees in the price from the get go while the US site adds them on at the end (click on ‘fare summary’ to see this.) I recently priced a cruise on both sites and until I noticed this I also thought that they were using a really bad exchange rate, but when you get the final price from the US site it’s actually quite comparable with whatever the going rate is (within about $50).

Ahhhh yes, I hadn't noticed that. You're right. When I went back and did a pretend booking on the US site the price ends up at $1078USD = $1471CAD. I changed countries to Canada and the price ends up at $1482CAD.