No exchanges anymore for mini bar to coffee?

[Steelers36]

On 4/6/2023 at 1:00 PM, Happiest when cruising said:

Hmm. I’m not even sure we pay tax on coffee in Canada.

In ON, anything like that (prepared) or quick-service item is subject to HST unless under $4.  Been like that for years and of course, successive gov'ts have never adjusted the original amount for inflation, so there isn't much left that fall under the limit.  (At Tim's, you would have to order 1 donut at a time - LOL).

Edited April 11, 2023 by Steelers36

[PacnGoNow]

2 hours ago, BETELVE said:

This morning at Customer Service on the Caribbean Princess I was able to exchange my mini-bar for a $40 credit.

I hope it was $40 per person. 

[cr8tiv1]

36 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

I hope it was $40 per person. 

 

Very doubtful.  That would be $80 and Princess would be losing money in the exchange.

[Guest ldtr]

21 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

Very doubtful.  That would be $80 and Princess would be losing money in the exchange.

The old value for the coffee cards purchase for two was $70.  Which allowed someone to buy (if all 15 was used for more expensive coffees) around $135. Worth of coffee.  Since the individual has to buy their own coffee they would still be ahead at $80 so would not be losing money compared to the old option.

[PacnGoNow]

29 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

Very doubtful.  That would be $80 and Princess would be losing money in the exchange.

I doubt it also. Just a comment, as I think $40 is very low.  

[srpilo]

On 4/6/2023 at 7:55 AM, JimmyVWine said:

Right?  I was told earlier in this thread that the prices were $5.00 if not more.  

That Coffee price list out of days as of 10 days ago, as example because I drink them, a small "Americano" is now $3:50, and no longer the $2:00 price listed on the above thread price list photo, all other coffee variations have increased also

 

Just off the Enchanted last week ...

 

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, ldtr said:

The old value for the coffee cards purchase for two was $70.  Which allowed someone to buy (if all 15 was used for more expensive coffees) around $135. Worth of coffee.  Since the individual has to buy their own coffee they would still be ahead at $80 so would not be losing money compared to the old option.

It doesn't cost PCL $80 to provide $135 retail worth of product.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

It doesn't cost PCL $80 to provide $135 retail worth of product.

Considering that it is OBC it would not cost them that anyway.  Since it is given by the cruise line it would be not refundable.  80 OBC would be more like 40 in actual cost.

[Happiest when cruising]

3 hours ago, srpilo said:

That Coffee price list out of days as of 10 days ago, as example because I drink them, a small "Americano" is now $3:50, and no longer the $2:00 price listed on the above thread price list photo, all other coffee variations have increased also

 

Just off the Enchanted last week ...

 

Thanks for the update on the pricing. 
 

 

[PacnGoNow]

9 hours ago, srpilo said:

That Coffee price list out of days as of 10 days ago, as example because I drink them, a small "Americano" is now $3:50, and no longer the $2:00 price listed on the above thread price list photo, all other coffee variations have increased also

 

Just off the Enchanted last week ...

 

I should have taken a picture of the coffee costs in the IC.  We must have been on the same cruise?  Did you take a picture? TIA

[kywildcatfanone]

11 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

It doesn't cost PCL $80 to provide $135 retail worth of product.

I doubt that coffee card with 15 drinks and unlimited brew cost them less than $5/customer.  All these packages cost them pennies on the dollar, which is why they are huge cash revenues for them and they push them so hard.

[MissP22]

18 hours ago, BETELVE said:

This morning at Customer Service on the Caribbean Princess I was able to exchange my mini-bar for a $40 credit.

I'd still accept it even if it is a low price for both people.

Next might be a buy back credit for laundry service. 😁

[voljeep]

wasn't / isn't the exchange a bottle of wine around $40?

[PacnGoNow]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

wasn't / isn't the exchange a bottle of wine around $40?

Yes, they wouldn’t let me exchange for a better wine.  My choice was a bottle of wine at $44, if I wanted to trade it for the mini bar recently on Enchanted.

 

RS had to check with a supervisor for my choices.

[AliceS]

On 4/2/2023 at 6:57 PM, AE_Collector said:

We just did something we have never done before, cancelled a cruise. We have booked and completed 43 Princess cruises totalling 444 days. But, there is a first for everything. We have always been more than satisfied with our time onboard Princess but the combination of steady reduction of Elite Perks along with a bunch of other problems all related to booking with Princess has made us realize after 10 years of exclusive loyalty that we made a mistake. So, we’re starting over looking around elsewhere. No one or two or even three of these complaints are worth this drastic action but I didn’t bore you with all the rest of the apparently unresolvable problems and three attempts to discuss with Customer Relations has led to no attempted contact from them. We are more than disappointed.

I totally agree with your post.   My take is that Princess made it so easy to become elite with saying 15 cruises….counting very short trips…..created a problem for them.   They have to feed the beast that they created.   All I saw when cruising Princess were perks disappearing.   The onboard credit was a big loss for me.  $100 no more?   I have been cruising Celebrity and Holland and they have another higher loyalty level.   Princess needs to do that to get me back.   Not saying never, but no way with the same faithfulness.   

[AE_Collector]

On 4/11/2023 at 1:26 PM, Steelers36 said:

A fall-back for sure.  I wonder if they get that from approx value of 20 waters?  I get more value from 10 beer and 10 Perrier.  

My guess at the $40 OBC would be that $40 is about the limit for the swap to a bottle of wine.

[AE_Collector]

On 4/12/2023 at 5:53 PM, AliceS said:

I totally agree with your post.   My take is that Princess made it so easy to become elite with saying 15 cruises….counting very short trips…..created a problem for them.   They have to feed the beast that they created.   All I saw when cruising Princess were perks disappearing.   The onboard credit was a big loss for me.  $100 no more?   I have been cruising Celebrity and Holland and they have another higher loyalty level.   Princess needs to do that to get me back.   Not saying never, but no way with the same faithfulness.   

I wasn’t griping about some of the early cutbacks to the perks as I know they had a terrible time getting through Covid without going broke and it isn’t over yet. So I cut them a lot of slack there but the cuts just keep coming and of course it is mainly the higher levels that have more to lose. The captains circle loyalty benefit is presumably the $100 perk you mentioned that is gone. It’s the one that started at $25 and steps up to $50, $75 and finally $100 when you were over 50 cruises. We were to step from $50 to $75 on our first cruise after restart but instead we had to return to go and didn’t collect anything. Things like this elimination of the minibar swap to coffee cards just seems pointless to me. That’s one they could have easily found a way to leave alone or even improve it slightly by allowing the swap of half the minibar to one coffee card. 

[rj59]

Coffee is about to get a lot more complicated and probably expensive, since they signed a deal with Lavazza a few weeks ago, which will probably involve price increases and new drink options, and they mentioned integrating it with meals, tastings, etc. To put price in perspective, though, there's no coffee drink on Celebrity that's under $5, and you get a hard-sell to pay for a drinks package every time you try to buy a coffee (as well as the hugely annoying slip to sign with a spot for additional tip beyond 18%). If you walk into a Starbucks or any other coffee place now, any latte is going to be well above $5, just as restaurant rampant price rises make the zero cost of MDR dishes an even better bargain. 

Personally, I find the perks of Princess superior to me than any other lines, which usually involve discounts to get you to buy things, rather than outride freebies. One reason I've never swapped out the minibar for coffee is that it's so much more valuable to me to make my own cocktails than to use the generous military/shareholder OBC for a daily Americano or latte, and most of the minibottles go home with me and are used for cocktails at home. Another reason I don't swap for coffee is that it usually takes 1-2 days to get anything swapped out, especially with room service completely slammed by the ease of ordering through the app (free room service is also disappearing on all the other lines), and it's rather pointless to get a coffee card full of value if I only have 5 days (fewer on the 5-night Cabo and shorter coastal cruises I like), and I don't want to have another meltdown waiting for room service to do a swap, as I did on a full Discovery last summer. I'd say that if you tally up what those outraged by losing coffee cards pay for their cabins and transportation and excursions or just a nice meal out at home, it's likely to be trivial. I've had plenty of meltdowns over changes and bad experiences on every line and have made the same "I'm never sailing with them again" vow many times, but then I miss ships and things about lines and I find a good deal and I end up coming back. I ask myself "Are you going to run out of money"? No. "Are you going to run out of life?" Yes, so I try to act accordingly and not sweat the small stuff. Except for no more pillow chocolates..heads will roll at Princess after my sternly-worded letter! 🙂

[AE_Collector]

Lol, the chocolates on the pillow. Celebrity decided to eliminate them back in about 2015. It didn’t take long for the outrage to make them cave and bring them back again. But, maybe they got rid of them again no after Covid like Princess did, no idea. But my favourite story about this was that we cruised to Hawaii one way on Princess and stayed for a week or so in Honolulu before flying home. We used to have a habit of keeping most of the chocolates and taking them home to remind us of our last and next cruise while at home. We had friends who cruised to Hawaii on Celebrity right when they had eliminated the chocolates. Celebrity frequently would cruise to Honolulu and overnight there before continuing on around the islands. So, we met up with our friends in Honolulu for two days in a row when we were finished our cruise and they would be continuing on with theirs. So when we heard from them about “no more chocolates” and all the complaints from other passengers on Celebrity we promptly sent our bag of well labelled Princess chocolates with them to take onboard and hand out to other incensed passengers. I’m certain that Celebrity appreciated that!

[Ombud]

Hopefully this can be answered here. Would hate to start yet another new thread so here goes~~~~

 

For those who traded the minibar for OBC, how did you do it? Who did you ask? I traded for a bottle of wine but never opened it. Flying home next time & not checking luggage so a bottle of wine might not be opened. 

 

Want to trade for OBC

 

Side note: price list on Post 403 was correct for Royal Princess last week but they couldn't charge me for the large pot Vanilla Mighty Leaf tea. LOL their lost ( should have been $2.38 inc tax)

Edited April 26, 2023 by Ombud

[PacnGoNow]

13 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Hopefully this can be answered here. Would hate to start yet another new thread so here goes~~~~

 

For those who traded the minibar for OBC, how did you do it? Who did you ask? I traded for a bottle of wine but never opened it. Flying home next time & not checking luggage so a bottle of wine might not be opened. 

 

Want to trade for OBC

For OBC, called GS from the cabin on 1st cruise. They gave us $50 PP OBC.

2nd cruise, traded for 1 bottle wine, value $44.

 

Not sure if they are offering OBC anymore on the cruises because of the discontinued coffee packages.  
 

This was March, last month, Enchanted.

 

 

 

[1965]

On Feb. cruise I called room service to trade mini bar for coffee pkgs. She said sure. They took the mini bar. Later they called me & apologozed, saying they no longer did the swap. I went to cs. She said they would return the mini bar. But we didn't want the mini bar. I said obc would make me happy again. She consulted someone, a supervisor I guess,then gave us $50 pp obc. 

[MissP22]

9 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

For OBC, called GS from the cabin on 1st cruise. They gave us $50 PP OBC.

2nd cruise, traded for 1 bottle wine, value $44.

 

Not sure if they are offering OBC anymore on the cruises because of the discontinued coffee packages.  
 

This was March, last month, Enchanted.

 

 

 

We missed out on that trade for OBC but we'll give it a try on our next trip.

[Steelers36]

14 hours ago, Ombud said:

Hopefully this can be answered here. Would hate to start yet another new thread so here goes~~~~

 

For those who traded the minibar for OBC, how did you do it? Who did you ask? I traded for a bottle of wine but never opened it. Flying home next time & not checking luggage so a bottle of wine might not be opened. 

 

Want to trade for OBC

 

Side note: price list on Post 403 was correct for Royal Princess last week but they couldn't charge me for the large pot Vanilla Mighty Leaf tea. LOL their lost ( should have been $2.38 inc tax)

Even if the ship is still offering some OBC in lieu of no more coffee plan swap (and that OBC seems to have ceased happening), I doubt you will be successful attempting a re-swap since you already accepted the wine.

 

[PacnGoNow]

7 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Even if the ship is still offering some OBC in lieu of no more coffee plan swap (and that OBC seems to have ceased happening), I doubt you will be successful attempting a re-swap since you already accepted the wine.

 

I think @Ombud was referring to a past cruise, where they swapped for a bottle of wine.  I don’t think it is a re-swap. 

 

I read it as the next cruise.  Correct me if I’m wrong.
 

IDK if they are still doing OBC though.  I’m wondering if it makes a difference if you had prepurchased the coffee cards?  Many of us purchased these cards for future cruises, way before they were discontinued.