Final price increased by over $3,000 celebrity refuses to honor it.

[andydunn]

We booked on the July 2nd Bermuda cruise in February. Got a great deal under the promotion they were having at the time. They confirmed the prices in the reservation email AND in an invoice they sent. This was all booked through my celebrity account on the website.

 

This week we got the notification of final payment for next week and the price had increased by over $3000.

 

I called and they assured me there was a mistake and they would correct it. After 30 minutes with them consulting with someone they told me that since I live in WA I wasn't eligible for the promotion at the time and so they had remove all promotions. 

 

After escalating they told me the best they could offer me was a price still $2k more than I booked - or cancel. They said that at some point after I booked someone changed my residency to WA (I've always lived in WA, my previous cruises with Celebrity have me from WA, and my account has my currant address). She was unable to tell me when and who made this change that altered the price. 

 

Since they would not budge and I don't have an extra $2k I had no choice but to cancel. I feel like since the price has gone up they didn't care at all as they will get more revenue from a new booking. Worst experience I've ever had with a cruise line.

 

Before I try to cancel flights etc is there any way to escalate this? Any celebrity people in this forum who can help? 

 

Of course after all of this they tell me that they hope I have a good rest of my day - hilarious!

[Georgia_Peaches]

Do you have a booking invoice with your final payment amount due and date?  If so, I'm not sure why they won't honor the booked rate.  What is the reason they are giving you?  I'd call back and speak with a different agent.  I know this is frustrating!

 

 

Edited March 27, 2023 by Georgia_Peaches

[Jeremiah1212]

No one here can offer any direct help but I would send a message to them either on Facebook or Twitter briefly explaining the situation and asking for a call back. This doesn't make sense. I feel like they couldn't figure it out and just landed on the issue being due to a resident rate that wasn't available to Washington. 

[cheeseheads4ever]

This is so terrible. Others may know more but I’d take it higher up the ladder. You should have a binding contract with the prior price I would think.

I wouldn’t have cancelled but this for sure is not right. Sorry for your horrific experience.

Edited March 27, 2023 by cheeseheads4ever

[Georgia_Peaches]

4 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

I feel like they couldn't figure it out and just landed on the issue being due to a resident rate that wasn't available to Washington. 

I agree.  I've never seen a resident rate alter a cruise price but such an amount.

[Dar & Bob]

19 minutes ago, andydunn said:

We booked on the July 2nd Bermuda cruise in February. Got a great deal under the promotion they were having at the time. They confirmed the prices in the reservation email AND in an invoice they sent. This was all booked through my celebrity account on the website.

 

This week we got the notification of final payment for next week and the price had increased by over $3000.

 

I called and they assured me there was a mistake and they would correct it. After 30 minutes with them consulting with someone they told me that since I live in WA I wasn't eligible for the promotion at the time and so they had remove all promotions. 

 

After escalating they told me the best they could offer me was a price still $2k more than I booked - or cancel. They said that at some point after I booked someone changed my residency to WA (I've always lived in WA, my previous cruises with Celebrity have me from WA, and my account has my currant address). She was unable to tell me when and who made this change that altered the price. 

 

Since they would not budge and I don't have an extra $2k I had no choice but to cancel. I feel like since the price has gone up they didn't care at all as they will get more revenue from a new booking. Worst experience I've ever had with a cruise line.

 

Before I try to cancel flights etc is there any way to escalate this? Any celebrity people in this forum who can help? 

 

Of course after all of this they tell me that they hope I have a good rest of my day - hilarious!

Just curious if your confirmation has your correct address on it.  I just looked at confirmations I have received and the strange thing is that they have our street address and United States but no city or state.  Very strange that they have promos that are not applicable to certain states.

[Jeremiah1212]

If you can post this portion of your original booking invoice it would help a little bit. 

 

 

 

 

[miched]

Who did you book thru?   If not X contact them. 
 

If X I would call them.   There is probably a glitch in their system.  It happens a lot.

 

X has always treated us more than fair and we have got a bait and switch or price increase.  On our last cruise we received a refund of a few dollars for port taxes.   They didn’t have to do that as we would have never known.  

 

Good luck

 

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

[NorthStarStateCruiser]

55 minutes ago, andydunn said:

We booked on the July 2nd Bermuda cruise in February. Got a great deal under the promotion they were having at the time. They confirmed the prices in the reservation email AND in an invoice they sent. This was all booked through my celebrity account on the website.

 

This week we got the notification of final payment for next week and the price had increased by over $3000.

 

I called and they assured me there was a mistake and they would correct it. After 30 minutes with them consulting with someone they told me that since I live in WA I wasn't eligible for the promotion at the time and so they had remove all promotions. 

 

After escalating they told me the best they could offer me was a price still $2k more than I booked - or cancel. They said that at some point after I booked someone changed my residency to WA (I've always lived in WA, my previous cruises with Celebrity have me from WA, and my account has my currant address). She was unable to tell me when and who made this change that altered the price. 

 

Since they would not budge and I don't have an extra $2k I had no choice but to cancel. I feel like since the price has gone up they didn't care at all as they will get more revenue from a new booking. Worst experience I've ever had with a cruise line.

 

Before I try to cancel flights etc is there any way to escalate this? Any celebrity people in this forum who can help? 

 

Of course after all of this they tell me that they hope I have a good rest of my day - hilarious!

Resident deals should not have that significant of impact on the price.  They might be correct that you didn't qualify for a certain deal, but certainly shouldn't be forcing you to pay the current price of the cruise.  You can ask them to fetch the price of the cruise at the time of your initial booking and see what the price difference is.  They should have this history in their booking system.  Hopefully this makes sense to you and to them.

[andydunn]

Oh they could clearly see the price when I booked they even commented what a great deal it was. They were super friendly about correcting it until the supervisor came in and told them I wasn't eligible due to being in WA.

 

I have less than a week left to pay the remaining balance and my options were to pay the extra 2k that they considered a compromise or cancel. They would not budge.

 

 

[39august]

Send a note to Lutoff-Perlo@celebritycruises.com. That should get you a call from her office. 

[Georgia_Peaches]

Just now, andydunn said:

Oh they could clearly see the price when I booked they even commented what a great deal it was. They were super friendly about correcting it until the supervisor came in and told them I wasn't eligible due to being in WA.

 

I have less than a week left to pay the remaining balance and my options were to pay the extra 2k that they considered a compromise or cancel. They would not budge.

 

 

So very disappointing.  I hope you can find a cruise with a similar itinerary on another line.  This would leave me ruling out Celebrity for a while.

 

Still left wondering why rates for WA would even be visible if that state wasn't eligible.  Don't you have to input your location when faring a cruise?  And if those fares appeared when they shouldn't have, isn't that on Celebrity?...I'm sure there's some fine print somewhere in the contract that speaks to this scenario.  Sucha bummer..

[mahdnc]

Keep pushing your point.  I hope Celebrity ends up honoring the original quote.  Good luck.

[NorthStarStateCruiser]

32 minutes ago, andydunn said:

Oh they could clearly see the price when I booked they even commented what a great deal it was. They were super friendly about correcting it until the supervisor came in and told them I wasn't eligible due to being in WA.

 

I have less than a week left to pay the remaining balance and my options were to pay the extra 2k that they considered a compromise or cancel. They would not budge.

 

 

What was the cabin category and price on your original invoice? Do you have AI?

[Arizona Wildcat]

Recently we had a promotion that offered $1000 to residents of my home state.  Booked two cabins.  Received my invoice correct.  Other invoice had no address.  When it came to final payment they removed the promo credit from the second cabin as they resided in another state.  I said to put my FW and the other lady in the other cabin.  Response was too late.  Read some of the 20 pages of the fine print and they were correct.  They refunded my $$.  Was told it was my responsibility to call and give Celebrity the correct details for the passengers 

 

The problem for the OP if I understand what they did is they booked a promo they were eligible.  They got an invoice via email that was not complete.  Thus at the time the mistake surfaces and is corrected the booking is repriced at the price at the time of repricing.

 

What makes no sense is the OP says this was a WA resident rate and that they live in WA.  Confused.

 

I now always use my TA.  They handle stuff like this.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Arizona Wildcat

[Shiba_Lover]

What offer do they think you had?  This look like their 75% promo they have been running for several months, not like a resident rate.

 

Edited March 27, 2023 by ehall

[andydunn]

To answer everyone's questions:

1. We live in WA and that's what we entered when we booked it. They are claiming that somehow I managed to book for a different state and it was later corrected (they wont say how or by who) and that increased the price.

 

2. My address doesn't appear on the invoice or the confirmation email.

3. It was booked directly with Celebrity on their website.

 

4. @39August - thanks for the email address I will try that.

 

5. Here's the original booking - I think the LOCLXALLINC is what got removed - hence the $3200 increase. We were excited to get such a great deal.

[NMTraveller]

Yet another reason to book through a TA.

[andydunn]

7 hours ago, 39august said:

Send a note to Lutoff-Perlo@celebritycruises.com. That should get you a call from her office. 

 

The correct email is 

llutoff-perlo@celebritycruises.com

 

Thanks - I have sent in a request for an escalation. I dont hold out much hope at this point. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by andydunn

[OysterD]

4 hours ago, andydunn said:

 

5. Here's the original booking - I think the LOCLXALLINC is what got removed - hence the $3200 increase. We were excited to get such a great deal.

That's odd. If they removed that LOCLXALLINC then that leaves no discount or promotion on the booking at all. But there's always a promotion or sale on. They still have the 75% off 2nd person fare which has been running since last autumn so they should add that (or rather, deduct it).

 

If you try making a dummy booking on the Celebrity website now for the exact same cruise, what price does it come up with?

[Jeremiah1212]

5 hours ago, OysterD said:

That's odd. If they removed that LOCLXALLINC then that leaves no discount or promotion on the booking at all. But there's always a promotion or sale on. They still have the 75% off 2nd person fare which has been running since last autumn so they should add that (or rather, deduct it).

 

If you try making a dummy booking on the Celebrity website now for the exact same cruise, what price does it come up with?

 

LocalLux is just a resident rate which you can't have both (which would have been ALLINCBO75 NRD.

 

I have the resident rates from Feb 7. I think the issue is that there is no All Included resident rate available. They were cruise only (LOCLXNOPRK NRD). I assume the website allowed them to go ahead and add All Included on the options page and it created a conflict between the rate and the rate code. If you talk to the correct person I'm not sure why they would fight it. $4,200 for that cruise isn't really a steal.

 

On top of that I don't even see a combination of rates available that would equate to the $4,200 original fare + $3,000 additional requested since this wasn't a suite booking. 

[TeeRick]

10 hours ago, andydunn said:

 

The correct email is 

llutoff-perlo@celebritycruises.com

 

Thanks - I have sent in a request for an escalation. I dont hold out much hope at this point. 

Definitely escalate this and keep doing so until you get an answer.

[Tyler414]

10 hours ago, andydunn said:

To answer everyone's questions:

1. We live in WA and that's what we entered when we booked it. They are claiming that somehow I managed to book for a different state and it was later corrected (they wont say how or by who) and that increased the price.

 

2. My address doesn't appear on the invoice or the confirmation email.

3. It was booked directly with Celebrity on their website.

 

4. @39August - thanks for the email address I will try that.

 

5. Here's the original booking - I think the LOCLXALLINC is what got removed - hence the $3200 increase. We were excited to get such a great deal.

Unless this is for the retreat it looks to me to be a pretty "average" deal for a 7 day cruise.  If it cost $7000+ for anything below the retreat it would be an empty ship.

[Honolulu Blue]

@andydunn Thank you for sharing your booking and its details.  I'm sorry you're having problems with it.  I've booked with location-related rates a few times (not on Celebrity) and haven't had any problems with them. 🤞

 

My opinion, worth about what you paid for it, is to consider walking away from this, taking the $$$ and looking/booking somewhere else.  Celebrity is a good cruise line and they've treated me well through the years, but I know they're not the only good one.

 

Good luck with whatever you choose to do, whatever your results, and wherever your future travels take you. 👍

[andydunn]

1 hour ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

LocalLux is just a resident rate which you can't have both (which would have been ALLINCBO75 NRD.

 

I have the resident rates from Feb 7. I think the issue is that there is no All Included resident rate available. They were cruise only (LOCLXNOPRK NRD). I assume the website allowed them to go ahead and add All Included on the options page and it created a conflict between the rate and the rate code. If you talk to the correct person I'm not sure why they would fight it. $4,200 for that cruise isn't really a steal.

 

On top of that I don't even see a combination of rates available that would equate to the $4,200 original fare + $3,000 additional requested since this wasn't a suite booking. 

Its an aqua class room - so everything was already included - we didn't select that.

They did offer me a discount on the full price when I called yesterday. I'm not sure which promotion they came up with... it still came to $5800. At this point I had been on the phone for almost 90 minutes  and been through 2 escalations. Since they said I would get my non refundable deposit back I said go ahead and cancel. 

Current price with the current promotion for an aqua class room is  $6,115.86 - so they assumed they were offering me a deal at $5800 😉

Thanks for your insight on what might have happened.

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by andydunn