Price drop advice (UK based)

[Jetstreamer]

Hi all,

 

I’m looking for a bit of advice on how to proceed with a price-drop.  Rate on our cruise has dropped by around 20% and we are still around 1.5 months away from final payment deadline.

 

As we are UK based we cannot get the cruise re-priced (they don’t do that here) so only option is to cancel and rebook (not particularly interested in upgrading).

 

All straightforward and prepared to lose £200 deposit to save £1000+.  Main complication is we have already paid more than the deposit in order to take advantage of Amex cashback offers so NCL have around 50% of the fare in their pockets.

 

Question – If we cancel how is this “overpayment” handled?  Do they refund it to the original form of payment while keeping the deposit?  Or can they generally cancel and rebook in the same call and transfer any overpayment to the new booking?

 

I’d rather not refund to the card, as payment was split over 2 Amex cards, one of which I don’t have any more.  Also Amex tend to claw back the cashback if a transaction is refunded.

 

I know the easiest pay to answer this is to call NCL but I don’t want to end up doing something I’d regret by for example taking FCC than finding out it takes weeks to issue then can’t be used on the same cruise!  Best to know what to ask for upfront 😊

 

Thanks.

[Dreamcruiser2018]

I think they will reprice once for a small fee - maybe £35 each.  I have done that recently (uk).

[Iggy68]

I repriced a cruise last week  - it cost £35 per person. I did lose the cabin I had but everything else stayed the same. I received a new cabin number a few days later; not as good as my original choice but perfectly acceptable 😊

[rattla]

I would have saved about £300 after deposit the other week when they had half price FAS.

I was tempted but had passed the 120 days and booked all the dinning and other stuff so didn’t think it was worth the hassle 

[insidecabin]

If you upgrade cabin  to pay a bit more  that can help grease the process.

 

 

 

 

[Jetstreamer]

8 hours ago, Dreamcruiser2018 said:

I think they will reprice once for a small fee - maybe £35 each.  I have done that recently (uk).

How did this work? They gave you the new lower price and charged you an admin fee? And did you not have to forfit your deposit? 

[Dreamcruiser2018]

4 minutes ago, Jetstreamer said:

How did this work? They gave you the new lower price and charged you an admin fee? And did you not have to forfit your deposit? 

Yes that is correct - admin fee charged which was £35 each.  I’m pretty sure we kept the same cabin

Price dropped further and they wouldn’t do it a 2nd time.   As the drop was significant I asked them to cancel and rebook .  Lost deposit this time but financially still worthwhile

[Ladyshopper23]

They definitely reprice for £35 each. I've done it twice on our current cruise. The second time I had a bit of a hard time getting it done - the woman I spoke to point blank told me that didn't re-price at all, and that it was only after final payment I could apply for a re-price and if successful be given a future cruise credit for the difference (or something like that).

Even after explaining I'd had it done a few weeks prior she told me that the person who'd done it shouldn't have done it. Eventually she went off and spoke to someone, came back and said she could do it, and that "the rules must have changed." No apology for getting it wrong.

Anyway, it was re-repriced again with no issue after that. No return of deposit, so don't worry about your Amex cashback, as nothing to be clawed back. In fact, when the most recent cashback offer came onto Amex, I didn't have enough of a balance to make use of it, so called up and upgraded our ocean view to a balcony. This cost just over £200 (no admin fee was applied for upgrading, I mistakenly thought it had been initially but it wasn't), but this cost was pretty much covered by the £200 cashback I got from Amex.

 

[Jetstreamer]

Thanks for the responses.  I was able to re-price it for £35 this afternoon so that is a great result.  My guess is that the price may fall further so will keep an eye on things but I'm now much happier with the price of the cruise (don't usually book so early and thought it was overpriced when I booked but travelling with family who were desperate lock in the itinerary).

[rattla]

I’m intrigued by the repricing option now for U.K. passengers.

I wonder if it’s only if booking direct, or I’d also be able to do that if I have booked through a TA (Costco) ?

[rattla]

I’ve just managed to update the price to the latest for c.£70.  Think I’ve saved about £800 so very happy and thanks for the advice above!

FYI. When my agent phoned the first time, they were told can’t do it and all they could offer was an upgrade to the next category cabin.  I had checked with NCL direct just before and they said if it was more than 60 days (final payment date) they could reprice, but if it’s less they can only do the cabin upgrade.

so I told my TA this and said can they try calling back and speak to someone else, and this time they said it was fine. 🙄

so it pays to know the correct details yourself as as is the way with most of these call centres, you are reliant on the knowledge of the individual to give the correct answer!