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Transferring a Booking to a Travel Agent


cookie1961

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Hi everyone,

 

I have a cruise booked through Celebrity for this coming Christmas. I have also arranged Custom Air through Celebrity. Our final payment in due in September 2006. I know that we can, if we choose, tranfer our booking to a Travel Agent. Are there any benefits in doing so? Would you transfer your booking to an agent? If so, why?

 

Thanks so much,

 

Teri

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I am in the process of transfering to a TA right now. The benefit will be a $200 casino/spa credit/voucher. Other TAs may give you bennies like this. Some more-some less. I am going with this one because I have used it several times before and got good service. Just be sure that your booking number stays the same or you may lose some benefit that X was giving you, i.e. we booked on board so we want to keep the credit they gave us for that.

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an agency may offer free insurance as an incentive since discounting isn't allowed. Often the agency you choose may be large enough to open hundreds or even thousands of groups each year. The group price is often slightly less depending on when it was opened. If there is one on your sailing you would be entitled to the amenities offered such as wine with dinner, on board credit or other free merchandise once on board given to agencies/agents selling volume. Other than that there is the advantage of having someone else wait on hold if you see a price drop on your sailing or it is refared. Possibly you won't be aware but the agent will notice and take care of this for you. After all, they want you to use them again and again.

 

Then maybe there will be no perks or reductions at all but if something happens on the trip it is often helpful to have a liason in your corner. You book one or maybe several trips a year with Celebrity but your agent may book hundreds, their agency may book thousands. That could mean clout for you if things go wrong somewhere.

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When we tranferred our South American cruise to a travel agent, he gave us $400 onboard credit. We had booked this while on a cruise, so now we have $600 onboard credit! That 's enough reason for me to keep using this travel agent.

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Thanks everyone for your responses. I just need a confirmation. If we have Custom Air booked and the booking gets transferred to an agent, everything should remain the same right? I worry that something might happen to everything if I transfer over to an agent. After all this planning, I really don't want anything to happen.

 

Thanks again,

 

Teri

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You should be fine. If you want you can ask your agent to confirm the air plans. That way she knows what your air plans are and you are on the same page.

 

Relax and enjoy the waiting and planning stages.

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Thanks everyone for your responses. I just need a confirmation. If we have Custom Air booked and the booking gets transferred to an agent, everything should remain the same right? I worry that something might happen to everything if I transfer over to an agent. After all this planning, I really don't want anything to happen.

 

Thanks again,

 

Teri

 

 

Hello Teri,

 

I am not as experienced (in making a transfer) as some of the above posters and I have the same dilemma as you......I also have an existing booking for Dec of 2006 which I made on my last cruise and perhaps I will transfer it to a TA but I am stil not sure if I will.

What I am not comfortable with is:

I will loose all 'control' of the booking.....any question that I will have will have to go through the TA......and if the TA is not very responding or hard to get in contact with.....that is just too bad.....the Celebrity agents will not talk with anyone except the 'agent'.

Another thing that is on my mind: if I have to cancell the cruise before the final payment and I am in control of the booking.....it will not cost me anything.........but if a TA is my agent, will the TA's agency charge me some extra fees if I need to cancel ? I know that some do.

Someone above has mentioned 'group' rates.......I believe that if on board booking gets transfered to a group rate then the 'on board credit' will be lost.....so it would have to be a really good group rate to make up the difference.

I will look with interest on some more comments to see if they will help me to decide one way or the other.

 

Wes

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Hi Wes,

 

I too have all the same concerns you have described. I am not planning to transfer my booking until late August, if I in fact to transfer it. I really want to wait until the last possible moment. That way, if we plan on cancelling the trip, I won't incur any added expenses.

 

It's such a difficult decision to make. I know from our last trip, I wanted to book Custom Air and it took forever for my agent to get that all organized. I will start making some calls to different agencies to see what their policies are regarding transferring bookings to them from the Cruise Line.

 

Another concern I have is that I live in Ontario Canada. If something ever happened to Celebrity Cruise Lines, I would not be protected financially. Here if we booked through a registered agency, the gov't will refund our monies if something were to happen to the Cruise Line or airline.

 

Oh dear far too many decisions to make.

 

Again, thanks everyone for your very valued input. This is truly an awesome board with so many people wanting to help each other :)

 

Teri

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I have mixed emotions about the transfers but will try again. We had 7 cabins books last December on a RC ship. They were back to back cruises so we had 14 cabins in total. We had booked with RC directly and one was a tranfer from when we had booked aboard. We had two $50 coupons that could be used for 2 cabins. We transferred to an agent that said we would have either 2 bottles of wine per cabin or choice of an side trip. After it was transferred they said no we couldn't have these things. It was either the wine and trip for 7 cabins...and nothing on the second cruise. I was really angry since we asked several times what we were getting...even picking the wine and the trips. I was up front with them on everything and then they did that do us. It was strange because if we would have stayed directly with RC.. they were giving us wine for every cabin on both cruises. So be sure your agency will do what they say. Stick with the ones that people recommend.

 

Gerry

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If anyone thinks they are getting a $400 credit [ unless they booked the penthouse or several cabins ] they should look long and hard at that deal. The $400 is more than an agent makes on one booking, Do the math it doesn't make sense. The only truth here is the group policy. Also if there is a rate reduction b/4 final most agents will secure the lower rate. I don't know of any agents who charge a fee for a cancelation. It is just part of business.

The best thing to do is book on the ship and either give them your TA name or transfer when you get home. It is the best of both worlds. Find a price that you are happy with and go with it.

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If anyone thinks they are getting a $400 credit [ unless they booked the penthouse or several cabins ] they should look long and hard at that deal. The $400 is more than an agent makes on one booking, Do the math it doesn't make sense. The only truth here is the group policy. Also if there is a rate reduction b/4 final most agents will secure the lower rate. I don't know of any agents who charge a fee for a cancelation. It is just part of business.

The best thing to do is book on the ship and either give them your TA name or transfer when you get home. It is the best of both worlds. Find a price that you are happy with and go with it.

 

Sorry to disagree with you, but yes we did get a $400 onboard credit from our TA (for a cat 7). We booked the cruise while we were on a Med cruise and transferred the booking when we got home. The price of the cruise has already increased by $300 and I expect it will increase even more. When we booked our Med cruise 15 monthe ahead (like this one) the price doubled the closer it got. Our friends booked a CC cabin and got $600 credit(plus the $200 for booking onboard).

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CINDON,

 

I am sorry but I don't know how to retrieve your email address. Could you provide me with it?

 

Thanks,

 

Teri

 

Hello Teri,

 

In case if Cindon does not respond.......go to the post posted by Cindon, click on the screen name of the poster (Cindon) , click on 'View public profile' and that will take you to the information that you want ( I just looked there and the email is right there in the signature).

 

Wes

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If anyone thinks they are getting a $400 credit [ unless they booked the penthouse or several cabins ] they should look long and hard at that deal. The $400 is more than an agent makes on one booking, Do the math it doesn't make sense. The only truth here is the group policy. Also if there is a rate reduction b/4 final most agents will secure the lower rate. I don't know of any agents who charge a fee for a cancelation. It is just part of business.

The best thing to do is book on the ship and either give them your TA name or transfer when you get home. It is the best of both worlds. Find a price that you are happy with and go with it.

Unless you are booking a very cheap cruise the commission could very well and probably is greater than $400.00 so that credit is very doable. Also many agencies charge a cancellation fee so you should always ask that before you transfer as alot of the big agencies charge $75.00 or more as when they do the work they want some money to be guaranteed to them. Their in-house agents gets paid an hourly rate and a small amount of commission hence the agency still has to pay that agent the hourly rate if you cancel so they need money to offset the work.

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First, let's get some details here. An $400 OB credit is very possible but some details are missing to determine just how good a deal this is. While the SA should have been a tip-off that it was 14 days, that could be easily missed. However, with the right categories, $400 is possible with a 7 day.

 

1) What category cabin?

2) Deep discount on-line TA or a "full service" TA?

3) Which cruise and what was the OB booking fare?

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First, let's get some details here. An $400 OB credit is very possible but some details are missing to determine just how good a deal this is. While the SA should have been a tip-off that it was 14 days, that could be easily missed. However, with the right categories, $400 is possible with a 7 day.

 

1) What category cabin?

2) Deep discount on-line TA or a "full service" TA?

3) Which cruise and what was the OB booking fare?

 

This was a cat. 7, online TA , Jan.2007, approx.$2500 per person. This agency could also be a "full service" TA; they also sell hotels, flights, shore excursions, etc.

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There are NO deep discounts or any discount on Celebrity or Royal. If any TA gets caught doing this they will no longer be able to sell either line.

 

If you are referring to the term "deep discounters" the deep discounters are not offering discounts on RC/X but they offer significant OB credit. Many agencies have been doing this openly since day one and RC & X have taken no action. Maybe since the money is coming back to them in the form of the OB credit they are choosing not to take action, assuming they could.

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This was a cat. 7, online TA , Jan.2007, approx.$2500 per person. This agency could also be a "full service" TA; they also sell hotels, flights, shore excursions, etc.

 

 

Just because there are links or other information about air, hotels, etc. doesn't mean you can get a live agent to book the for you.

 

Airlines don't pay commissions.

 

Hotels who do pay commissions to agents, charge higher rates.

 

Here's an online experience one of my clients had.

 

Rate for cruise and air was say $7000 with port and tax. What the online agency could NOT tell the client, is that if they wanted the cruiseline air they would have to book an additional package of $160 per person since there was a forced overnight at their port of embarkation. Surprise surprise.... even live agents can't tell that looking at the rez screen. They only way to find out is to pick up the phone and call the cruiseline.

 

Questions to ask:

 

Where is your customer service department located?

 

Will you charge me for changes to my initial reservation?

 

Is there an emergency or 24 hour telephone contact number?

 

Do you charge a booking fee or adminstrative fee?

 

Do you charge for shipping of documents?

 

Do you charge if I have to talk to a live agent regarding questions about transfer times, special needs, etc?

 

You would be surprised at some of the answers you get!

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This was a cat. 7, online TA , Jan.2007, approx.$2500 per person. This agency could also be a "full service" TA; they also sell hotels, flights, shore excursions, etc.

 

The term full service does not mean what they sell but refers to an agency that is not phone bank boiler room, you know not where. The deep discounters are primarily boiler rooms where the agents do large phone and internet volume and the term "personal service" is usually in name only. Many are booking machines not Travel Agents in the true meaning of the term. In your case, in order to offer the $400 the agency gave away the vast majority of its commission, so in order to keep the lights on, they have to do volume.

 

There is nothing wrong with these companies but you get what you pay for.

In many cases, if you run into problems with the cruise line they likely do not have the time nor might they be willing to invest the time in solving the problem. Full service agencies also offer such deals but usually on a very limited basis.

 

My personal choice is always to deal with a full service, personal service agency. I have gotten discounts and OB credit. Let me share some of the problems I have had and what was done that I doubt a "deep discounter" would have fixed.

 

Coral Princess- Booked a bump balcony, mid-ship, Deck 7, 18 months before sailing. Quite by accident while at my TA's office we discovered that Princess had "upgraded" us, without notification, to a cabin one deck higher at the BOW. Some upgrade. Princess had a previous habit of doing that. Took our TA a month but we got moved back. Do not know it they had to contribute to the "solution" and don't care, but it got done. I'll bet money an on-line deep discounter would have said "deal with the cruise line, it's not our fault."

 

Navigator of the Seas(Family Reunion) - We requested and were booked into 5 balconies in a row over a year in advance. Four cabins for our four children and their families, 2 kids each, and us in the fifth. We were put into 5 quads. About 6 months before the cruise, since one family's kids were 8 & 13 we decided it would best to get an inside cabin across the hall for the two kids. My agent was out on medical so I dealt with a another agent. She called RC and gave them our request. The next thing I know, RC had moved our son elsewhere, half a ship away from his now inside cabin kids. I called the covering TA immediately to just put everything back the way it was. She then informed me that RC was threatening to move us to a double on the ship despite the fact they accepted the reservation that way over 6 months earlier. (I know what the ticket contract says) She was unable to do anything. When my TA came back a week later she got on the case. It took a month with high level management involved and I don't know if the agency contributed to the solution but we got the five quad rooms in a row back, the inside double across the hall for the kids and all was well. Do you think a deep discount agency would have done that? Like I said you get what you pay for. I am willing to pay some for great service.

 

I personally have no problem if people want to go the the volume agencies but they should understand the service differance they may encounter.

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Thanks for all your help. When I transferred the booking, I actually talked to the TA on the phone and he called Celebrity and we had a conference call. When I called him with another question, he did the same thing. The other people we are sailing with(and their family) have used him for years and have always been extremely happy with the service they've received.

 

For two of our cruises we booked through a well known online (internet only) agency. We received nothing for either of our cruises. For another cruise, we booked through a full service agency in our area, and barely got a "thank you".

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