10/18/23: Princess Makes Dramatic Pricing Change, Now Focused on Unprecedented Savings for Early Bookers

[whitecap]

4 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

I see this simply as a sales tactic to accelerate future bookings.  Sure, if the ships get fuller, they will raise prices.  But if there are cabins to fill later on, prices are going to drop.  Same old, same old IMO.

I do agree with Steelers36.  I can't imagine any scenario where Princess would not drop prices to fill a ship.  A ship sailing with empty cabins would make no sense. 

[Ken the cruiser]

 

17 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

To underscore its commitment to providing the most competitive pricing in the industry, Princess is introducing the Best Price Guarantee. Princess is so confident that its new pricing structure offers the best value that the brand will match any lower price found for the same cruise and stateroom category. Further, if a guest is unsure of departure date, Princess Promotions will allow them to secure today's pricing for a future vacation with out locking in the specific dates or itinerary. For full terms, conditions and restrictions, visit https://www.princess.com/cruise-deals-promotions/.

 
Is there a different Best Price Guarantee other than the “special 72-hour” one on the Princess website which has a limited time period?

 

**72-Hour Best Price Guarantee: Princess Cruise Lines LTD’s (“PCL”) Best Price Guarantee for Extended Early Booking Sale Reservations (the “Guarantee”) is only available to legal residents of the 50 US/DC or Canada, who book a PCL cruise through the Extended Early Booking Sale offer between September 6, 2023 and October 31, 2023. If a guest booked a PCL cruise through the Extended Early Booking Sale offer during such dates (the “Original Booking”) and such guest finds an active, cheaper price for the identical verified booking on the Princess Cruises’ website (Princess.com) within 72 hours of the time/date the Original Booking was made (the “Located Fare”), they can submit a Guarantee claim form found on the Best Price Guarantee page and PCL will either upgrade the guest to a higher stateroom category or give the guest an On Board Credit (“OBC”) with a value of 110% of the difference between what the guest actually paid for the Original Booking and the Located Fare (or some other make good as agreed to by the parties). 

 

https://www.princess.com/plan/best-price-guarantee/

 

[c-boy]

2 hours ago, whitecap said:

I do agree with Steelers36.  I can't imagine any scenario where Princess would not drop prices to fill a ship.  A ship sailing with empty cabins would make no sense. 

maybe they (princess) knows thing we don't know.

[Pickels]

18 hours ago, voljeep said:

what's to clarify??  seems pretty straight forward to me - book soon and save, book later and pay more

Book soon, pay more but get cabin choice; Book later, save some money but, cabin selection is limited.  If you don't care about cabin selection, booking later is the way to go. 

[sunviking90]

I think this will likely get a lot of people to book now, which is what they want. It doesn’t make sense though. Empty cabins, just like empty airplane seats cost money. It is sort of like a store bringing in winter coats in September and promising that is the best price and not to wait for discounts. Are they not going to reduce in February when they are stuck with inventory? Even stores that don’t generally have “sales” will reduce to clear at the end. 
Maybe they’ve decided if they can fill the ship 80-90% at full price, they can let those cabins go empty, but I doubt it.

[CATGUY7]

10 hours ago, J13C85 said:

I just did the same thing and my existing Nov 2024 cruise is now appx $700 more than when I booked it 2 months ago. It's been hanging in this price range for over a month.

Same here.  February 2025 is $560 more than when I booked it months ago.  I don't see a price drop on the horizon.

[Mercruiser]

I've already seen this movie. Many times before a cruise line has made a similar announcement: No more last minute discounts! Book early for best fares!!!

 

Then a while later, the business climate changes and it's back to: Fill the Ships! And we start getting emails advertising last minute bargains.

 

They are probably announcing this now to juice the 2023 fiscal year bookings. That make the lenders and the shareholders happy.

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Mercruiser

[memoak]

34 minutes ago, Pickels said:

Book soon, pay more but get cabin choice; Book later, save some money but, cabin selection is limited.  If you don't care about cabin selection, booking later is the way to go. 

Unless ships book early then prices go up rather than down closer to the cruise. You may end up waiting and finding only cabins you don’t like at higher fares 

[c-boy]

The travel industry is subject to a global economy. Projection on futures play a large part in bottom line pricings. The cruise and airline industry are subjected to one of the most volatile commodities. If you consider what the daily operation expenses are of a 100 + ton cruise ship the highest cost isn't  food and beverage or labor, it's fuel.  Anywhere from 145k to 200k per day of operation. I'm not certain but, I would think princess and and all cruise lines purchase future contracts for fuel. If your looking at future costs of operation and ways to offset projected operation cost then cuts are the first thing on the table. The cruise industry can't do what the airline industry does ( raise and lower prices in a 24 hour period) to protect itself. Most people need to fly, cruising is an option. I can imagine the exchanges in a board meeting going something like this. 

John " well so far today I've heard nothing but good news", so now let's hear from Mary.  Mary swallow hard and say's "Our margins for Q4 are looking good, but going into Q1 2024 we'll  need to look into purchasing contracts for 200 million gallons of fuel" John, "200 million gallons ! ... geezus I just told the world we are paying down our debt and still able to post a 100 million in earnings" Mary, " well easy come, easy go". If we don't purchase these contracts in the next 60 day's, we're screwed"  John, "why do we need such large contracts"? Mary, Well you keep building bigger ships, and they cost us more to operate"  John, "how are we going to pay for that? " Mary, " start making cuts, save money to make money"  John, " we need to accelerate our upfront sales some how"  Carmin, jumps up and exclaims " why don't we dump the last minute booking deals, since they don't spend anything while on board and focus on early bookings which in turn increases our up front sales and makes us look good to lenders"  John  "BRILLIANT ! "

Edited October 19, 2023 by c-boy

[rj59]

26 minutes ago, Mercruiser said:

I've already seen this movie. Many times before a cruise line has made a similar announcement: No more last minute discounts! Book early for best fares!!!

 

Then a while later, the business climate changes and it's back to: Fill the Ships! And we start getting emails advertising last minute bargains.

 

They are probably announcing this now to juice the 2023 fiscal year bookings. That make the lenders and the shareholders happy.

 

NCL tried this after restart. They said they'd keep prices high and not do deep discounts, even at the cost of empty cabins, because it would devalue the brand. While they still keep prices higher, they're back to deep discounting close to sail date so they can fill ships and maintain occupancy over 100%. The reason why it isn't sustainable is because of competition, ships/itineraries/seasons that aren't popular, and because fares are like movie tickets--the real profits come from other things, as Fortuna Luck knows well. What's most reprehensible about this gimmick is advertising a Best Price Guarantee that's valid for only 72 hours, so meaningless and deceitful. 

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, rj59 said:

NCL tried this after restart. They said they'd keep prices high and not do deep discounts, even at the cost of empty cabins, because it would devalue the brand. While they still keep prices higher, they're back to deep discounting close to sail date so they can fill ships and maintain occupancy over 100%. The reason why it isn't sustainable is because of competition, ships/itineraries/seasons that aren't popular, and because fares are like movie tickets--the real profits come from other things, as Fortuna Luck knows well. What's most reprehensible about this gimmick is advertising a Best Price Guarantee that's valid for only 72 hours, so meaningless and deceitful. 

It's not really so much just a 72-hr limit to find a price drop.  It is only for a specified time period related to a particular sales promotion and ends Oct 31.  The second thing is the guest has to find this lower price on Princess.com.  So, it's just a refare if the price drops.  I don't see anything new here.  Move along folks to the next thing "exciting and new" that comes from the Ivory Tower in Santa Clarita.

[Scottyren]

This would seem to limit Princess' ability to have sales or promotional rates in the 12-24 months that a cruise is advertised on their website.  It wouldn't just affect the last-minute drop and go fares.  

[beg3yrs]

Just heard back from our TA. We have four cruises already booked in that time period and none of them have lower prices than when we first booked. He said all the drops were for lower category cabins than ours (balconies) and were non-refundable deposits as well.

 

What a clown show over at Princess.

[skynight]

I haven't read through all the postings. For what it's worth. Re-booked four west coast 2025 cruises today. Costs between 23% to 28% lower from when initially booked in June. OBC remained the same. 

[Astro Flyer]

Before their change in policy I’ve seen several great short notice fares emails around 2 months prior to sailing. However with airfare 2-3 times the cruise fare we didn’t book any of those amazing deals.

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Astro Flyer

[LACruiser88]

14 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

However with airfare 2-3 times the cruise fare we didn’t book any of those amazing deals.

That is the big problem with booking last minute deals that require flights.  We only book them when they are roundtrip from our home port of San Pedro.

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

Before their change in policy I’ve seen several great short notice fares emails around 2 months prior to sailing. However with airfare 2-3 times the cruise fare we didn’t book any of those amazing deals.

 

 

1 hour ago, LACruiser88 said:

That is the big problem with booking last minute deals that require flights.  We only book them when they are roundtrip from our home port of San Pedro.

Agree.  One of these Winters, we might just see if we can catch something out of PE for a good deal.  Will certainly avoid March Madness (and I am not talking about basketball).

[2022cruisey]

Marketing spin.  

[deliver42]

There's no way this is going to stick. They start seeing empty cabins, they'll panic, and there goes this scam.

[PescadoAmarillo]

13 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I see this simply as a sales tactic to accelerate future bookings.  Sure, if the ships get fuller, they will raise prices.  But if there are cabins to fill later on, prices are going to drop.  Same old, same old IMO.

Absolutely agree, and, to prove your hypothesis, look at balcony pricing on the Regal Princess upcoming 7 night cruises out of Galveston. Except for the holidays, the November/December are very inexpensive, as Caribbean cruises that time of year always are. 
 

Princess is going to have to start sailing with empty cabins if they want this new policy to incent earlier booking. Otherwise, those people within driving distance to the ports will continue to hold off booking until the last minute on widely available itineraries. 

[MissP22]

13 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I see this simply as a sales tactic to accelerate future bookings.  Sure, if the ships get fuller, they will raise prices.  But if there are cabins to fill later on, prices are going to drop.  Same old, same old IMO.

I just can't believe that they'll let ships sail with empty cabins because people haven't booked them early. 

[edspec]

I’ll be retiring soon so last minute is my cruising strategy going forward. I want to go everywhere, I have points across various airlines, I can be flexible.  

[Illbcruzn4life]

On 10/18/2023 at 7:58 PM, bubbaed said:

 

Bottom line: Princess prices are up, quality of product is down, and last minute-deals are (apparently) no longer an available remedy to this conundrum.

 

Bummer.

 

 

You can the word Princess out of your statement and replace it with any cruise line name.

 

Go to any other board and you’ll hear the exact same statement, unfortunately.

[SCX22]

Princess should also start penalizing TAs who block cabins and don’t release them until the final payment.  Many times I’ve seen banks of cabins become available immediately after final payment.  CVP says that they are from TA who block cabins and can’t sell them.

[MacMadame]

On 10/18/2023 at 11:58 AM, emmak8 said:

I just checked cruise I have booked for April 2024. 22 days. Price is UP $720!

Mine is down again. I've already missed one refare because my Princess VP ignored me. And it's too late to transfer to a TA by a few days. SMH

 

Unfortunately, I've already started paying for my cruise with AARP Gift Cards and I'm nervous that if I cancel and rebook, I won't get them back properly.

 

2 hours ago, MissP22 said:

I just can't believe that they'll let ships sail with empty cabins because people haven't booked them early. 

They already said that they *will* have discounts near to sailing if they have empty cabins but only if you pick a Guaranteed Cabin. i.e., they pick the cabin for you. It's right in the announcement.

 

Off to find a PVP who isn't a lazy SOB... 😄