Changed dining time, fare went up $1900 per room.

[CW33]

Help!! During Black Friday sale I booked 2 rooms on Equinox for June 13th, 2024 sailing. It's 9 nights Italian Riviera and France. I booked with an agent but had done extensive research into the fares and knew what I was going to be paying and it was the best price around. They were having 75% off second passenger in each room. Price was $4,010.51 per room after taxes. Seemed pretty good for Concierge class, as it included all included drinks and wifi. Today I asked my agent to help me change us from the late dining time to the AnyTime dining. My agent made the change for me and sent the new confirmation. On the new confirmation, the Black Friday promotion was gone and now I'm paying regular price. It's gone from $4,010.51 per room to $5,972.51 per room, simply due to changing the dining time. WTH? She saw nothing while making the change to indicate that the fare discounts would be dropped just for changing the dining time. Agent contacted Celebrity and they essentially told her we were imagining things, because the price had been that higher fare the whole time. That's a lie. I have the original confirmations from the travel agency showing the discounted price, but don't have the actual invoice from Celebrity from the original booking with that lower price. Shouldn't the cruise line be able to see the fare history in my reservation? Celebrity won't talk to me since I booked with an agent. My travel agent is at a loss, she doesn't know why this happened and why they don't seem to have any record of the Black Friday price on my original confirmation. I'm sick over this and losing my mind. We're going to have to cancel if this doesn't get resolved, and we really don't want to do that since we've already bought plane tickets to Europe for the cruise also. This is a disaster. Any thoughts/advice? 

Edited January 3 by CW33

[jelayne]

Your TA, or the company they work for , needs to escalate this, if necessary, to their BDM. Both the cruise line and your TA should be able to see the fare history.  I have learned to keep every booking confirmation until after the cruise.

 

Lately it seems that any change to a reservation can trigger a repricing, even those that should have no impact on the fare.

Have you asked your TA what would happen if you changed back to your original late seating?  If that restores your previous fare it might be worth doing and once on the ship going to the MaitreD on embarkation day to see if you can move to anytime dining.

 

Just a FYI the Celebrity confirmation is the “golden “ document.  A TA invoice bears little weight.  We have had bookings where the TA was offsetting part of the fare with what would have been their OBC to us, commission to them.  TA passed away and the only record Celebrity had was at the fare without the Tab offset so we paid were having to pay a few K more.. 

[wrk2cruise]

Hold your TA's feet to the fire.  They have the original booking documents from Celebrity.  They provided you an invoice with the price at which you booked.  Seems like a problem between your TA and Celebrity.  I agree escalate at the TA if your agent isn't getting this resolved.

[ARandomTraveler]

I wonder if the travel agent made a mistake in the pricing they quoted you during Black Friday. I have the same cruise booked, but for July, and I booked it more than a year in andvance, and my price was $4600 for a balcony, no drinks or wifi included. I checked the price during Black Friday to see if it went down but it hadn't, it was around $5900. I know travel agents get good deals but $4010 for concierge class with drinks and wifi sounds too good to be true.
 

Maybe it was a real price, but I wouldn't be surprised if the travel agent made a mistake when they gave you the original invoice, and that might be why they aren't able to go to celebrity and argue their case now. If they had the paperwork, seems like it would have been an easy fix. 
 

 

edited to add that I forgot I forgot my price included $800 to make my reservation refundable, so my price would have been $3800 without that. I still think the price you were quoted was really low, but if you have the invoice from the travel agent, they should honor that price for you, regardless of what celebrity is charging them. 

Edited January 3 by ARandomTraveler

[cruisestitch]

Others have experienced similar things. There is a serious flaw in the Celebrity system.  
 

 

[Pushka]

We were told even if we changed cabin location - exactly the same level, even just a door away, then the original booking conditions disappear and new ones apply relevant to the changed cabin. 

[cruisestitch]

11 minutes ago, Pushka said:

We were told even if we changed cabin location - exactly the same level, even just a door away, then the original booking conditions disappear and new ones apply relevant to the changed cabin. 

Told by whom? Your travel agent? A Celebrity agent?  Were you before or after Final payment?

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, cruisestitch said:

Told by whom? Your travel agent? A Celebrity agent?  Were you before or after Final payment?

In Australia so before final payment. Simply clicking on Change Cabin brings up a whole different range of inclusions. So I rang and that was what I was told.  They consider it a change of booking. 

Edited January 3 by Pushka

[hcat]

we  are in the US &  always book directly with an X rep..hopefully call is recorded..we wait for the Confirmation e mail to come through while on the tel.. usually it works ok.  And we save all susequent conf..like when our OBC or perks are fully listed..

 

we book the cabin we prefer, never bid on upgrades or make changes if at all possible.  The more a res is tinkered with, greater chances are of what happened to OP.

. Hope TA can get this resolved!   

Change TA next time!

 

[Ipeeinthepools]

7 hours ago, CW33 said:

Help!! During Black Friday sale I booked 2 rooms on Equinox for June 13th, 2024 sailing. It's 9 nights Italian Riviera and France. I booked with an agent but had done extensive research into the fares and knew what I was going to be paying and it was the best price around. They were having 75% off second passenger in each room. Price was $4,010.51 per room after taxes. Seemed pretty good for Concierge class, as it included all included drinks and wifi. Today I asked my agent to help me change us from the late dining time to the AnyTime dining. My agent made the change for me and sent the new confirmation. On the new confirmation, the Black Friday promotion was gone and now I'm paying regular price. It's gone from $4,010.51 per room to $5,972.51 per room, simply due to changing the dining time. WTH? She saw nothing while making the change to indicate that the fare discounts would be dropped just for changing the dining time. Agent contacted Celebrity and they essentially told her we were imagining things, because the price had been that higher fare the whole time. That's a lie. I have the original confirmations from the travel agency showing the discounted price, but don't have the actual invoice from Celebrity from the original booking with that lower price. Shouldn't the cruise line be able to see the fare history in my reservation? Celebrity won't talk to me since I booked with an agent. My travel agent is at a loss, she doesn't know why this happened and why they don't seem to have any record of the Black Friday price on my original confirmation. I'm sick over this and losing my mind. We're going to have to cancel if this doesn't get resolved, and we really don't want to do that since we've already bought plane tickets to Europe for the cruise also. This is a disaster. Any thoughts/advice? 

 

6 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

Hold your TA's feet to the fire.  They have the original booking documents from Celebrity.  They provided you an invoice with the price at which you booked.  Seems like a problem between your TA and Celebrity.  I agree escalate at the TA if your agent isn't getting this resolved.

 

I agree with @wrk2cruise.  This is your TA's problem.  Ask your TA to call you when he/she fixes it.

[bikerunner]

5 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

I know travel agents get good deals but $4010 for concierge class with drinks and wifi sounds too good to be true.

Those exist from TA's   I have gotten them in the past, Nov cruise 4000, 10 day, all included for Concierge wiht 1000 OB.  But with this, Celebrity will not deal with you directly since you booked thru the TA.  They should have all the information for your booking., history etc.  This is there problem to deal with at this point.  

[ymncruise]

I’ve had that happen. Your promos dropped off. You can have them restored and it will fix the cost. 

[Smmessineo]

25 minutes ago, ymncruise said:

I’ve had that happen. Your promos dropped off. You can have them restored and it will fix the cost. 

Yes. This happened to me recently, a week or so after final payment was made  suddenly owed 1500 dollars. It was after I went online and added an event to the reservation ( celebrating an anniversary) . I had booked directly with Celebrity, and the rep quickly corrected it and confirmed that  it's a  stupid programming issue 😆 and .all "expired" promo codes sometimes drop off when you refresh a reservation by changing dining time etc  It's not even that it rebooks you at current rates , it just eliminates all promos and your reservation just shows the basic rate, no discounts.

She had restore  all those promo codes.

To the OP.....have your travel agent get on it  and explain this to them. 

 

[CW33]

6 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

I know travel agents get good deals but $4010 for concierge class with drinks and wifi sounds too good to be true.

That price was possible. Like I said, I had done my research and could have booked it myself for that price. Only booked with the TA because I got $300 onboard credit from them for doing so. Celebrity had a 50-75% off second passenger, and then BOGO50% off second passenger's All Included Drinks/Wifi package during Thanksgiving week. We had 50% off in our original booking, but on the new confirmation, the 50% off promotion dropped off, which, on a base fare of $3928 is a difference of $1964...the amount our fare went up. I booked a previous cruise (on RC) during Thanksgiving week also, and was by the told by the RC agent that Thanksgiving week is the best time to book cruises because it is the lowest they go all year.

[mayleeman]

29 minutes ago, ymncruise said:

I’ve had that happen. Your promos dropped off. You can have them restored and it will fix the cost. 

 

OP can't,  and has to rely on the clue-less TA to get it resolved.

 

I can't imagine booking anything related to travel without a confirmation from the actual hotel/airline/cruiseline/railroad....

 

But my wife and I had bad experiences with TAs early on while working ("lowest-cost vendor for the gov't") so I learned to handle everything myself. As @hcat posted, a lot more reliable (and not that hard if you can handle some delays on the phone).

 

Second thread this week about an unreliable TA. SMH

[CW33]

7 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

Hold your TA's feet to the fire.  They have the original booking documents from Celebrity.  They provided you an invoice with the price at which you booked.  Seems like a problem between your TA and Celebrity.  I agree escalate at the TA if your agent isn't getting this resolved.

I agree. Hoping she has that Celebrity booking confirmation document because that will show the promos we had at booking. Thanks.

[CW33]

5 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

Others have experienced similar things. There is a serious flaw in the Celebrity system.  
 

 

Thanks! I'll check it out.

[CW33]

40 minutes ago, ymncruise said:

I’ve had that happen. Your promos dropped off. You can have them restored and it will fix the cost. 

I really hope so! Thanks!

[gfkcruiser]

10 hours ago, CW33 said:

Help!! During Black Friday sale I booked 2 rooms on Equinox for June 13th, 2024 sailing. It's 9 nights Italian Riviera and France. I booked with an agent but had done extensive research into the fares and knew what I was going to be paying and it was the best price around. They were having 75% off second passenger in each room. Price was $4,010.51 per room after taxes. Seemed pretty good for Concierge class, as it included all included drinks and wifi. Today I asked my agent to help me change us from the late dining time to the AnyTime dining. My agent made the change for me and sent the new confirmation. On the new confirmation, the Black Friday promotion was gone and now I'm paying regular price. It's gone from $4,010.51 per room to $5,972.51 per room, simply due to changing the dining time. WTH? She saw nothing while making the change to indicate that the fare discounts would be dropped just for changing the dining time. Agent contacted Celebrity and they essentially told her we were imagining things, because the price had been that higher fare the whole time. That's a lie. I have the original confirmations from the travel agency showing the discounted price, but don't have the actual invoice from Celebrity from the original booking with that lower price. Shouldn't the cruise line be able to see the fare history in my reservation? Celebrity won't talk to me since I booked with an agent. My travel agent is at a loss, she doesn't know why this happened and why they don't seem to have any record of the Black Friday price on my original confirmation. I'm sick over this and losing my mind. We're going to have to cancel if this doesn't get resolved, and we really don't want to do that since we've already bought plane tickets to Europe for the cruise also. This is a disaster. Any thoughts/advice? 

I don’t use travel agents but for those who do, do you receive the actual booking confirmation pdf that is sent to those who book directly?   It contains all the pricing information and date booked. 

[cublet]

Hello,

 

I use a TA and *DO* also get the X booking confirmation.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet

[Rudy888]

I always have booked through a TA. I always receive from the TA the confirmation they receive from the cruise line.

[LA24]

First Cruise. Ascent March 2024.
As a rookie I decided to book on line through Celebrity’s own site. During the black Friday sale.

it appears they have some major IT issues. So not impressed.

Booking on line was a breeze. I saved everything as I went along. Very smart to do. I payed in full.

Woke up the next morning to an email from celebrity saying I owed 3000 dollars asap or my cruise would be cancelled.

Looked at the attached receipt and could clearly see that the discounts were no longer there.

i cant explain in words the “stress” that I felt.

I called them and spent the next 2 1/2 hours on the phone before the issue was resolved. 
The first customer services person I was speaking to was very nice but u could tell he was working from home (kids) in the background. He kept putting me on hold as he said he had to ask someone about the situation. I told him I could send all my saved booking pages to prove discount. But no one seemed to want that? Anyways eventually after over 1 1/2 hrs going back and forth and him asking other people, he said they could cancel my booking and rebook but prices had gone up and Id owe another 400. Yes 400 sounds way better than 3000. But I felt it was BS and said no. He then put me on hold again and came back and said that was the best they could do.

i then said I wanted to speak to a supervisor. I spoke with a supervisor and within 5mins she had fixed the issue, saying that somehow the system had removed my discount. Within minutes she emailed me a corrected receipt and gave me 140 more off as there was another discount she said I qualified for. Again I cant tell u how stressful inside me that situation felt.

 

 A few days later I called to book a one way flight through celebrity. As we were going to do some touring on land before returning home. Flight booked no issues. One way ticket to Fort Lauderdale.

 

This week we decided to just fly home after cruise so I called celebrity flights department. And they said for them to book a return flight I would have to cancel my flight there. They said to do this there would be a fee of 200 dollars.  That they just couldn't add a return flight without doing that. I told them I did not want to cancel flight there just wanted to add the return flight. 
So Im not going to pay 200 for them to do this. I will must book return flight else where but I personally found it ridiculous and have come away felling there customer service is very poor.

 

Next, sorry there is a next 😉 I booked some excursions - at 2 of the 3 port stops. I noticed there was nothing offered for Nassau. I called Celebrity excursions. No one could tell me why ie: all sold out…non offered? I asked if any would be added as I am new do this they said they didnt know? I called twice and got the same answer. 
 

Still remaining positive but unimpressed with the online booking and customer service people answering the phone. Everyone was nice but not helpful imo, except the supervisor.
 

 

 

 

 

[marci22]

Every time I log onto the website they tell me my password is wrong.

[truckswain]

This is a TA problem, the whole point in using a TA is so you do not have to deal with issues with your reservation.

 

I never use a TA and book direclty with Celebrity, but never online always over the phone.  I do enough research to know exactly what I want and have a live agent book it for me.  I do not hang up until I have reviewed the email confirmation for accuracy.

 

Final payment also done by phone and again, wait for the email confirmation to ensure accuracy.

 

Ordering a trinket from Amazon, no concerns but I would not trust any company's webiste to book travel.

[LA24]

truckswain

i agree if i were to ever book a cruise again i would do it the way u do call directly deal with a real person and get an email with fees before u pay. 

But in saying that they have a major issue with their online booking system that should be fixed!

I didnt make any errors on my end on line and have all to prove it.
They actually send u a receipt at the end of ur on line booking showing discounts fees and what u paid. And balance owing zero.

so somehow over night the discounts disappeared. And automatic emails were sent to me telling me to pay more of cruise cancelled. With a new bill and no discounts.

The supervisor clearly acknowledged that it was an issue with the site. 
i actually feel bad for the TA but Im sure they like I can get it fixed. 
the supervisor could see everything I entered on line. I didnt have to prove anything.

and they also know all the discounts that are happening. 

shame it took me to go to a supervisor.