On Board Credit is it real?

[ovccruiser]

We have recently completed a cruise for 2 weeks on P&O where we were offered £350 OBC and with my shareholder benefit that was increased to £500,  great, but, not till the end of the cruise did I realise that when you use the OBC you do not get the Peninsular discount applied. So for my £500, which I totally used, with my meagre 5% club discount had it been applied, was only allowed to buy £475 or if the discount was applied I could have had £526 a difference of £51. Now, there are higher discounts up to 10% where the difference will be £105 (£450 to £555). Which makes it even worse, the passengers most loyal get less for their OBC than someone who has just had their first cruise.

 

I appreciate the OBC is a gift and much appreciated, however, the most loyal passenger get less for their £ than the passenger who are taking their first cruise. At present there are a number of cruises being offered with OBC as an incentive for you to buy. Interestingly since my last cruise I have moved up a grade and now get 7.5% so next time my £500 OBS will only afford me £462.50 so my loyalty will cost me £12.50.

 

I think P&O need to look at this, they are not appreciating loyalty by offering these OBC's without discount.

[yorkshirephil]

There will always be winners and losers whatever system is used. There have been several debates on here as to whether OBC is really free or whether free flights, free parking, free cabin upgrades, free drinks packages are really free. It depends on how you view these things.

 

I see OBC as a bonus to tempt me to book a cruise, albeit I would prefer the cruise price to be less with no OBC then I would get my 10% loyalty discount on onboard purchases, so I agree with your sentiment that I am not getting as good a value for my OBC as a new cruiser. Companies market their products to suit their overall profit's and sometimes sweeteners are required to tempt people. It is what it is.

[david63]

29 minutes ago, ovccruiser said:

I appreciate the OBC is a gift

No it's not - it is your money that P&O have in their bank account for several months earning them interest (except for shareholder OBC)

[ovccruiser]

2 minutes ago, david63 said:

No it's not - it is your money that P&O have in their bank account for several months earning them interest (except for shareholder OBC)

Depends when you book

[david63]

Just now, ovccruiser said:

Depends when you book

It makes no difference - if you follow prices you will see that if OBC goes up £100 so does the fare - although the opposite is not always true

[bobstheboy]

9 minutes ago, david63 said:

It makes no difference - if you follow prices you will see that if OBC goes up £100 so does the fare - although the opposite is not always true

Totally disagree. I have had large OBC and the cruise price has not gone down that much but the OBC has.  Examples are Azura in Jan this year, got a great price for a suite and £700 OBC + another £300 with shareholder and military OBC. Cruising next Jan. Iona 35 nights. £800 OBC + £300 and 10% discount when we booked on Arvia last September. Price is still way above what I paid.

 

Got to be price savey.

[Selbourne]

Just now, ovccruiser said:

I appreciate the OBC is a gift

As others have said, it isn’t a gift. When you get OBC you have usually paid more for the cruise in order to get your ‘free’ OBC. 
 

It’s mostly a marketing ploy to make people think they are getting a bargain when often they are not.
 

To take a made up (but fairly accurate) example;

 

Cruise fare £2,000 pp with no OBC

Next promotion £250 OBC but price has gone up to £2,250

Next promotion Double OBC, now £500, but price is now £2,500

Next promotion - Price drop - Cruise reduced by £500 to £2,000, but no OBC

 

As you can see, the ‘net’ cost (cruise cost minus OBC) is the same in all examples!

Now, of course, net prices don’t remain the same, but this is usually more to do with supply and demand and time before sailing, rather than OBC deals but, as you have worked out, if you get loyalty discount, it’s better to get a cheaper cruise price with no (or low) OBC.

 

Then, of course, there’s the whole issue of Select (with OBC) versus Saver (without). We are on a 65 night cruise at present. I’ve overheard a number of obviously Select passengers talking about having over £1,000 OBC. We didn’t get any ‘free’ OBC (other than shareholder benefit) but we saved over £10k by booking a Saver fare, plus we’ve had 10% discount on all our on board spend. Doesn’t take more than a second to work out which is the better deal!

[cruising.mark.uk]

2 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

Totally disagree. I have had large OBC and the cruise price has not gone down that much but the OBC has.  Examples are Azura in Jan this year, got a great price for a suite and £700 OBC + another £300 with shareholder and military OBC. Cruising next Jan. Iona 35 nights. £800 OBC + £300 and 10% discount when we booked on Arvia last September. Price is still way above what I paid.

 

Got to be price savey.

I agree with this completely.

 

My wife and I were on the Iona cruise 27 Jan.  We booked shortly after the announcement was made that this was going to be one of the 'Health and Wellbeing' cruises (there was a thread on here), at which point they reduced prices and offered double onboard credit.  With Shareholder and military as well, we ended up with £1350 OBC, more than enough to make the cruise all inclusive for us.  The OBC paid for internet, speciality dining every night of the cruise, the Limelight and all of our alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.  And, we still had to spend £300+ on cosmetics and electrical bits and pieces in the shops on the last sea day to use it all.  I monitored prices and the price + OBC calculation was never as good as the one we received from the day we booked it until the day we sailed.

 

To the OP: We always try to book savvy, albeit the above was the best we've achieved so far.  And, we are lucky enough to get Shareholder and military OBC as well.  So, I have to disagree with others who say that the customer has 'paid' for OBC.  In our case, I'd estimate that - on average - about 50% of the OBC we get is, in effect, 'free money'.  And, I'm sure many others who monitor pricing and receive shareholder / military OBC are in a similar position.  That being the case, it would be churlish to expect to get another 10% discount for loyalty as well.  Nice to have, but I don't feel wronged when I don't get it and neither do I feel that P&O is not appreciating my loyalty.

[david63]

The only "free" OBC is shareholder and military (unless you have been given a one off as compensation for something)

 

All OBC, and for that matter Peninsular discount, is built into the fare price and, as has been said, is a marketing tool. P&O are no different than any other organisation, they are not a charity giving money away - the Carnival bean counters make sure of that.

 

OBC is there for several reasons:

1. It provides P&O with a cash pool that can earn then several hundred thousand pounds of interest a year (either direct or indirect)

2. It forces you to spend money onboard the ship that you might not otherwise spend (we have all bought something towards the end of a cruise to use up OBC)

3. It reduces the amount of Peninsular discount that would normally be given.

4. It is marketing.

 

No matter how you want to look at, or convince yourself otherwise OBC is your money and if there was no OBC the base fare would be less

[Windsurfboy]

OBC is an enticement to book select. It's free if you would have booked select anyway, if you put a premium on choosing cabin.

 

OBC never makes a select cabin cheaper than a saver.

 

Selbourne' s saving of 10k is massive and unusual ,  it clearly changes the equation makes OBC trivial.   Normally it is much finer balanced decision.  

[9265359]

21 minutes ago, david63 said:

The only "free" OBC is shareholder and military (unless you have been given a one off as compensation for something)

 

And even then it isn't really 'free' as you have to hand them money to get it, and as such it would be better described as a discount.

[yorkshirephil]

1 minute ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

 

OBC never makes a select cabin cheaper than a saver.

 

It has on several of our bookings when booked onboard at release date. Our Iona 2025 cruise was £150pp cheaper for select when taking into account the OBC than the saver fare.

We have since rebooked this cruise whilst aboard ship and got a 10% discount and triple OBC. My way of looking at it is that we bought the original OBC as part of the purchase, but the extra OBC was free as was the 10% discount as we didn't pay for it. 

[david63]

8 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

OBC never makes a select cabin cheaper than a saver.

I have seen instances where that is not true, but they are few and far between

[david63]

1 minute ago, yorkshirephil said:

the extra OBC was free as was the 10% discount as we didn't pay for it.

You may not have paid for it but somebody has

[cruising.mark.uk]

13 minutes ago, david63 said:

The only "free" OBC is shareholder and military (unless you have been given a one off as compensation for something)

 

All OBC, and for that matter Peninsular discount, is built into the fare price and, as has been said, is a marketing tool. P&O are no different than any other organisation, they are not a charity giving money away - the Carnival bean counters make sure of that.

 

OBC is there for several reasons:

1. It provides P&O with a cash pool that can earn then several hundred thousand pounds of interest a year (either direct or indirect)

2. It forces you to spend money onboard the ship that you might not otherwise spend (we have all bought something towards the end of a cruise to use up OBC)

3. It reduces the amount of Peninsular discount that would normally be given.

4. It is marketing.

 

No matter how you want to look at, or convince yourself otherwise OBC is your money and if there was no OBC the base fare would be less

I think you forgot to preface this post with 'In my opinion' because my post above and that of @bobstheboy suggest that, in our experience, it is an inaccurate generalisation.

 

And, the last sentence is only true hypothetically.  Often you can't get a Select fare without OBC.  The way to do that is to get a Saver fare, but then you have to take an assigned cabin.  But no-one is forced to take one or the other.  If you think that you get the cheapest price / best value with a Saver fare and no OBC, then book that.  Others will have a different perspective, based on their calculation of the values and the associated pros and cons.

 

In short, my sense is that it is not possible to generalise about OBC.  Whether it offers good value for an individual will differ from cruise to cruise, the various prices offered at the time the cruise is booked, whether they are shareholders or qualify for military OBC etc etc  There is no one size fits all and it is inaccurate to state that all OBC is built into the fare price.  In my experience, sometimes CCL brands do actually give 'free' money (and military OBC is a very good example of that.  Shareholder OBC somewhat less so because it relies on an initial purchase of the shares, but it is not built into an individual's fare for a specific cruise).  Yes, standard OBC is a marketing tool to boost sales and - potentially - to increase on board spending over what that passenger would normally spend, but every now and again marketing works in favour of the passenger as well as the cruise line.

[cruising.mark.uk]

7 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

 

And even then it isn't really 'free' as you have to hand them money to get it, and as such it would be better described as a discount.

Irrespective of the semantics, I'll gladly continue to accept my £300 / $500 on every 14 day cruise I take on a CCL brand.

[yorkshirephil]

31 minutes ago, david63 said:

The only "free" OBC is shareholder and military (unless you have been given a one off as compensation for something)

 

 

I do not see shareholder benefit as free. You have to buy the shares to get the benefit in the same way you have to buy a cruise to get OBC.

[9265359]

35 minutes ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

Irrespective of the semantics, I'll gladly continue to accept my £300 / $500 on every 14 day cruise I take on a CCL brand.

 

I am sure that Carnival Corp will be more than happy to take the many thousands of pounds you intend handing over to them.

[9265359]

37 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

I do not see shareholder benefit as free. You have to buy the shares to get the benefit in the same way you have to buy a cruise to get OBC.

 

Worse than that, you have to buy the shares AND the cruise to get the shareholders benefit!

[bobstheboy]

3 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

 

Worse than that, you have to buy the shares AND the cruise to get the shareholders benefit!

Well, I bought the shares at £5.30 and had £450 OBC and more to come. As for having to buy the cruise, what a silly comment.

[Harryjacobs]

44 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

I do not see shareholder benefit as free. You have to buy the shares to get the benefit in the same way you have to buy a cruise to get OBC.

I too bought shares at £5ish.  I have had 3 cruises all with the extra OBC given and now the shares are trading at £11ish if I wish to sell.  Id say I have the upper hand here.

[Selbourne]

In the (good?) old days, when launch prices were never bettered, I just used to book at launch and then pretty much forget about it. From time to time I might take a glance and sometimes prices were way more than we’d paid (sometimes double the price or more) and other times fairly close but, as I say, never lower. 
 

Now that world is no more, I’ll admit to being quite sad in that I make a long list of potential cruises that might be of interest and note down the net price (cruise fare minus OBC) at launch and then every few months, especially if there’s a new promotion, check the prices again. I do this for both P&O and Cunard. Thats how I know that OBC is often a tool used to balance a select fare that can vary enormously. 
 

I can also confirm that I have seen plenty of times when the Select price, minus the OBC, has worked out the same as (and, believe it or not, very occasionally less than) the Saver fare. 
 

I’ve always booked Select as cabin choice is critical, but I’ve learned over the last year that the time to grab a bargain is around a week after balance due date, when Late Savers kick in. I think it was probably because we wanted an accessible balcony cabin, but we were even told during the booking process (but before confirming the booking) which specific cabin we were getting, which took the usual Saver risk away (other than dining choice, but we ended up with our first choice anyway). 
 

Rather than worry too much about the fluctuations, nowadays I tend to set a maximum price that I’ll pay per night and if I can achieve that I’m happy to book, in the knowledge that even if the price drops it won’t be by very much. 

[9265359]

46 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

As for having to buy the cruise, what a silly comment.

 

If you think you are getting something for free without handing over any cash then I am not sure who is the silly one!

 

The shareholder OBC is a discount not a free gift - buy this and it is £150 cheaper, not here is £150 free just for holding the shares.

 

Now obviously there are those who will say "but I was going to but it anyway" and the answer to that is that it is still a discount and not a free gift.

[zap99]

3 hours ago, ovccruiser said:

We have recently completed a cruise for 2 weeks on P&O where we were offered £350 OBC and with my shareholder benefit that was increased to £500,  great, but, not till the end of the cruise did I realise that when you use the OBC you do not get the Peninsular discount applied. So for my £500, which I totally used, with my meagre 5% club discount had it been applied, was only allowed to buy £475 or if the discount was applied I could have had £526 a difference of £51. Now, there are higher discounts up to 10% where the difference will be £105 (£450 to £555). Which makes it even worse, the passengers most loyal get less for their OBC than someone who has just had their first cruise.

 

I appreciate the OBC is a gift and much appreciated, however, the most loyal passenger get less for their £ than the passenger who are taking their first cruise. At present there are a number of cruises being offered with OBC as an incentive for you to buy. Interestingly since my last cruise I have moved up a grade and now get 7.5% so next time my £500 OBS will only afford me £462.50 so my loyalty will cost me £12.50.

 

I think P&O need to look at this, they are not appreciating loyalty by offering these OBC's without discount.

Not a big deal though, is it ?

Edited March 2 by zap99

[cruising.mark.uk]

14 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

 

Now obviously there are those who will say "but I was going to but it anyway" and the answer to that is that it is still a discount and not a free gift.

Whether it is a discount or a free gift will be irrelevant to anyone who receives it and spends more than £150 onboard on a 14 night or longer cruise.  I suspect very few of them will spend less than that.