Using OBC in advance

[PrincessPete]

Hi all, sorry to ask a question that has doubtless been asked before but I can't find the answer!

Just booking an Arvia cruise for later this year and have £150 onboard credit.

Can I use that in advance to book wifi? I think the answer may be "no".

If that is the case and I wait to book the wifi until I am onboard (which I know will be a bit more expensive) can I then use the OBC.

Many thanks for any responses.

Kind regards.

Peter

[happy v]

You are correct. Can't use it before you are onboard, but can when you are. Enjoy your cruise 

[Gettingwarmer]

59 minutes ago, PrincessPete said:

Hi all, sorry to ask a question that has doubtless been asked before but I can't find the answer!

Just booking an Arvia cruise for later this year and have £150 onboard credit.

Can I use that in advance to book wifi? I think the answer may be "no".

If that is the case and I wait to book the wifi until I am onboard (which I know will be a bit more expensive) can I then use the OBC.

Many thanks for any responses.

Kind regards.

Peter

Internet at present has 15% discount online. Will you not be doing any drinking or anything else on board to use up your OBC

[PrincessPete]

Thank you both for the very helpful replies. Indeed I will be drinking, but as I am going with a friend who, like me, is partial to a pint we will be getting a drinks package.

We will certainly have a look at buying in advance with the discount "Gettingwarmer" kindly referred to as I'm sure I will be able to spend the OBC on pressies for my daughters/granddaughters.

Many thanks again for the replies.

Best regards. Peter

[pete14]

It is quite noticeable that now P&O is offering incentives to book drinks packages, internet access, excursions and speciality dining before you set foot onboard, the opportunities for using onboard credit are diminishing. You have £150 which shouldn’t be too great a problem but some cruises offer much more with shareholder OBC to be added. We have a booking for 2026 - a 14 night cruise with total OBC of over £1000. We will probably use it to book drinks and internet packages onboard but will lose out on any pre booking discounts. Limited availability means that we will book speciality dining and any excursions in advance though. 

[9265359]

47 minutes ago, pete14 said:

It is quite noticeable that now P&O is offering incentives to book drinks packages, internet access, excursions and speciality dining before you set foot onboard, the opportunities for using onboard credit are diminishing.

 

The same opportunities exist as they did before the discounts, it just means that £100 OBC is only worth £80 if there is a 20% pre-boarding price for the stuff you want to buy - quite clever marketing.

[terrierjohn]

53 minutes ago, pete14 said:

It is quite noticeable that now P&O is offering incentives to book drinks packages, internet access, excursions and speciality dining before you set foot onboard, the opportunities for using onboard credit are diminishing. You have £150 which shouldn’t be too great a problem but some cruises offer much more with shareholder OBC to be added. We have a booking for 2026 - a 14 night cruise with total OBC of over £1000. We will probably use it to book drinks and internet packages onboard but will lose out on any pre booking discounts. Limited availability means that we will book speciality dining and any excursions in advance though. 

Moley  commented a while ago that P&O were considering allowing OBC to be used against pre cruise bookings, I wonder if that is still likely.

[pete14]

33 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

 

The same opportunities exist as they did before the discounts, it just means that £100 OBC is only worth £80 if there is a 20% pre-boarding price for the stuff you want to buy - quite clever marketing.

Of course the same opportunities exist, but only for those who do not pre purchase. Pre purchase discounts for packages encourage people to pre book and if they take advantage, they could easily end up with OBC that they can only spend by buying things they neither need nor want in the shops onboard. On a cruise last year, we pre booked drinks packages and internet at a discount and struggled to use approx £500 OBC because there was nothing we wanted or needed and speciality restaurants were fully booked. We ended up giving much of it to our son to put towards buying an expensive watch that he wanted which was already discounted in the jeweller onboard. Hopefully Moley’s  prediction about using OBC prior to boarding comes to pass. 

[david63]

36 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Moley  commented a while ago that P&O were considering allowing OBC to be used against pre cruise bookings, I wonder if that is still likely.

Probably still on the cards - just takes another two years to get the IT sorted to be able to do it😇

[9265359]

5 hours ago, pete14 said:

Hopefully Moley’s  prediction about using OBC prior to boarding comes to pass. 

 

Doubtful because of what you did - 

 

5 hours ago, pete14 said:

Of course the same opportunities exist, but only for those who do not pre purchase. Pre purchase discounts for packages encourage people to pre book and if they take advantage, they could easily end up with OBC that they can only spend by buying things they neither need nor want in the shops onboard. On a cruise last year, we pre booked drinks packages and internet at a discount and struggled to use approx £500 OBC because there was nothing we wanted or needed and speciality restaurants were fully booked. We ended up giving much of it to our son to put towards buying an expensive watch that he wanted which was already discounted in the jeweller onboard. 

 

You had £500 of OBC which you had paid for - yes you had bought it for cash as part of the overall package - but decided to 'save' money by instead of spending it onboard you pre-purchased your drinks and internet.

 

The result being that you ended up with the OBC that you had bought that you couldn't spend on anything that you actually wanted, so used it to buy a watch that certainly had a massive mark up despite its apparent discount (was it the usual 'ship special' only sold onboard so no way of actually checking the real price).

 

What a marketing wheeze from P&O - they sell you OBC and then persuade you to hand over even more cash to buy the stuff you actually wanted in the first place, and then they sell you overpriced stuff you didn't actually want with the OBC you bought. 

Edited April 13 by 9265359

[Harryjacobs]

Am I missing something here?  Wouldn't you have been financially better off binning the drinks package and instead use your £500 obc towards your final bar bill?

[pete14]

3 hours ago, 9265359 said:

 

Doubtful because of what you did - 

 

 

You had £500 of OBC which you had paid for - yes you had bought it for cash as part of the overall package - but decided to 'save' money by instead of spending it onboard you pre-purchased your drinks and internet.

 

The result being that you ended up with the OBC that you had bought that you couldn't spend on anything that you actually wanted, so used it to buy a watch that certainly had a massive mark up despite its apparent discount (was it the usual 'ship special' only sold onboard so no way of actually checking the real price).

 

What a marketing wheeze from P&O - they sell you OBC and then persuade you to hand over even more cash to buy the stuff you actually wanted in the first place, and then they sell you overpriced stuff you didn't actually want with the OBC you bought. 

Having the internet package, my son, being sensible, checked online to see the price before deciding to buy it. The identical watch online was nearly 50% more and that was the cheapest he could find it. So no, it appears that there was not a massive mark up, nor was it a ship’s special only available onboard. It was something he wanted but had it been overpriced, he would not have bought it. Neither he nor I are fools which you seem to be implying.

[9265359]

18 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Neither he nor I are fools which you seem to be implying.

 

Not at all - just that P&O's marketing techniques persuaded you to spend far more than you had intended by the combination of restricting the use of OBC to onboard and offering discounts prior to boarding.

 

Now if P&O can persuade you, who is not a fool, to spend far more than you intended, then why would they change their marketing as you seem happy with that additional spending.

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, 9265359 said:

 

Not at all - just that P&O's marketing techniques persuaded you to spend far more than you had intended by the combination of restricting the use of OBC to onboard and offering discounts prior to boarding.

 

Now if P&O can persuade you, who is not a fool, to spend far more than you intended, then why would they change their marketing as you seem happy with that additional spending.

These marketing techniques are cruise industry wide, its pointless pointing your finger at P&O, and seemingly suggesting that they are alone in pursuing this policy.

[DamianG]

On 4/12/2024 at 5:48 PM, PrincessPete said:

Hi all, sorry to ask a question that has doubtless been asked before but I can't find the answer!

Just booking an Arvia cruise for later this year and have £150 onboard credit.

Can I use that in advance to book wifi? I think the answer may be "no".

If that is the case and I wait to book the wifi until I am onboard (which I know will be a bit more expensive) can I then use the OBC.

Many thanks for any responses.

Kind regards.

Peter

 

An alternative strategy is to not buy the drinks package until your second day onboard. We have done that twice as we were pretty certain that we were unlikely to "drink our money's worth" (so to speak) on embarkation day, especially as we knew that we would get some complimentary drinks in the upper loyalty tier embarkation lunch and a sailaway drinks voucher. We missed out on the 10% discount for booking in advance but that was offset for us by skipping a day plus we were able to use OBC towards the cost.

 

Also, going this way means you can "pay as you go" on embarkation day and get a feel for the drinks menu prices before making the final decision as to whether a drinks package is worthwhile for you or not (in terms of both prices and restrictions).

 

It looks like the current discount for internet pre-booking is 15% but occasionally they offer as high as 20% so for us that is the better pre-cruise offer. We initially booked internet for our 2025 cruise with a 10% discount but later saw that it was being offered at 20%. Fortunately we were able to cancel our original booking then reorder it with the 20% discount. The refund was received on the same day.

 

Good luck with your pre-cruise planning.

 

Damian

[david63]

The lure of offering discounts on packages prior to the cruise is, I suspect, aimed at the new(ish) cruiser, who is the target market and who may not be fully aware of the marketing ploys.

 

With experience you are able to make informed decisions and decide where is the best place to spend any OBC

[9265359]

10 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

These marketing techniques are cruise industry wide, its pointless pointing your finger at P&O, and seemingly suggesting that they are alone in pursuing this policy.

 

So if these marketing techniques are industry wide, then why expect P&O to change their strategy to one that is less effective by allowing people to use OBC prior to boarding with a discount?

[terrierjohn]

43 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

 

So if these marketing techniques are industry wide, then why expect P&O to change their strategy to one that is less effective by allowing people to use OBC prior to boarding with a discount?

Possibly to fall into line with Princess, who are also part of Carnival.

[yorkshirephil]

2 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Possibly to fall into line with Princess, who are also part of Carnival.

A nice to have but unlikely to happen, the other side of the coin is that P&O fall into line with Princess on drinks prices. I have cruises booked with P&O, Cunard and Princess and it is like dealing with three completely different companies.

[david63]

21 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

P&O, Cunard and Princess and it is like dealing with three completely different companies.

Or to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw "two countries separated by the same language"