But I'm trying to give Princess more money!

I'm booked for a cruise in January 2018 under the Sip and Sail promotion. I have a regular balcony. I tried calling Princess today to upgrade to a deluxe balcony and I can't do it without losing the promotion. I could understand if I was trying to downgrade, but I'm trying to upgrade and the prices of the cabins didn't even change between Sip and Sale and the 3 for Free sale they are running now. I even tried calling back to see if I got a different answer, but it was the same. Oh well, First World Problems.

Do you have a TA? Maybe they can help../

No TA but I've been thinking about getting one. I usually like to keep control of my own bookings and I've been afraid if I transferred my booking to a TA it might reflect badly on my Princess Vacation Planner, but it seems like you can get a lot of perks with the right TA and my Princess guy never gives me zip.

No TA but I've been thinking about getting one. I usually like to keep control of my own bookings and I've been afraid if I transferred my booking to a TA it might reflect badly on my Princess Vacation Planner, but it seems like you can get a lot of perks with the right TA and my Princess guy never gives me zip.

There are pros and cons to both sides. I have liked having a person who will help fight my battles.

for this new cruise, you may want to call on Monday- when the A team is fresh.

No TA but I've been thinking about getting one. I usually like to keep control of my own bookings and I've been afraid if I transferred my booking to a TA it might reflect badly on my Princess Vacation Planner, but it seems like you can get a lot of perks with the right TA and my Princess guy never gives me zip.

The reality is that when you deal directly with any cruise line you have no control....they have the control. Using a decent high volume cruise or travel agency gives you more leverage as these agencies have their own internal relationships, and their high volume bookings give them more clout then a single passenger gets. Several years ago we called Princess and asked them if they would match a deal we could get from a major cruise agency. We were transferred to a supervisor who politely explained that Princess does not compete with cruise agencies...but rather works with cruise and travel agencies.

Having booked over 100 cruises (for ourselves) we learned, years ago, to shop around among major reputable cruise/travel agencies and look for the best overall deal. The norm is that we (or anyone else) can save 7-10% on nearly any booking by using the right agency. While this does not amount to a lot of money on a 3,4 or even some 7 day cruises......when we book our longer cruises (sometimes over 60 days) our savings are often in the thousands of dollars (on a single cruise booking). And the agencies we normally use (we call it our favored list) have terrific service (much better then dealing with most cruise lines). We would emphasize that we do not rely on a single cruise agency (or agent) but rather shop around among our short list of 4 agencies (with whom we have a good relationship) and also check-out 1 or 2 others on a rotating basis. Certain cruise agencies seem to have better relations with specific lines (we find this through experience). For example, there is one agency that seems to have very good deals with any RCI Corp brand. We use a different agency for our extensive HAL bookings....because they seem to come up with more perks.

Hank

I agree with Hank. When you book directly with Princess, even using a Vacation Planner, you're paying the equivalent of the retail price. You have no more control than if you use a reputable TA. Any "deal" you get is available to any other Princess passenger.

Find a TA who books a high volume of Princess cruises. They get the best pricing to start with. Then, they give their clients group fares. And, they discount their commission as they work on volume and repeat business. They are your advocate should you have any problem or issue with the cruise line. Your PVP works for the cruise line. :)

Issue is you're effectively cancelling your first fare and purchasing the second. Need to pencil it out to see if the second fare is better for you.

I'm booked for a cruise in January 2018 under the Sip and Sail promotion. I have a regular balcony. I tried calling Princess today to upgrade to a deluxe balcony and I can't do it without losing the promotion. I could understand if I was trying to downgrade, but I'm trying to upgrade and the prices of the cabins didn't even change between Sip and Sale and the 3 for Free sale they are running now. I even tried calling back to see if I got a different answer, but it was the same. Oh well, First World Problems.

Don't both with a TA... I remember some years ago, we had a TA, had a booking with HAL, different cruise line, they had a promotion that included a transfer... we had booked before they offered the transfer, so we asked our TA to get the transfer for us. HAL said no. Even though the new promotion with transfer was cheaper and all we wanted was the transfer not the lower fare. So what did we do, cancel our booking and rebooked, so we go the transfer and the lower fare... go figure, sometimes the cruise lines do things that don't make sense .

The problem is that the OP wants to keep what she has and get a new cabin but use a promotion that has been done for quite some time.

My awesome commodore TA tried to do this some time ago for us and it cannot be done. Once the promotion is over and a new one starts they will not deal with you on the old one.

Maybe the OP will see a better sale later on or can get an upgrade or an upsell.

You can't do this with a TA either. Just changing from one balcony to another balcony category cancels this promo out. It is a very rigid promo.

Issue is you're effectively cancelling your first fare and purchasing the second. Need to pencil it out to see if the second fare is better for you.

That is what I was thinking. When you re-fare, you are doing so under the terms in effect at the time. If Sip and Sail has expired, you can't just transfer it to the new booking. If you were accepting an upsell, you get to keep all perks, but I don't think it works that way if you just want to upgrade yourself and keep the perks from the old booking.

At least that is the way I understand it. Could a good TA have managed to get both? I don't know. Anybody have a similar experience?

Several people answered while I was typing. Guess I had it right after all. Thanks.

Odds are they will run this promo again. Your cruise is not for a long time. Just wait until it comes back around.

If you think about it, it's only been within the last few years that Princess has started to run all these promotions. I think that with the flexibility we all had with FCC's, the promos have curbed lots of the "cancel and re-fare" stuff. Now, it's just not a price change to consider, you have to figure the total "package". I think that's why now there is always a "sale/promo". They like us all to be "committed" to what we booked. It also makes it much harder to book early and nail down our favorite cabin and hope for price reductions later on. Just my thoughts.

The "TA vs. booking yourself" discussion is a red herring. It can't be done either way without dumping your existing promotion and grabbing the current one. Once a promotion rolls over from one to the next, you have to sharpen your pencil and decide if you want what is behind Door #1 or trade over to Door #2. The good news is that there is a lot of time between now and your cruise so the will be 437 different promotions between now and then and one of them might give you what you want.

I rather doubt that the OP's cruise will be covered by Sip and Sail the next time it is offered. We booked in the summer of 2015 for October of 2016. When Sip and Sail came around this summer, our cruise was not included so if we had not booked when we did, we would have missed out.

There well may be other sales and promotions, but I don't think you get two shots at any of them.

I'm booked for a cruise in January 2018 under the Sip and Sail promotion. I have a regular balcony. I tried calling Princess today to upgrade to a deluxe balcony and I can't do it without losing the promotion. I could understand if I was trying to downgrade, but I'm trying to upgrade and the prices of the cabins didn't even change between Sip and Sale and the 3 for Free sale they are running now. I even tried calling back to see if I got a different answer, but it was the same. Oh well, First World Problems.

They don't make it easy .