Does Celebrity Offer Anything Equivalent to the Princess Future Cruise Credit?

This seems like a no-brainer on board purchase when sailing Princess. Does Celebrity have anything equivalent?

This seems like a no-brainer on board purchase when sailing Princess. Does Celebrity have anything equivalent?

Celebrity does offer various incentives for futures cruises booked during a current cruise. The incentives vary with the regular Celebrity incentives. Last September we were on a Med cruise and booked a "place holder" Panama Canal cruise for April 2018. Once we got home and looked at our schedules we found a Venice to Barcelona cruise for Sept 2017 that we really liked. I quick call to our TA and our bookings was transfered from the Canal cruise to the Med/Adriatic cruise keeping all of our perks that included our choice of two perks, $200 in OBC from Celebrity and a gilf card from the TA. Oh, when we made the original onboard booking, we had it assigned right to our TA.

This seems like a no-brainer on board purchase when sailing Princess. Does Celebrity have anything equivalent?

 

 

Agree it is a no-brainer. We did an on-board booking in late 2015 for a 2017 European placeholder and recently transferred it to a fall 2017 11-N Caribbean booking. Received a $200 per cabin OBC from the on-board booking in addition to the two perks included with the current pricing.

I'll be on Constellation in 2 months, so I'm tempted to get one of these future cruise deals. A few questions for those of you experienced with this:

 

Deposits to secure these onboard deals are typically very low, correct? I've heard $100 or less is common.

 

Are better incentives offered if you book a specific cruise on board, rather than a "future booking?"

 

How far in the future do you typically have to redeem?

 

Are you committing to a particular category of cabin?

 

Is tire deposit fully refundable if you are a U.S. citizen?

 

Is it possible to apply the future cruise deal to a booking I already made for a 2018 sailing? My TA says they can usually "work this out" with X, even if you need to cancel and rebook.

 

Thanks!

 

 

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I will answer your questions from my experience. Other posters may have different experiences.

 

 

Deposits to secure these onboard deals are typically very low, correct? I've heard $100 or less is common.

 

Yes, usually $100 pp.

 

 

Are better incentives offered if you book a specific cruise on board, rather than a "future booking?"

Yes, you will get more OBC from Celebrity if you book a specific cruise (which can be changed at a later date) as opposed to just a non-specific future cruise.

 

How far in the future do you typically have to redeem?

I don't recall exactly, I think three years, after which Celebrity refunds your deposit if not booked.

 

 

Are you committing to a particular category of cabin?

 

No, you can change categories, HOWEVER, be aware that your OBC is based on your cabin category and you will get less OBC if you change to a lower category stateroom.

 

Is tire deposit fully refundable if you are a U.S. citizen?

Yes.

 

Is it possible to apply the future cruise deal to a booking I already made for a 2018 sailing? My TA says they can usually "work this out" with X, even if you need to cancel and rebook.

No, you can't apply the credit to a cruise already booked. Your TA is correct, you can cancel and re-book as a future cruise. But you may have to pay a higher price for that cruise thus losing any benefit from the future cruise credit.

First I think most experienced Celebrity cruisers would avoid the future cruise certificate or whatever they call it where you just make a small deposit and don't actually make a cruise booking. These can be very hard to redeem given Celebrity's complicated deal combineability rules. Otherwise booking a future cruise while onboard generally gets you the current deals being offered as well as some extra OBC for booking onboard and sometimes a reduced deposit. The OBC can be a bit tricky since they say you can take the OBC on your current sailing. This can be fine but note that generally what they "give" you in OBC is the amount of your deposit, which means if you cancel the future cruise you get NO money back (you already spent it as OBC). I ALWAYS ask to have the booking incentive OBC applied to the future cruise and pay the deposit. Then if I cancel the future cruise I get the deposit back.

 

The other thing I always do is to make sure to tell them that I want to keep control of the new booking and NOT to automatically assign the booking the the TA I used to book the current cruise. Even if I intend to transfer to my regular agent I wait until I get home and then negotiate with my agent for additional perks. My thinking is that I might not do as well if they get the booking automatically. Once I agree on the deal my TA takes care of the transfer Must be done within 60 days.

My TA is great, as I know she will give me lots of OBC, so I can transfer right away and be done with it...we have a great relationship that has transpired over time.

 

 

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Thanks El Crucero and wrk2cruise for the helpful advice! :)

One thing not mentioned is the OBC being used on the cruise you are actually on at the time of booking. Don't know if they are still doing this but we booked a future cruise a couple of years ago while on our Alaska cruise. We had the option of using the OBC on that cruise or o the one we booked while on board.

One thing not mentioned is the OBC being used on the cruise you are actually on at the time of booking. Don't know if they are still doing this but we booked a future cruise a couple of years ago while on our Alaska cruise. We had the option of using the OBC on that cruise or o the one we booked while on board.

 

 

We had the option to use the OBC on our cruise last week but that would render the deposit non-refundable. As we already had OBC to be refunded, we opted naturally to use the onboard booking OBC during the future cruise.

 

 

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We did this for the first time in January,( after many years with X) because we knew exactly what we wanted.

I got the X price quote and perks offer from the future cruise desk. Then immediately went online and "talked" to my TA, got HIS pricing in writing and then went back to put down the small deposit.

BTW, we saved an additional $600 for a verandah on top of X's offer by having the TA be listed... and not be satisfied with Celebrity's "great" offer.