Discount online cruise?

Has anybody else heard that they are going to stop the discount online cruise sales after the first of the year?

Each cruiseline is handling this differently. There are vast discussions of these changes on each cruiseline's board here.

Currently Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are the only 2 lines not authorizing any discounts, either online or through TAs. We have heard the Carnival will be following suit in Jan. No other information on other lines.

We bought the Carnival vacation Club Package in September on the Conquest. That was one of his sales pitches, that they we would not be able to buy discount cruises after the first of the year. I was just wondering if this is true or just a sales pitch.

Lynn, you were not given a sales pitch. What the person told you is definitely true. The cruise lines have decided to put the squeeze on the discount internet agencies and have made a new rule that these agencies can no longer sell their cruises at less than what the cruise line sells them for. RCCI and Celebrity have already implemented that rule and Carnival is starting that at the beginning of January.

I had not heard of this before. Is this a law? Or just a general rule that the entire industry has agreed to follow?

It's not a law, rather an industry-wide trend / policy. It's akin to the airlines generally not passing along commissions to TA's for the sale of airline tix. TA's are still receiving commissions from the cruiselines overall, but the cruiselines don't want to see their direct sales affected by the discounters.

Let's face it, margins on cruise lines are tight, the companies will do what they can to squeeze every last dollar/pound/euro from a potential customer.

Mike

I'll still be going. Might have to book last minute cruises or book way ahead of time to get a discount. We don't have to worry about it yet, we still have 3 or 4 cruises bought on the vacation plan.