Making Deposits and Cancellations......

A post by GmaPajama about the chance of cabins freeing up at 90 days out and getting on a wait list got me thinking about deposits and waitlists.

 

Now that HAL is permitting $100 deposits to hold a cabin and final payments are due 75 - 90 days out, are we going to see lots of freed up cabins at the time final payment is due?

 

While it is nice to be able to hold a cabin for only $100 pp, it is such a low sum that I fear many people will willy nilly hold cabins 'just in case' they think they MIGHT want to take that cruise. It could start to make it difficult for people who are serious about wanting that booking to get a cabin.

 

Do you think this is a possibility?

I fear many people will willy nilly hold cabins 'just in case' they think they MIGHT want to take that cruise. It could start to make it difficult for people who are serious about wanting that booking to get a cabin.

 

Do you think this is a possibility?

I think it might happen some, just as some people now book two airline flights a few hours apart and cancel one at the last possible time, but by-and-large I don't think it will happen much.

 

On our Sep cruise we're planning on putting down the $100 each on an "unspecified" future cruise because we haven't decided which of four ships we would like to take next April. I think the majority of 'just in case' people would do that rather than choose a specific cabin.

 

I'm sure if it got to be a problem HAL would discontinue the $100 deal.

Sail, I think you have a valid question that I think may easily happen. Also that $100 deposit from having booked on the ship to my understanding can be easily transferred to another booking and or back to an Open Future Cruise. It will be interesting to see how this days play out in the future. My guess is there will be a lot more drop out at Final payment because they will now be having to pay a bit more at one time. This may also have HAL doing a lot more of their Three Day Sales as a cruise gets closer. I was surprised that our upcoming cruise closed all the categories at the 8 week mark. That is much earlier than I have seen prior and since I had just checked it on Thursday I already knew there were plenty of cabins but I am assuming they sold a lot of Guarantees (like mine) and now need to make sure they have enough cabins for all that have booked.

Question - a bit off the topic, but after you make your final payment, if the price in your category goes down, can you still get a credit for that amount?

I don't like that $100 deposit can tie up a specific cabin up to final payment date. In other words, I am not fond of business strategies that do not require the consumer to have some meaningful skin in the game.

I imagine that if this program is as liberal as it sounds there could be a lot of problems with dedicated bookers getting the cabins they want. I'd still prefer to pay the whole deposit and have less to pay at final payment. We only cruise once a year now, if we made several bookings per year this progam would help us and give us time to choose our itineraries and ships. We pretty much know where we want to go for the yearly cruise so we wouldn't take advatage of the $100 deposit UNLESS we found something not-to-be-missed while on a cruise and were thinking of our present budget.

 

Golfette

Supposedly if the price goes down by 10% or more before final payment you are supposed to get the benefit. Sometimes people cancel and rebook if the new price is only for new bookings. I don't know if this 10% policy is still in effect? Does anyone have experience with this?

GN

GN .... I haven't heard any mention of the 10% Rule in a very long time. In years past, we did get the benefit of lower pricing when the 10% less terms were met but it has been a long time.

 

On a number of our bookings, the price actually went up after we booked rather than down.

 

As time goes on, if HAL sees a high cancel rate at final payment time, they may need to revisit and revise the policy. I would like to see: a full regular deposit should passengers want to select a specific cabin; $100 deposit applicable only for category guarantees or for as yet undetermined sailing.

Many online travel agencies charge a fee for canceling. Usually $50pp, some will wave it in varying circumstances. I’m not sure, but I think that low deposit thing is a limited time promo. If it does become a problem, I would guess many agencies, including HAL, would charge a fee for booking and canceling since time is money.

Mark…

FYI- Princess has had promos of $100 to $200 deposits for several years now. I would think that if Princess saw problems that they would have changed their procedures. Since HAL has mirrored their deposit program after Princess I guess only time will tell. Anything is possible.

Question - a bit off the topic, but after you make your final payment, if the price in your category goes down, can you still get a credit for that amount?

 

Golfette---

In a syllable, No.

Not on HAL. Some other cruise lines MAY offer an onboard credit for the reduction difference, if pushed, but generally once final payment is made, that's it.

Good question Sail - in fact I was guilty of this myself. We took advantage of the $100 deposit for future cruise while we were on the Oosterdam - I decided to hold two S cabins, not sure who all would be sailing with us.

 

I realized the other day that I have intended to release one of the cabins and had not yet done so, and I had my TA move all four of us into one cabin. That way, it frees up the S in case someone else wants it. Based on the cost of the Eurodam inaugural, we will not be booking two S categories...

 

Good topic. :) I wonder how many other people did what I did (not knowingly being selfish - just not thinking....)

Laura - I'm guessing you called your TA to cancel that 2nd S cabin. So now what happens to that $200 deposit on that cabin ($100 x 2pax). Does HAL hold onto it until you decide to book another cruise or is it refunded to you? Will it transfer to a future cruise?

 

Sail - great question. But doesn't this $100 pp deposit apply only to bookings/future sailings made while onboard? If one just makes the arrangements their normal way, they still pay the regular deposit, right? So maybe this isn't as big a deal as we think it might be? :confused:

Yes, Sunshine. It is only for bookings made while aboard. From what I observed on Maasdam the last several weeks, many people took advantage of this new arrangement. The future cruise consultant seemed to be available quite a few hours throughout the week and I think lots of people stopped by to make bookings.

 

We did. I made deposit for two future 'to be determined' cruises. In that case, we aren't holding a specific cabin. We can pick whichever cruise whenever we are ready and the $100 pp deposit we already paid will be all that is required until final payment time. We will get the shipboard credit and have four years to make the bookings.

 

I have discarded the email I got from HAL, but I don't think it read the way Sunshine91 and sail7seas think.

 

The offer clearly stated $100 deposit for a cruise, or at least I thought it did, I didn't read that it was only for on-board bookings.

 

I just took advantage of Princess $100 deposit booking for a Med cruise next year, so wasn't interested in the HAL cruise offer, so I deleted it.

SO I can't re-read it to see exactly what it said. But the Princess $100 deposit definitely isn't for on-board bookings only, as I've never been on a Princess cruise and just booked it with a TA.

 

There may definitely be a lot of cancellations with only $100 out of pocket, but as U4ea stated, most TAs charge a cancellation fee, so it would be a little more than just the $100, but still not what the cruise would cost.

We did. I made deposit for two future 'to be determined' cruises. In that case, we aren't holding a specific cabin. We can pick whichever cruise whenever we are ready and the $100 pp deposit we already paid will be all that is required until final payment time. We will get the shipboard credit and have four years to make the bookings.

 

When you make the deposit like this onboard, do you pay separately, or is the deposit added to your shipboard account? I don't remember from this past January when we made our deposit for Edam.

 

Personally I kind of like it. Edam's inaugural is going to be an expensive cruise - adding in airfare, pre-cruise hotel & other incidentals in Copenhagen. :eek:

 

I know it's going to be a larger final payment, but we've got a separate savings account established just for that trip - so the money is working for us earning interest instead of sitting at HAL getting us $0. :)

the boards are acting up again tonight :(

When you make the deposit like this onboard, do you pay separately, or is the deposit added to your shipboard account? I don't remember from this past January when we made our deposit for Edam.

 

:)

 

When you make teh deposit on board you have to supply them with a credit card. It cannot go to your ship board account. It will also show as seperate charge. I booked the Eurodam for Oct 2008 for Tom and I then I booked an Open Cruise. The charges on my credit appearsed as 4 seperate $100 charges.

I also found out that HAL has the right to not except this Open Booking for all sailings which kind of made me mad. Since we did that open booked on the Noordam and already had 3 actual cruises booked when we decided that we wanted to book the Noordam for September during the 3 Day Sale I thought great I will just use the $200 I pur down toward the cruise since it needed to be paid in Full buying it after the 70 days. Plus I would get the ship board credit since we were booking a Superior Verandah Suite. HAL would not allow us to use this Open Booking because of the discounted rate on this cruise. So I still have an Open Booking and who knows when I will use it or if HAL will allow me to use it.

Susan -

 

The $200 deposit for the cancelled cabin was for our kids - they are still going, just in the same cabin as us... so we just transferred their deposits over to the other cabin.

 

Also, the deposits (toal of $400 for all four of us) were billed to a credit card at the time I made the booking with the FCC (future creuise consultant...)

 

Interestingly, we gave her our Mariner numbers and she had all our information right there - even our TA information - I didn't have to stick around, she had the completed bookings delivered to our cabin. :)

 

Is it too much to hope the price will drop for the Eurodam inaugural??? :rolleyes: I could only be so lucky, lol!

YES!!! I thought about this some time ago. It wouldn't help us as we would not ne able to book the cabin we wanted at such a late date nor would we be able to airline tickets on short notice.

I don't believe it will be a major issue. HAL will, however, have to decide if they want to ramp up the practice overbooking like the airlines do ... knowing that x-number of people will not come through and make final payment. I know this has happened on rare occasions, but I don't think it's been a significant problem.

That's not cool, Lisa. It never occured to me they would/could unilaterly refuse you the use of the Future Cruise Booking. That is not a term they spell out when you speak with the FCC. She never said anything like that to me.

 

Sunshine.....As written above, our credit card was charged directly for four $100 charges. Two people - two future cruises. It does not go on your shipboard account.

 

HAL would not allow us to use this Open Booking because of the discounted rate on this cruise. So I still have an Open Booking and who knows when I will use it or if HAL will allow me to use it.

 

So Lisa - You made a deposit w/HAL while on Noordam that you don't know if you'll ever be able to use? Whyever not? Are the $100/pp deposits restricted to certain cruises?

 

 

Is it too much to hope the price will drop for the Eurodam inaugural??? :rolleyes: I could only be so lucky, lol!

 

Laura - a month/6 weeks ago, my TA sent a note that she had gotten us a $30/pp price reduction for Edam's inaugural. She wrote that she knew it wasn't much, but every little bit helps. Maybe it'll buy a sandwich in Copenhagen. :rolleyes: :eek: Anyhow, I posted that info on our Roll Call a day or 2 after I got that email from my TA.

 

I'm figuring that final payment will be due mid-April. Let's hope for a couple more price drops between now & then! :)

Hal was recently running a special that required 100 deposit for 7 day cruises, 200 for 10-14 and 300 for 14 +. Most TA's that I checked on the itnernet had this available. This included all cruises for 2007 and 2008. The special is now over. I have seen this for Princess also. I expect Hal to continue doing this on and off as long as the other lines do the same thing.