Transfering a On Board Booking to Your Travel Agent

First can you transfer a on board new booking for a future cruise to your Travel Agent ?

Secondly is there a time limit for doing the above transfer placed by HAL ?

TIA

First can you transfer a on board new booking for a future cruise to your Travel Agent ?

 

Secondly is there a time limit for doing the above transfer placed by HAL ?

 

TIA

No problem transferring to your personal TA. Don't believe there is any time limit for doing do.

First can you transfer a on board new booking for a future cruise to your Travel Agent ?

 

Secondly is there a time limit for doing the above transfer placed by HAL ?

 

TIA

No problem transferring to your personal TA. Don't believe there is any time limit for doing do.

Must be transfered 1 day before final payment and can not be fully paid.

I just transferred an online booking, this past Thursday. The process took about 5 min. A quick call to HAL's general number got me transferred to another office where I just needed to give them my booking number, name of the cruise agency, and the agencies phone number (it is best to get this from your cruise agent since they often use a different number for this kind of business).

And for those that read this post and wonder why anyone would transfer a booking....it is often about money. In our case we had a HAL booking that cost approximately $12,000. We left the booking with HAL because we wanted some time to shop it around a few of our favorite cruise agencies and get their offers. In the end we transferred to an agency that gave us an additional $1050.00 in OBCs (beyond what HAL had already given us. When folks tell us how they prefer to keep their bookings with any cruise line we just smile and wonder how nice it must be to not care about saving money.

Hank

Hank

Given that you have to transfer before final payment, we have found that it is rarely worth it to book before final, shop it around and transfer for the OBC, etc given by an agency, as compared to the savings that we manage to get if we book after final. The bottom line, for us, has favoured booking after final.

You ever experience this?

I have actually transferred a HAL on-board booking to our TA as a part of the process of booking on the ship. The on-board booking agent was very comfortable with doing that, in fact she suggested that in the process. I had to personally contact my TA that I had made the booking and was transferring it to her, all done by e-mail from the ship. The on-board booking agent was aware of the advantages of our TA on certain cruises, of which the reservation was for. She got her credit and our TA got hers, and we benefited from the "extras" included, including a less expensive cost.

Hank

 

Given that you have to transfer before final payment, we have found that it is rarely worth it to book before final, shop it around and transfer for the OBC, etc given by an agency, as compared to the savings that we manage to get if we book after final. The bottom line, for us, has favoured booking after final.

 

You ever experience this?

We agree, to a point. When we do not care about a specific cruise, we will book after final (did this with a back to back on the Zuiderdam about a year ago). But when we do those last minute bookings it is always through a cruise agency that can enhance any HAL offering with a hefty OBC. But our recent Maasdam booking was for an exotic itinerary which we think could book up before final. And when we did it aboard we got double OBCs from HAL which made it even a better deal. That cruise also involves a departure from Brisbane which means we will want to book our air pretty far in advance to try a snag a decent Business Class deal. Last minutes when one has to fly half way round the world can be a challenge.

Hank

We did it a couple of times.

Just called our TA, told her what we booked on the ship, gave her the booking and she did the rest.

No problems.

Must be transfered 1 day before final payment and can not be fully paid.

Thanks. I believe many cruise lines are the transfer must be within 60 days of the booking so this is good to know.

We agree, to a point. When we do not care about a specific cruise, we will book after final (did this with a back to back on the Zuiderdam about a year ago). But when we do those last minute bookings it is always through a cruise agency that can enhance any HAL offering with a hefty OBC. But our recent Maasdam booking was for an exotic itinerary which we think could book up before final. And when we did it aboard we got double OBCs from HAL which made it even a better deal. That cruise also involves a departure from Brisbane which means we will want to book our air pretty far in advance to try a snag a decent Business Class deal. Last minutes when one has to fly half way round the world can be a challenge.

 

Hank

Depends a lot on the optics, I agree. Thanks for your imput!

Excellent, exactly what I needed to know! It's Christmas Eve, and my husband and I just decided to book a cruise for March...I don't want to leave out our regular TA (she always comes up with extra OBC), but her office is closed! I will book it and contact our TA next week :)

My experience has been that when I book onboard they want to immediately transfer the booking to the TA I used for the cruise I'm on. If I wanted to transfer it to a different TA, I had to sign a form requesting that transfer. Good to know that I could keep the booking with HAL and then shop it around for a later transfer and potential savings.

First can you transfer a on board new booking for a future cruise to your Travel Agent ?

 

Secondly is there a time limit for doing the above transfer placed by HAL ?

 

TIA

Our TA is listed on our cruise account. If we do an on board booking, it is automatically transferred to our TA unless we tell them otherwise.

DON

I confirmed the time limitations for transfers with our big box TA. Before your final payment with HAL, you can transfer the reservation. (Why wouldn't you? On a February 2018 cruise, we are receiving $1495 refundable SBC from our TA in addition to the $475 non-refundable credit from HAL!) Many other cruise lines have a 60-day cutoff from the initial reservation date to transfer.