Aussies and USA Agents

We have happily booked several cruises with two large US Agents in the past ( just 3 nights off Elite ) but now seem to find we can no longer do so ?. - RCCL , Celebrity seem to want us to book locally which means higher prices and significantly less perks for a European Trip :loudcry:, So now we have decided to hit the road for a 3 week drive around Portugal and Spain - a little 3 night cruise on NCL- Barcelona - Rome ( booked locally ) and the a week driving around Tuscany.:cool:

With our crappy Aussie Dollar we need to get the best holiday value we can find , especially when it comes to Europe and the US. Too old to backpack now !:'):D

Lucky Americans get the best deals when it comes to cruising for sure .

Hope you find another TA who can work things out for you.

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You need a friend in the USA who can let you use their address for your booking. It works well for us and my UK cousins.

Thanks for the tip .. We have cousins who live in the USA -- not sure how that would work though .

We have happily booked several cruises with two large US Agents in the past ( just 3 nights off Elite ) but now seem to find we can no longer do so ?. - RCCL , Celebrity seem to want us to book locally which means higher prices and significantly less perks for a European Trip :loudcry:, So now we have decided to hit the road for a 3 week drive around Portugal and Spain - a little 3 night cruise on NCL- Barcelona - Rome ( booked locally ) and the a week driving around Tuscany.:cool:

With our crappy Aussie Dollar we need to get the best holiday value we can find , especially when it comes to Europe and the US. Too old to backpack now !:'):D

Lucky Americans get the best deals when it comes to cruising for sure .

That's not strictly true. We book Celebrity cruises using a US travel agent and directly with Celebrity UK. Sometimes we get a better deal here in the UK Oceania prices can be significantly lower than when booking in the US too.

That said I will be very annoyed if we lose the choice to book with a US TA. Although we would be able to use a US address if need be.

I believe HAL and Princess have already tried to stop those outside the U.S. from booking with US TA's.

Don't blame you for doing the land trip. Sounds like a fabulous plan. Enjoy.

We switched to an Aussie land trip when we started looking at excursions from the ship. We're Canadian, we'd be billed in US and we're on par with Australian Dollar...not happening. Loved it so much we're back again a year later.

When we book for our UK cousins we just use our US addresses for them. We booked on board last March for a cruise in May and they were happy to do it that way. After the cruise we transfered the booking to a US online TA without any problems. Another time I just booked all of us with the same US TA again using our US address and my US email. So, ask your cousins if you can use their address and give it a shot next time.

Please excuse my ignorance, but why are our Aussie and UK cousins charged more?

Please excuse my ignorance, but why are our Aussie and UK cousins charged more?

You'll need to ask....

ALL the cruise lines.

So far the only answer that has come along is "Because we can". (there have been several forms of weenie answers, but they all leak)