Booked at higher fare. Now lower. What to do?

I was wondering if anyone has this experience and can let me know how they tackled it?

We booked our 15 Dec transatlantic cruise in January. At that time we got the 30% off "sailaway" fare in a Q4 cabin. I now see on the Cunard website that they are offering promotional fares on all cabins of 50% off. This means that we have paid £1000 (around $1700 - $1800) each more than the current fare, and for slightly more we could have got a Q2 cabin.

I am not happy (of course). What is other people's experience of the best way to handle this?

Even if we cancel and incur a cancellation fee of 10% (as still more than 90 days) and rebook we would still save if we stay in Q4.

Wondered if anyone knows how Cunard handles these issues? And has advice?

I am thinking of calling them and asking if based on their new proces if I can be upgraded, or can chnage to a higher cabin.

Gary

Contact your agent or Cunard and explain. In my experience they will usually upgrade you. Good luck!

Gary,

I had the same thing happen to my PG guarantee booking for the QE2 21.10.04 Med cruise. I booked earlier this year and then discovered about a month ago the discounts were at around 64% + for the grade booked and so was not happy either. Cunard offered me a P2 cabin for single occupancy but considering other travel agents had fares only slightly more than what I had paid for a single PG cabin I refused this offer & threatened to cancel insisting on a full refund for my trip! Cunard said it was not their policy to reduce my fare to include the new discounts so after checking they offered me a QG midships cabin which I accepted - whilst I am happy with this looking again now at various TA discounts I would probably only have had to pay approx £300 for the QG grade anyway (& I wanted to travel & dine in the Princess Grill anyway) so it's swings & roundabouts - I too would be very annoyed having seen the very special offers for the 15.12 Transat. crossing - have you seen the Cunard website & the offer re 2 free nights post cruise stay in NYC? (this is also advertised on many UK cruise websites too). One thing that annoys me with Cunard is the high percentage of deposit you have to pay and the fact that you cannot transfer it to another cruise if you change you mind for a 'small amendment fee'. Having travelled on Celebrity's Summit last year had I wanted to change my booking I could have done so & 'only' lost approx. £50 per person. Also what is annoying too is that more than likely with their only being 2 PG singles on QE2 I would have received a QG upgrade if the ship was not full & only paid the PG fare!

My advice would be to contact either Cunard UK / US Reservations and explain that you are not happy and either ask for a Q3 cabin, many members of my family have travelled on QE2 and always chose a midships Q3 grade cabin (this used to be 'B' grade on the old cabin category system) and I have seen my photos & video footage and they are very spacious & comfortable. I am told that 2065 is a very nice cabin. Having said this I know friends of the family that have had Q2 cabins and they too are very spacious - one thing they did mention though is that in rough weather you will feel the motion of the ship more higher up the ship than if you had a Q3 / Q4 cabin on 2 deck.

One thing I know now is that re any Cunard cruise I am not going to book until the last minute! I hope the above helps & let us know how you get on re Cunard & getting a higher Q's Grill cabin.

Kind Rgs

Richard

Thanks for all getting back so fast! It was great as I had psoted this at 0730 am UK time and by 9am when the reservations opened I had these.

At first they offered me a Q3 upgrade which I was still not happy with as the people booking now would be paying less. After some to-ing and fro-ing by the gal I spoke to her team leader we are now going Q2 in an unobruscted view, paying a tiny token additional payment.

Hooray...

I am so glad I had been watching the postings on this site and seen the note from somone about the deals or I would never have known about the huge amount extra I would have been paying versus others..

Thanks!!!

Gary

The cheapjack no frills airlines opperate on the basis that the earlier bookers get the cheapest fares. Cunard and others seem to work the other way round. What a way to run a company.

David.

David

I know, that was what really surprised me. It is the usual practice I thought to try and get people to book up early, and the fact that they then hold the money for deposit for all that time (in my case since 29 January for a cruise 11 months later) they get the benefit of interest. What was the even more annoying bit was that it was clear that unless I had found out about th 50% promotion (versus the 30% sailaway fares we got) then they would have done nothing. They missed an opportunity to delight and surprise those who had booked earlier by dropping us all a note saying something like "thanks to your valued custom and booking early we have decided to upgrade you to a X cabin". That way we would have been very pleased with ourselves (probably never realising as in our case that even the higher cabin fares people were now paying were lower than we had paid).

Looks though like they have they "if they don't squeal, don't do anything" policy! When I called she cut me off when I started to explain and offered an upgrade.

Anyway, I am pleased I had been part of this message board community, as thanks to it I saw the posting about the promotional fares and got a mega fab upgrade!

Gary

It is a dilemma as to whether or not to book early.

Generally the closer to a given cruise departure one is the higher is the discount.

Cruise Lines such as Cunard,and Seabourn,should either adopt the refund policy of Celebrity,or give a commitment,such as by Radisson,that prices will not be reduced below those in the initial offers.

If such a commitment is subsequently broken then one has a greater amount of leverage against the Cruise Line.

Gary B

I agree with you. I think that Cunard would gain a lot of goodwill if they automatically upgraded passengers who booked early and paid more that the dicounted fares offered at a later date. I usually book on board in August for a cruise the following August and then watch how the fares change over the following months - any reduction and I contact agent and ask for an upgrade. I felt particularly sorry for a couple on board this year who had booked their cruise at the same time as me but had not been offered any upgrade because they didn't ask.

Dilema! I guess the key (which is crazy) is that if there is a particular part of the ship that one likes or wants to be in then book that early - and make sure then that one signs up for the cruise company's email marketing so you get alerted of promotions and also watch the site and boards - swooping on them when they discount. But does seem a mad way, and a customer service missed opportunity. Although Cunard does not have great service. originally I had submitted a booking request via their site and never got a reply, spent several days calling to only be cut off by their automated service saying all agents were busy, my call was valuble so please call back later! Gary

Along with Richard. l am in the same boat, booked the Oct 2nd QE2 cruise way back in January and then they discounted by around a thousand £s !!! phoned my Travel agent and was more or less told it like buying a suit and then it goes in the sale you dont go back and ask for a refund !!!! hard cheese l felt was a suitable phrase!!! However have got an upgrade (my first in 9 voyages) within the same grade so l guess l should be lucky, but lts still less than the price l paid at the start.. wonder if cunard are aware of customer loyality..it is a wonderfull thing !!!!

I just hope and pray l dont meet any last minute passengers who have been given a superb upgrade, might just throw them overboard !!!!!

On a different note the voyage info folder arrived a few days ago, not before time!! but the prices of tours are pretty steep..or am l just a tight fisted scotsman???

cheers

Myles cunardqueen@aol.com

(who has been visited by the cunard upgrade fairy..and she does exist!!!!)

Myles,

I once travelled on another line - had a jolly good deal, but afterwards prices dropped further. After a few tedious 'how much did you pay for your cruise'? (translation - I wonder if you were as smart as I was, I bet you weren't coz I only booked yesterday) I agreed with the friend I was travelling with that we would say....

$99 including 6 category cabin upgrade to superdeluxe suite, $250 on board credit, helicopter transfers, priority disembarkation....

.....and I'd keep going to increasingly glum faces...until they finally twigged that I was extracting the michael....

Have fun!

Peter

Anyone have more information on the free night offer in NYC following the December transatlantic. I wouldn't mind a night or two at Cunard's expense. I've already made final payment.

Howard

There are details on their site at: http://www.cunard.co.uk/OnOffer_Details.asp?ID=36

be interesting if they offer it to you on an existing booking and having paid. When I had called about the lower fares (and got an upgrade as a result to Q2) they did not menton the offer (although we had plans to go to washington anyway)... let me know what happens.

Gary

Maybe we've just been lucky but they've usually (but not always) been more than fair with us. Sometimes we've gone to make final payment, not aware of price reductions, to be told that we owed many hundreds of pounds less than we expected. Other times, knowing of reductions "for new bookings only", we've called, or had our travel agent call, to be told, "of course, don't worry about it." And sure enough it has never been a problem.

Don't get me wrong. I've had my fair share or arguments with Cunard, sometimes lengthy and litigious, just never over price reductions.

Regards, Colin.

Colin. Yes, it seems the more I read and look at postings here and on other sites that people's general experience of Cunard as it comes to upgrades and such like when fares change is good.... what sort of things did you get into disagreement with them? Gary