Self-booking discount VS travel agent discount

Hi,

New to the boards. This will be my 3rd cruise, 1st with Royal.

My fiancee and I are booking our cruise 3 months out through her travel agent friend.

He sent us the estimated invoice, that included RC's current BOGO half deal.

We have yet to pull the trigger on this.

However I noticed that booking the trip myself via RC's site showed 2 additional discounts that were not offered to us.

a DTH (Deck the Holidays) Saving of $126, and

a $100 on board credit.

I asked our agent friend about the $100 credit and he said we had to book a cruise far in advance (beyond our 3 months) to qualify for that, yet here I'm seeing this credit if I book it myself. I did not know at the time to ask about the DTH savings at the time.

My theory is that: I don't think he's trying to pull a fast one, but that the travel agent's commission paid by RC eliminates us getting the DTH and the OBC discounts if we book through him versus booking on our own.

Hope I didn't make that all sound too complicated.

Thoughts?

If the travel agent is unable to give you a lower price that is shown on the Royal Caribbean website, I would ask why. Make sure that you go all the way through the booking process on the website without giving your credit card to make sure that you are comparing apples to apples. Then book the cruise with whomever is offering the lower price or discounts or larger onboard credit.

Any promotion available for self-booking is available to travel agents. Not sure why your agent isn't showing the same discounts, but there are no promotions that are not available to travel agents. There are some that are only available far in advance, and some that are only for new bookings, but that would be the same for agent booking or self-booking.

Not sure if this travel agent is new, or just doesn't book a lot of cruises. As the others have said, there are no "deals" available through RCCL that travel agents don't have access to.

Solved.

We had our agent start the booking process on Sept 30. The next day I started the self-booking process, and apparently an additional new promo had started and thus the difference. I contacted my agent and he adjusted the reservation accordingly.

Appreciate the insights from everyone!

Also keep TA perks in mind. Our TA gives us all available pricing/benefits of booking with RCCL directly PLUS we generally get a reasonable on board credit on top of that for using her.

The perks that add up come from the TA rather than the cruise line. Our online TA gives us pre-paid grats, specialty dinning, matching OBC as well as whatever is being offered by the cruise line. On our last cruise the TA also added a limited insurance policy. happy cruising

Any promotion available for self-booking is available to travel agents. Not sure why your agent isn't showing the same discounts, but there are no promotions that are not available to travel agents. There are some that are only available far in advance, and some that are only for new bookings, but that would be the same for agent booking or self-booking.

Off topic but how do you get your cruise countdown clocks side by side? TY