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Vantage fare scam


davecttr

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Over a year ago i booked J303 on Arcadia for this May the 8th. when the Vantage fares were introduced I received addittional onboard credit which left the fare at £1993 with £195 obc giving a net fare of £1798.

 

I did a test booking today for the same cabin grade and got a price of £1799 plus £70 obc

 

Hold on, thats a net fare of £1729 :eek:

 

this was a vantage fare so surely i should be getting even more obc :confused:

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You can't work it out that way. You just need to look at the basic fare against what you paid, not add the OBC

Ah! thanks

 

so that gives P&O some wriggle room as they can increase the obc without triggering the Vantage fare promise - devious

 

I got a good price anyway for a 14 nighter considering i had to pay a single supplement

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We had to book in advance for various reasons but we knew full well the prices would drop through the floor.... We accepted that... Are we happy about it? Not really however we will certainly never book early again even if it risks us not getting the 3 berth we require. There are enough deals with RCI and Celeb for us not to really have to worry too much :-)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I should think P&O will only be able to get away with this once. When the fare is advertised you are told if the price drops then you will get upgrades, OBC or cash..... But it is just not true, that is only if the Vantage fare drops... Surprise surprise that never drops but they just intoduce another fare called a getaway fare and say that you cant compare to that..

 

 

My sister in Law booked in advance on a 1 week cruise on Ventura in April, the fare is half the price they paid but have been told they wont get a penny! I think you can safely say that none of us will be booking early with P&O again.

 

We were on carnival last year, the price dropped, they sent us a cheque.... Surely that is how it should be!

 

We checked on a price for a P&) spring cruise, we looked at the advertised price, £599 for a balcony, worked out the child discount and thought that at £1800 for the 4 of us it was worth it for a week away. When we contacted P&O we were told we couldnt have that price if we had children but offered us the same (exactly the same ) cabin for only £3780 and would give us free car parking..... !!!!!

 

Do they think we are mad!

 

Shame on you P&O, what a rip off.

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It will be interesting to see what the lead in fares for the summer 2014 season are compared with this years vantage fares.

 

The vantage fare i paid last july for a 14 nighter on Oceana dropped 15.5% from the brochure launch price.

 

The problem is as a solo traveller the getaway fares are not available.

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Wait till they publish the Getaway deal !!!!!!! that can be even lower and gives the Vantage folk no OBC !!!

 

True - but then the single supplement becomes 100% so not a good deal at all for singles! Or if you have to book leave at work.

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The getaway deals are also not available to families.....yet another push in the direction of RCI.

 

But Matty not all cruises have these fares. Our last 2 were not highly discounted. So you could wait for a getaway fare to find it not there.

 

The company are quite clear in their advertising now. Either Vantage with benefits or Getaway without, but no guarantee that there would be any getaway.

 

Do not forget there have always been discounting it is not new.

 

Do RCI give discounts on family rooms?

 

I suspect that P&O do not give the discount on family rooms as they know from past experience they can sell them. Why should they?

 

 

 

Gan canny

 

 

Dai

 

 

:cool:

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But Matty not all cruises have these fares. Our last 2 were not highly discounted. So you could wait for a getaway fare to find it not there. Agree Dai, but most are.

 

The company are quite clear in their advertising now. Either Vantage with benefits or Getaway without, but no guarantee that there would be any getaway. If Vantage fares are never discounted what advantage are they giving?

 

Do not forget there have always been discounting it is not new. True but its the scale of discounts with Carnival lines

 

Do RCI give discounts on family rooms?

 

I suspect that P&O do not give the discount on family rooms as they know from past experience they can sell them. Why should they?

 

Gan canny

 

Dai:cool:

Dai, I also enjoy P&O cruises but, as I always look carefully at the price to get a good bargain, I generally find that early getaway deals do not undercut my price too much. However some cruises have getaway fares 30-40% below the brochure price, which will really upset any early bookers.

Conversely I find that RCI group pricing offers early bookers much better discounts against brochure fares than P&O, and then future offers against brochure fares are normally still higher than I paid, and I assume that RCI also make profits, and I am a very satified customer.

So please tell me why Carnival opt for their system which alienates most early bookers and makes for disgruntled customers.

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Trouble is I wouldn't want to be on an RCI ship - far too big for me, so for those that like smaller more intimate ships, there is only P&O or Fred. We book early normally for lots of reasons, dinner preference, cabin preference, getting my holiday from work etc. etc. At the moment my current cruise is more expensive than we have paid. There will no doubt be last minute Getaway fares, but that's just tough.

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I see that there are now Getaway fares advertised for both P&O and Cunard for late July - 27th for P&O and 31st for Cunard. Those dates are still just about 5 months away.

 

I must say, this isn't what I thought the Getaway fares classification would be used for; I had envisaged that it would be for genuine last-minute offerings. But to advertise Getaway fares five months out! - that does make a mockery of the Vantage fares concept.

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On our forthcoming cruise on Azura (just under 2 weeks) there are no Getaway fares. We booked about a year ago in order to get the cabin and dinner sitting we wanted. So had we waited we would not have gained anything - in fact our grade of cabin is sold out and has been for months so we would have been disappointed. Added to which we have had the enjoyment of 12 months anticipation of looking forward to the cruise - important to me.:)

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I see that there are now Getaway fares advertised for both P&O and Cunard for late July - 27th for P&O and 31st for Cunard. Those dates are still just about 5 months away.

 

I must say, this isn't what I thought the Getaway fares classification would be used for; I had envisaged that it would be for genuine last-minute offerings. But to advertise Getaway fares five months out! - that does make a mockery of the Vantage fares concept.

 

IMO the Vantage fare concept was introduced as a temporary solution to the lack of early bookings last year. Having introduced them they had to give early bookers additional obc because they were screaming blue murder about price reductions. The advertising hype and lower fares on Vantage launch might well have increased booking especially with the promise of possible further reductions. Those reductions never happened and now with the early introction of getaway fares we know why. They never intended to reduce the vantage fare.

 

It was all smoke and mirrors. :mad::mad:

 

I expect to see next years lead in prices at Vantage Fare levels as early bookers won't be fooled twice.

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On our forthcoming cruise on Azura (just under 2 weeks) there are no Getaway fares. We booked about a year ago in order to get the cabin and dinner sitting we wanted. So had we waited we would not have gained anything - in fact our grade of cabin is sold out and has been for months so we would have been disappointed. Added to which we have had the enjoyment of 12 months anticipation of looking forward to the cruise - important to me.:)

 

If you mean A306 A and N, then there certainly are getaway fares. It looks like a split cruise. 14 nights Caribbean on 7th March- there are two Getaway fares, one for inside cabins and one for balconies. On the 21 nighter, 21 nights starting 14th March there are inside cabins available and I'll bet if you book, you probably get upgraded anyway as it says Minimum Grade.

 

Jean

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We are fans of getaway fares and experience has taught us that unless it is a must do cruise to wait. However last year P & O were doing a jubilee Celebration deal. We saw the 14 night A307 cruise for a balcony cabin at £1249 advertised in June. Wow could we get a starboard side balcony for that price? Phone call to TA and at that price there were few cabins left but yes we could book a C deck balcony starboard for that price.

 

We have not seen it less than that price for a balcony cabin and we got OBC and the coach back to Manchester airport as well as our choice of cabin.

 

This is a cruise prior to Vantage fares being offered but excellent value.

 

Sue

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I see that there are now Getaway fares advertised for both P&O and Cunard for late July - 27th for P&O and 31st for Cunard. Those dates are still just about 5 months away.

 

I must say, this isn't what I thought the Getaway fares classification would be used for; I had envisaged that it would be for genuine last-minute offerings. But to advertise Getaway fares five months out! - that does make a mockery of the Vantage fares concept.

 

I agree this is ridiculous. This far out there is very little price difference between them, so it is a ploy to push Vantage fares. Getaways are only of any value much nearer the sail date when they have cabins unsold.

 

And don't they just hate a ship not fully sold.

 

David.

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Trouble is I wouldn't want to be on an RCI ship - far too big for me, so for those that like smaller more intimate ships, there is only P&O or Fred. We book early normally for lots of reasons, dinner preference, cabin preference, getting my holiday from work etc. etc. At the moment my current cruise is more expensive than we have paid. There will no doubt be last minute Getaway fares, but that's just tough.

Jean, you have commented about not wanting to sail RCI before but I think your prejudice might be misplaced. We have never sailed RCCL but friends of ours, who love Oriana, did a Med fly cruise with Royal Caribbean last year and loved it, they felt it fully matched everything they love about Oriana, and then some. The Adventure OTS which is Southampton based is Azura sized, but the Brilliance OTS, based at Harwich, is a similar size to Arcadia with about 2000 pax, and they have several smaller vision class ships doing fly cruises in Europe.

We really enjoy Celebrity and although the Eclipse has nearly 3000 passengers it rarely feels crowded and has lots of small intimate bars and venues for you to explore. They also have the Infinity which is Arcadia sized doing cruises out of Harwich.

The other thing we have found with Eclipse is that the vast majority of passengers are English, but there will be a sprinkling of American and Canadian guests as well. I suspect that if you bit the bullet and tried one of these cruise ships that you would be very agreeably surprised.

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I agree this is ridiculous. This far out there is very little price difference between them, so it is a ploy to push Vantage fares. Getaways are only of any value much nearer the sail date when they have cabins unsold.

 

And don't they just hate a ship not fully sold.

 

David.

 

And as a shareholder neither do I :):cool::rolleyes:

 

 

 

Gan Canny

 

 

Dai

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John, you may be right, but firstly I don't do fly cruises and I suppose all the enormous ships I have seen are RCI or Celebrity. My preference is go much smaller. In fact, a friend is on Marco Polo at the end of March and we may well try her to Iceland and the Fjords. We disliked Azura although Arcadia was fine, but in general smaller ships are for us.

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John, you may be right, but firstly I don't do fly cruises and I suppose all the enormous ships I have seen are RCI or Celebrity. My preference is go much smaller. In fact, a friend is on Marco Polo at the end of March and we may well try her to Iceland and the Fjords. We disliked Azura although Arcadia was fine, but in general smaller ships are for us.

Jean, I am very disappointed in your lack of adventure, but if old, cramped, musty smelling cruise ships that are past their best before date are your thing, then I wish you many more pleasant cruises. John.;)

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