Can someone explain cruisenext?

That's why I don't touch NCL's cruise next certs. When things are unnecessarily complicated to me it means they are trying to con me somehow.

 

Besides I don't value cruise line loyalty so there is no need to lock myself with NCL.

Nothing at all complicated. You pay $500 for $500 worth of vouchers, They are charged to your on board account. They refund ½ of that $500 to the same on board account. You are getting $500 worth of vouchers for $250. That is all there is to it, not even slightly complicated.

It's really a nasty tactic. Not illegal, but slimy.

 

I fell for it on my first 2-3 cruises with NCL when I bought certificates. "$250 OBC? Oh my! I better spend that amount before the cruise ends so I don't lose it!" Total nonsense.

 

We see what you're doing, NCL. Stop it.

Yes it was nonsense for you to think that. Please DON'T stop. They are giving us $250 for free!

Nothing at all complicated. You pay $500 for $500 worth of vouchers, They are charged to your on board account. They refund ½ of that $500 to the same on board account. You are getting $500 worth of vouchers for $250. That is all there is to it, not even slightly complicated.

I find it unnecessarily complicatedly worded and I won't touch them.

I find it unnecessarily complicatedly worded and I won't touch them.

Oh well I guess you never try to read an insurance policy or any legal documents then. I don't think "buy 2 $250 certificates and get $250 OBC" is even slightly complicated wording. In fact I fail to see how it can be simpler. I guess some people just get confused easily.

Oh well I guess you never try to read an insurance policy or any legal documents then. I don't think "buy 2 $250 certificates and get $250 OBC" is even slightly complicated wording. In fact I fail to see how it can be simpler. I guess some people just get confused easily.

I have higher standard for simplicity and it doesn't meet mine. YMMV.

I don’t see how it’s a ploy or a deceptive practice. You either buy them or you don’t it’s totally up to you. Believe me if you just want to but one they will gladly take your money and if you don’t want any they don’t chase you down and twist your arm to buy them.

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There seems to be a perception amongst some people that CruiseNext is in some way a sort of con, which will end up costing the customer money.

However, even if you are taken in by the OBC reference then you are still not out of pocket. You spend $500 and get $500 of deposit vouchers. You also get $250 to spend on goodies whilst on the ship. Even if you wouldn't have otherwise spent that money on meals, drinks, bingo, spa or whatever then you still aren't out of pocket. The "con" has basically given you those things for free.

For those of us who understand that the OBC goes against the cost of the deposits, we save money instead. That's pretty good too.

Of course, whether it is worth doing depends totally on whether you are likely to use the deposits or not. If I was in molole's situation then I wouldn't buy them. Not because they are complicated, but because I wouldn't know when or if I would use them. In my position, over the years I have saved in excess of $2,000 by using the deposits. I would be fairly disappointed with myself if I had left that amount of money on the table just because I couldn't be bothered to try to understand the terms.

Are we on this topic again. All you non believers. What is wrong with free money. I have done three B2B cruises on NCL in the last six months. I have received $1500 of free money towards my 6 cruises through cruise next, stock holder OBC amd Travel agent OBC went purchasing Cruise Next on the ship. That $1500 paid for two of those cruises. Two free cruises in Alaska. For those you you who think it is some kind of trick to get a reduced price on your next cruise then do not purchase them. Continue to be naive. But if you cruise NCL often, you will see how you will receive free money if you spend your OBC the right way. If you want to spend your OBC on pictures, tours, drinks then that is your problem. Those of us who do use cruise next use our OBC money to pay for the other $250 purchase and will continue to save money and will continue to cruise NCL often. $1500 (three $500 cruise next) - $750(OBC)- $600(OBC stock holder 6 weeks)- $250(OBC from travel agent for 6 weeks)= an extra $100 OBC to be spent somewhere else on the ship like gratuities if some of your OBC is refundable.

Not a bad return on a stock that does not pay dividends and yet I still receive free money from them.:D:D:D Looking forward to my next free cruise;p

I love CruiseNext. If you are planning to continue sailing with NCL, it's foolish NOT to buy them. I have only been cruising with NCL since February and I have already received enough free money from them for one of us to basically sail free. Here's a breakdown of the free money we have received:

In February, we purchased four certificates ($1000) for $500. At that time we booked the Bliss for this coming February using two CruiseNext deposits and got a free upgrade from a BD to a BA, saving us about $50 pp. Still had two deposits left.

In June, we bought four more certificates ($1000) for $500. At that time we booked the Encore Inaugural Transatlantic for November 2019 using two CruiseNext deposits and got a free upgrade from a BD to a BA, saving us about $50 pp. Still had four deposits left.

In July, we used the Double Up promo they were running to book two balconies (one for us and one for my parents) on the Escape for October, which allowed us to use two deposits on a balcony or above, even though the sailing was inside of 6 months.

So, thus far we have spent $1000 out of pocket, used all $2000 worth of deposits we've purchased, and received two room upgrades totaling about $200 in value. Which means we have saved $1200 already, which is basically a free cruise for one of us.

Your simplicity must mean using no words longer than two letters! :D

You obviously cannot count.

There seems to be a perception amongst some people that CruiseNext is in some way a sort of con, which will end up costing the customer money.

 

However, even if you are taken in by the OBC reference then you are still not out of pocket. You spend $500 and get $500 of deposit vouchers. You also get $250 to spend on goodies whilst on the ship. Even if you wouldn't have otherwise spent that money on meals, drinks, bingo, spa or whatever then you still aren't out of pocket. The "con" has basically given you those things for free.

 

For those of us who understand that the OBC goes against the cost of the deposits, we save money instead. That's pretty good too.

 

Of course, whether it is worth doing depends totally on whether you are likely to use the deposits or not. If I was in molole's situation then I wouldn't buy them. Not because they are complicated, but because I wouldn't know when or if I would use them. In my position, over the years I have saved in excess of $2,000 by using the deposits. I would be fairly disappointed with myself if I had left that amount of money on the table just because I couldn't be bothered to try to understand the terms.

The bolded part - based on how many people were confused by the terms on this board alone, I say NCL made it unnecessarily complicated to understand.

Anyway, Cruise next and its similar named programs is cruise lines' way to use incentive to buy commitment. The only people they truly benefit are those who are ready to commit in the first place.

My rough idea is, if I am about 90% sure I would use up all certs I buy in 4 years, the program benefits me. I don't lose any options as I was always committed to start with.

If I am only 50% to 90% sure, it's a wash. The Cruisenext incentive works with me exactly the way NCL intends, to lock my wavering commitment in.

If I am less than 50% sure, then I stand to lose my options to choose other cruise lines or vacation modes. It wouldn't be worth it.

Actually the OBC does not "go against" anything specific. It is netted against all of your on board purchases (including the certificates) just like any other OBC (refundable/non-refundable issues aside).

Yes, obviously.

I meant it as in that it goes against the cost of the deposits whereas, for example, non refundable OBC doesn’t go against the DSC. A slightly better wording would have been that it can be used to cover that purchase.

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Quick question. Lets say you buy 500 dollars worth of certs. Then you spend zero dollars on board. You have paid DSC before boarding. Does NCL mail you a refund for not using the OBC on the the sailing that you bought the certs?

Quick question. Lets say you buy 500 dollars worth of certs. Then you spend zero dollars on board. You have paid DSC before boarding. Does NCL mail you a refund for not using the OBC on the the sailing that you bought the certs?

Since you have purchased the certs, you have spent $500 (not $0). If you buy nothing else while on board, your final total will be $250 which reflects the discounted price of the certs. So you walk away with $500 worth of certs for which you have paid only $250.

Quick question. Lets say you buy 500 dollars worth of certs. Then you spend zero dollars on board. You have paid DSC before boarding. Does NCL mail you a refund for not using the OBC on the the sailing that you bought the certs?

This is the issue being discussed.

If you buy $500 dollars of certificates, the OBC is applied to your account and it is allocated to the spend on your account (the $500 for the certificates).

When you leave you are just charged the net amount of $250. That is the discount.

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The bold part is slightly inaccurate but not at all confusing. You get two $250 certificates for a total charge on your account of $250.

 

Whether that is

 

1) A single charge of $250

2) A charge of $500 and a credit of $250

3) A charge of 10,000,000,000 trillion dollars and a credit of 9,999,999,750

4) Two charges of $125

- or -

5) Any other combination of charges and credits that sum to a $250 charge

 

is all irrelevant. Subtracting 250 from 500 is in no way at all complicated for anyone who made it through 6th grade math. Like anything else in a free market system, if you don't think something is worth the price it is being sold for then don't buy it.it is, but there is nothing even slightly confusing or misleading about the CN program.

If it needs 5 bullet points to clear up, it is unnecessarily complicated. If it is "slightly inaccurate" then there is confusion.

Quick question. Lets say you buy 500 dollars worth of certs. Then you spend zero dollars on board. You have paid DSC before boarding. Does NCL mail you a refund for not using the OBC on the the sailing that you bought the certs?

No and there is no need to. Unless you have OBC from other sources such as pre-purchases, past guest offers, TA offers, etc) that exceed $250 (the amount of your certificate purchase less the $250 they give you for making the purchase), there is nothing to refund. It is simple math.

am sure. I just used the $100 credit toward my gratuities. We almost never buy anything on board so our bill is the gratuities charge. They took $100 off our bill, .

You were charged $250. You got an obc of $100 You Paid $150 for the deposit. The gratuities doesn’t even factor in.

Quick question. Lets say you buy 500 dollars worth of certs. Then you spend zero dollars on board. You have paid DSC before boarding. Does NCL mail you a refund for not using the OBC on the the sailing that you bought the certs?

The is NO credit. You are charged the full price of the deposits. The credit is. Only HALF. You OWE money.

I still don’t understand why this is a problem.

If someone doesn’t realise that the OBC can be used against the purchase of the certificates then that must be the basis on which they purchased the certificates. They did so expecting to have to spend the OBC on other things. They buy $500 of deposits and then have $250 to spend onboard. Exactly what they expected to have. Free stuff. Surely that is good.

Maybe they would have done things differently had they known that the OBC could be applied to the purchase, but they still got exactly what they thought they would get when they made the purchase. Nobody has been conned.

Poor NCL cant even get wording right, confusing many people, nothing simple about it, ah the olde ncl at it again, either way i know i got $100 off regardless of what anyone else sais.

The first time I heard the pitch (which was a long time ago), it was "You get two certificates for the price of one." <PAUSE> "You get $250 OBC." That sounded like two separate transactions.

It's in the presentation - and that's the CruiseNext consultant and some of them have been less than forthright.

"You buy two certificates for the price of one" is clear. "Half-price certificates" is clear.

There are so many people here that think you get an ADDITIONAL $250 OBC that obviously the presentation is misleading in some cases.

I'm pretty sure the first time we bought CruiseNext certificates, they charged my CREDIT CARD full price and gave me half the costs back as OBC. At that point, the OBC could be used for anything else I wanted to do, because the cost of the certificates came out of a different source.

Now, they charge full price to an account and put half the cost back into the account. Some people who are math-challenged still think they can spend the money on other things. You can. You just have to pay the half cost that has been charged to your room in addition.

The program is not misleading although it could be stated more clearly (this is true of all sales pitches.) However, the cruise consultant presenting the program can be very misleading at times.

It's definitely confusing in that they pitch it two different ways. Early in the cruise, all the advertising is for the OBC and later in the cruise, all the advertising is for the "buy one get one free" or "half price" certs. It makes sense from NCL's perspective. You are less likely to care about or what OBC in the last day or two of the cruise you are CURRENTLY on. But what was confusing to me, since I didn't care about OBC at all, is I thought it was two separate deals and that the "deal" later in the week was "better". Really it's all just six one way, half dozen the other. But the wording of the advertising definitely confuses things.

LOL no it does not.

 

 

 

Your statement will be $250 higher and you will have $500 worth of vouchers. You are making $250.

No, you’re not really “making” $250 dollars. If you bought $500 in deposits and received the $250 credit... you’re still spending an additional $250 dollars on your current cruise. You didn’t really make money... you just paid less than full price.

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The first time I heard the pitch (which was a long time ago), it was "You get two certificates for the price of one." <PAUSE> "You get $250 OBC." That sounded like two separate transactions.

 

It's in the presentation - and that's the CruiseNext consultant and some of them have been less than forthright.

 

"You buy two certificates for the price of one" is clear. "Half-price certificates" is clear.

 

There are so many people here that think you get an ADDITIONAL $250 OBC that obviously the presentation is misleading in some cases.

 

I'm pretty sure the first time we bought CruiseNext certificates, they charged my CREDIT CARD full price and gave me half the costs back as OBC. At that point, the OBC could be used for anything else I wanted to do, because the cost of the certificates came out of a different source.

 

Now, they charge full price to an account and put half the cost back into the account. Some people who are math-challenged still think they can spend the money on other things. You can. You just have to pay the half cost that has been charged to your room in addition.

 

The program is not misleading although it could be stated more clearly (this is true of all sales pitches.) However, the cruise consultant presenting the program can be very misleading at times.

They charged your shipboard account. Which may have been tied to your credit card but it was originally charged to your shipboard account just like all other onboard charges are.

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