Clever Idea to Book $1 Deposit

I was thinking about how many bookings will be made May 22 on the $1 deposit ( and how slow the web site could be ) and if that would hinder my getting my desired cabin. If I book May 21 with a 24 hour hold then pay the deposit on May 22 I think I will have achieved my goal. Antone else like my idea?

I was thinking about how many bookings will be made May 22 on the $1 deposit ( and how slow the web site could be ) and if that would hinder my getting my desired cabin. If I book May 21 with a 24 hour hold then pay the deposit on May 22 I think I will have achieved my goal. Antone else like my idea?

Not likely to work. Booking on hold are for about 96 hours and specify the deposit required.

You won't be able to change the deposit amount so I doubt this would work. I'm curious though if there is a booking limit

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Does anyone know what time the $1 deposit bookings will be available? I want to try to get online as early as possible!

I'm curious about how many of these $1 deposit cruises are you all going to go on? With RCCL introducing non-refundable deposits on all cruises, I'm afraid other lines might catch on if we, the customers, start abusing the refundable deposit system.

I'm curious about how many of these $1 deposit cruises are you all going to go on? With RCCL introducing non-refundable deposits on all cruises, I'm afraid other lines might catch on if we, the customers, start abusing the refundable deposit system.

How is anyone abusing the refundable deposit when it's the cruise lines policy? They make it available in hopes their customers will use it. If they don't want refundable deposits they will change it according what helps their bottom line, not yours.

I'm curious about how many of these $1 deposit cruises are you all going to go on? With RCCL introducing non-refundable deposits on all cruises, I'm afraid other lines might catch on if we, the customers, start abusing the refundable deposit system.

My guess is that Princess knows that a higher proportion of these bookings will be cancelled before final payment. However, if you get people taking that first step, they are at least thinking about cruising Princess and some will be kept.

It also gets fresh people into the mailing list database and makes for a splashy marketing line for the sale to generate buzz.

Non-refundable deposits will decrease the # of bookings (one of the metrics reported on earnings calls) so that's something they'll have lots of implications to work through.

I get why they may want to consider non-refundable deposits, but it also will affect inventory management (and I bet in a negative fashion). Fewer earlier out boookings and will deviate from historical data (non-refundable will result in much fewer Cx, but people will wait to closer in to book a trip).

Since I book flights >90 days in advance, and the flights are non-refundable (only converts to credit minus the change fee) I generally treat booking flights as my final go/no-go decision point and add on the travel insurance at that point. Policies that have cancel for any reason also aren't that much more expensive but will require deadlines on when the policy is purchased.

May 22 will be a busy booking day . Much more than the previous $1 Sale that was no where near as advertised as this one .

Non refundable $2 ? Who cares ?

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Not likely to work. Booking on hold are for about 96 hours and specify the deposit required.

But it can't hurt to try. But to get the $1 deposit, I would call to lock in the booking. If you make a booking on line, the website does not have a button to click that allows you to apply a Future Cruise Credit to the new booking. You have to make the booking and then call to have them change from the cash deposit to the FCC. It might be possible to do the same thing but instead of getting them to apply the FCC to the booking, you would ask them to apply the $1 deposit. The worst that can happen is they say no. You then cancel the cabin that you have on hold and then go back and re-book it under the $1 deposit offer. Best to have two browser windows open at the same time, or perhaps a second person working with you to grab the cabin that you toss back as soon as it becomes available again. One browser window would be used to cancel the booking and the second would be used to re-book.

But it can't hurt to try. But to get the $1 deposit, I would call to lock in the booking. If you make a booking on line, the website does not have a button to click that allows you to apply a Future Cruise Credit to the new booking. You have to make the booking and then call to have them change from the cash deposit to the FCC. It might be possible to do the same thing but instead of getting them to apply the FCC to the booking, you would ask them to apply the $1 deposit. The worst that can happen is they say no. You then cancel the cabin that you have on hold and then go back and re-book it under the $1 deposit offer. Best to have two browser windows open at the same time, or perhaps a second person working with you to grab the cabin that you toss back as soon as it becomes available again. One browser window would be used to cancel the booking and the second would be used to re-book.

I'm confused...if you have a FCC to use as a deposit, why would you be worried about booking on $1 deposit day. Are there other benefits available only on that day?

If they don't want refundable deposits they will change it according what helps their bottom line, not yours.

Exactly. RCCL's non-refundable deposit policy is such that you are incentivized for booking it, like extra OBC and lower fares. It feels A LOT like what airlines have currently. RCCL knows that regardless what you do, they are at least compensated for removing that cabin from available inventory for the period of time between booking and cancellation. I'm hoping this does not become the norm for the cruise lines in the future.

Let's review the $1 deposit sale. Although this is a non-refundable deposit, I'm pretty sure most of us here are not going to miss a few bucks if we decide to cancel some bookings. What's $5 when we are spending $5000 on 5 cruises? This is essentially a gig to bump Princess's booking numbers on their quarterly reports.

With that said, Princess will lose potential sales and instead have some cabins on hold by speculative customers. In an extreme sample, a cruise might show sold out during this sale and a week before final payment date a number of cancellations start rolling in. Now Princess has 75 days to fill the ship and will most likely resort to slashing prices on the now unsold cabins. This will entice last minute shoppers, but will also trigger people who booked early and are now unhappy with the new prices. I've heard Princess giving some OBC for these early bookers, which means lower revenue per passenger for the company yet again.

What I'm saying is I don't understand why Princess is having a $1 deposit sale. At least to me it doesn't make business sense. But then again, I don't count beans at Princess either.

But it can't hurt to try. But to get the $1 deposit, I would call to lock in the booking. If you make a booking on line, the website does not have a button to click that allows you to apply a Future Cruise Credit to the new booking. You have to make the booking and then call to have them change from the cash deposit to the FCC. It might be possible to do the same thing but instead of getting them to apply the FCC to the booking, you would ask them to apply the $1 deposit. The worst that can happen is they say no. You then cancel the cabin that you have on hold and then go back and re-book it under the $1 deposit offer. Best to have two browser windows open at the same time, or perhaps a second person working with you to grab the cabin that you toss back as soon as it becomes available again. One browser window would be used to cancel the booking and the second would be used to re-book.

Yes you can use FCD online now. Started about a year ago. It was request that many people wanted added to then deposit options.

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I'm confused...if you have a FCC to use as a deposit, why would you be worried about booking on $1 deposit day. Are there other benefits available only on that day?

If done reduced deposit booking. Later I used a FCC and got my benefits. Not hard to do for P?

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I don't know what is going to happen in Canada on Monday for the sale. We have national holiday and most if not all TAs will be closed that day.

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I don't know what is going to happen in Canada on Monday for the sale. We have national holiday and most if not all TAs will be closed that day.

 

 

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Make the reservation with Princess and then transfer it to your TA if you use one.

I always book with Princess direct. I'm thinking of those that only use Travel Agents and the agents themselves.

I'm confused...if you have a FCC to use as a deposit, why would you be worried about booking on $1 deposit day. Are there other benefits available only on that day?

Because some are worried about losing their FCD if they cancel the cruise as it's non refundable too.

Hi Everyone​,

We booked on a previous $1 deposit, fully refundable sale for a cruise in Jan 2018 for South America. We booked Club Class and since then, a better deal came available on Oceania for a similar cruise but a week longer. I booked the Oceania cruise but still have the Princess cruise booked. I will NOT cancel the Princess one until I have to pay in full for the Oceania one. The Princess cruise is more expensive than the Oceania cruise.

Anyway, this $1 deposit sale was good for us, kinda?

We just booked with a 100.00 deposit and I don't see the big deal, you have to eventually pay the whole amount. I'd rather have less to pay at final payment.

We just booked with a 100.00 deposit and I don't see the big deal, you have to eventually pay the whole amount. I'd rather have less to pay at final payment.

$100 per person? And is it refundable?

We just booked with a 100.00 deposit and I don't see the big deal, you have to eventually pay the whole amount. I'd rather have less to pay at final payment.

Pay only $1 instead of $100 to buy yourself an option. It is a big deal to many.

I'm confused...if you have a FCC to use as a deposit, why would you be worried about booking on $1 deposit day. Are there other benefits available only on that day?

I wasn't suggesting that one would swap out a FCC for the $1 deposit. I was just using the example of calling to change a $200 to an FCC deposit as an analogous situation to calling to convert a $200 deposit into a $1 deposit. In other words if an agent on the phone can say: "Yes, I see that you have a cruise on hold and a $200 deposit is due in order to keep the booking, but I will go ahead and make the change for you to use your FCC instead with no need to pay the $200", they might be able to say: "Yes, I see that you have a cruise on hold and a $200 deposit is due in order to keep the booking, but I will go ahead and make the change for you to use the promotional $1 deposit instead with no need to pay the $200". Again, I don't know if this works. But it would require a call to find out.

Hopefully it won't be as bad for you folk as it was for us Aussies when bookings opened for our 2018/2019 summer season, which includes Majestic's first season down under. I'm not sure what the problem was but the website kept giving errors. I ended up ringing Princess to book.