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Booking directly through Princess


pmjnh
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There are TAs and then there are cruise specialist TAs. A TA who books literally dozens of Princess cruises a day gets better fare rates to start with. Better than the fare offered directly by Princess. They then discount their commission as they work on volume. They want the repeat business. In my experience, the "best" don't advertise, work for themselves and have a very low overhead with just one or two employees. They tend to work from early morning until late at night, seven days a week. If there's a problem or issue, they have special contacts at Princess who have far more authority than a CSR's Supervisor. Because they are high volume, they carry a lot of clout at Princess. Want to book directly with Princess? Good luck getting an answer over the weekend or after 5pm. Mine is three hours ahead and even if I contact them during my evening, I get a response saying they're going to bed but will take have an answer first thing in the morning. When I wake up, it's there. I call and my TA knows my name, who I usually travel with, and my preferences. I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time I call. I've gotten upgrades and upsell offers although I have my booking settings at "No upgrade" so I can't judge whether there's any difference between using a TA or booking directly. The bottom line is that upsells and offers are based on supply and demand which is different for every cruise and every cabin category. Difficult to predict or compare. I suspect (but don't know) that people who book with TAs tend to pick a cabin and mark their booking as I do.

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Pam I have used a local TA for years and there are 3 in her office. At anytime I need to make a change which is rare, anyone of the 3 will take over and take care of my request. She as you said high volume and I also can get an answer via email or a phone call. She and her associates know my wishes so all I need to do is tell them the cruise, cruise line & ship and dates along with a Cabin # and they take care of the rest.

 

Gay

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I booked with the TA. She consistently gets me the best price but I still do all my pre-boarding stuff on the Princess site.

 

I do the same. A travel agent can't do the pre-boarding information unless they also have your passport number and expiration and know your credit card number that you want to use on the ship (not always the same as the one that you purchased the cruise with) and also know what excursions you want to take.

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It is too bad we cannot talk specifics about TAs on here.

I do not have any local person I know who specializes in cruises.

When I look at big players like "Bosco" they don't offer all the cabin categories.

We used to use a niece of mine who works for a large agency but she didn't discount anything and we only did it to be nice and let her get the commission.

It is hard to know from just the internet who would be worthwhile to try but I'd consider it. There's no private messaging here and I wouldn't give out my e mail but I am often on the San Diego forum of Trip Advisor if anyone has good info they'd like to share. riffatsea aka Riff

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It is too bad we cannot talk specifics about TAs on here.

I do not have any local person I know who specializes in cruises.

When I look at big players like "Bosco" they don't offer all the cabin categories.

We used to use a niece of mine who works for a large agency but she didn't discount anything and we only did it to be nice and let her get the commission.

It is hard to know from just the internet who would be worthwhile to try but I'd consider it. There's no private messaging here and I wouldn't give out my e mail but I am often on the San Diego forum of Trip Advisor if anyone has good info they'd like to share. riffatsea aka Riff

If you book with Princess and transfer to a TA, you can keep the cabin you selected on Princess.

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Where is that such a great price.....we have a 10 day Caribbean in in 2018 in a mini suite for two people including vacation protection insurance for $2349 and we are getting $655 OBC from Princess.....totally cost is $1694........not impressed......:rolleyes:

 

My TA would have made the mini suite booking for at least 12% less than you received. Since the OBC was a part of the booking, she would also matched the OBC.

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Not really if you want to compare apples to apples, since it looks like you are comparing an original price to a final booked price. my inquiry would be Princess drops that you could have gotten anyway :cool:

Your original question was time to final payment, which is still irrelevant, IMHO. The price I paid was quoted within 1 or 2 days of the original quote from Princess which had not changed. Is this what you are asking? :confused:

 

 

how much time elapsed between when you originally booked with Princess at the $5400 rate, and when you made the final payment on the booking after transferring to your TA in the amount of $4500?
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Here is an example of why i like my TA. Last week CC member Coral posted the 2019 itineraries that would be available for Elite member booking at 8:00 PST this morning. I passed on an itinerary I was interested in to my TA. She asked me if I would like to put a hold on a booking and what category/cabin. At 8:00 am this morning I got an e-mail from Princess telling me Elite bookings were now available. I looked at my cruise personalizer and saw my booking including cabin number had been done by my TA. I then went and did the normal search for the cruise and saw the cruise I am interested in with the following "Pricing is currently not available for this date or the selected cabin type. Please try a different departure date, cabin type or check back later. You may also call 1-800-774-6237 for further details."

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Sounds like the TA found a better rate since the OP originally booked or Princess did not offer the best rate for which they may have qualified for ?

That is just too much difference to be all TA discount (comm rebate) .

 

I have no delusions that the TA took $1400 out of his pocket to earn my business. What he did was sell me a cruise for much less than Princess was willing to sell it. It makes no difference to me from where the discount came.

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Here is an example of why i like my TA. Last week CC member Coral posted the 2019 itineraries that would be available for Elite member booking at 8:00 PST this morning. I passed on an itinerary I was interested in to my TA. She asked me if I would like to put a hold on a booking and what category/cabin. At 8:00 am this morning I got an e-mail from Princess telling me Elite bookings were now available. I looked at my cruise personalizer and saw my booking including cabin number had been done by my TA. I then went and did the normal search for the cruise and saw the cruise I am interested in with the following "Pricing is currently not available for this date or the selected cabin type. Please try a different departure date, cabin type or check back later. You may also call 1-800-774-6237 for further details."

 

I started searching for 2019 cruises last week and pricing was available. Today I checked and the 2019 pricing message that you quote above appears. Are they revising pricing or perhaps site maintenance?

 

just rechecked, looks like some pricing is up and others not.

Edited by pmjnh
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Billco, was the pricing you were booked with today the same as on the preview spreadsheet from Coral?

I am also elite and would like to see the actual prices before booking today.

 

Yes, the prices are the same - ridiculous. My TA can give me a 5% discount now, but should get better when she gets the group rates. I started to balk, because it looked like I was going to have to come up with a 10% deposit. I don't have any Future Cruise Credits right now. But, my TA says she can do it for $100 deposit per person, so I decided to hold on to the booking and see what sales prices are available in the future.

 

So again in my example, my TA was able to book my desired cabin and give me a reduced fare and deposit. Easy Peasy.

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It is too bad we cannot talk specifics about TAs on here.

I do not have any local person I know who specializes in cruises.

 

Why do you want someone local? My first agent lived in California - the one I use now lives in Texas I live in Maryland

 

PS - I do not use Trip Advisor since what they did to VirtualTourist. I am now using Travellerspoint and TravBuddy

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OK then not local but a person and not just an on line web site.

I am very active on Trip Advisor so sorry you don't like it.

I find it a wonderful resource for my land trips and for port excursions in some areas. I would not have mentioned it except for the fact that this web site does not have private messaging and Trip Advisor does have that.

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