Shore excursions "Best Price Guarantee"

Last week I received an email from Princess about shore excursions. It included a request form to fill out if you find a tour exactly like the Princess one, but less money. Princess says they will refund you 110% of the difference as OBC. Has anyone tried this yet? It sounds like you have to prepay for the Princess tour. If you change your mind and decide to not go on the tour, will they refund your money? :confused:

Most cruislines will let you cancel and refund money 24-48 hrs

Last week I received an email from Princess about shore excursions. It included a request form to fill out if you find a tour exactly like the Princess one, but less money. Princess says they will refund you 110% of the difference as OBC. Has anyone tried this yet? It sounds like you have to prepay for the Princess tour. If you change your mind and decide to not go on the tour, will they refund your money? :confused:

Since you say you have to pre-pay I'm guessing you are on the Grand Princess to Alaska this summer. This is the only Princess ship in the fleet and the only itinerary that currently requires pre-payment for tours booked in advance. Don't know what will happen after this trail on the Grand. Chances are you will have to look hard to find an exact tour like the ones offered by Princess.

Generally the problem with these kinds of guarantees is finding something that is "exactly" the same. Original vendors will usually avoid paying even if the general outline is similar

I suspect this is like the ubiquitous hotel room 'Best Price Guarantee' - meaningless as no two booking sites (or the hotels) have exactly the same booking conditions.

I agree, it will have to be the exact same tour and if my math is correct, you will really only come out 10% of the difference ahead.

For argument's sake as the prices are not exact but, let's say you choose the Yukon train in Skagway for $150 and pay for that on Princess. You can purchase the same train trip right in town and save a bit of money. Let's say you can get it there for $130 -- so a hypothetical difference of $20. 110% of the difference is $22 ... so you have to fill out all this paperwork for a savings of $2.... but why not just go through buying it at the discounted rate rather than risk the guarantee being rejected? I think the key here, it will have to be the same tour that is offered through Princess or there would be no guarantee....and maybe that is what they are counting on.

I am seeing the same thing with Choice Air but the pricing is significantly different. I see airfare on an airline's site for $175 but it is offered on Choice Air for $450 ... so a difference of $275 pp. Now, to get an additional $27.50 of onboard credit, I would have to plunk down $450 for that flight now to get $302.50 in onboard credit. Even though that is significant, the $275 is still my money and now I am having to turn it into onboard credit. It just doesn't seem to be enough to me to go through the hassle.

But, do let us know how it works out for you as in my example above, mine is non-refundable whereas your tour would be.

The cruise line often makes it impossible for you to book "exactly" the same excursion by buying out all available spaces with the vendor they use. It then falls to you to prove that a different vendor does "exactly" the same tour. It won't count if the groups are not the same size, etc. You are better off booking thru a reputable vendor on your own.

As previous poster stated, your "110% of the difference" will typically amount to next to nothing. If you find an excursion that they agree is identical and is $20 cheaper, Princess will refund your $20 + $2. A lot of work for $2.

I would not expect to see many payouts. As stated, it must be "exact".

I noticed this yesterday on their website. Also curious if anyone has tried this yet.

I imagine transportation to/from the excursion is where they 'get you'. ???

I too think it'll sadly be hard to prove it's the same excursion. Nice in theory, but I doubt it'll end up helping many people. To me, any time I can get the same excursion for the same price through the cruise line, I go for it because t cuts the risk, so I'd happily fill out a best price guarantee form to be able to go with Princess instead of a third party vendor.

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we did try it on one of our land tour excursions. we were rejected because i guess its only for excursions taken on the ship not on your land tour. :)

We had to cancel a shore excursion on Princess and they refunded all of our money.

Tony

The cruise line often makes it impossible for you to book "exactly" the same excursion by buying out all available spaces with the vendor they use. It then falls to you to prove that a different vendor does "exactly" the same tour. It won't count if the groups are not the same size' date=' etc. You are better off booking thru a reputable vendor on your own.

 

As previous poster stated, your "110% of the difference" will typically amount to next to nothing. If you find an excursion that they agree is identical and is $20 cheaper, Princess will refund your $20 + $2. A lot of work for $2.[/quote']

I agree. Same destination but different routing is technically not "exact"

The tour that I am wondering about is the "Bear Country & Wildlife Expedition" in Ketchikan in August. The tour is run by Wildlife Alaska Sanctuary. They offer the tour for $189.00. Princess offers the same tour run by the same people for $219.95. This is a difference of $30.00 + $3.00 pp X 2 $66.00. I contacted the tour group and Princess has bought out all the spots available. It is identical (pick up, group size, leader, etc.). Thoughts?:rolleyes:

I'm thinking if you can't book the tour with the operator, you can't claim the 'Best price Guarantee' from Princess.

Hi guys,

I've just done this for a Great Barrier Reef tour - where Princess uses a local provider. The provider charges $80 less than Princess - I filled out the form (takes like 2 mins) and have already gotten confirmation that as soon as I pay for my excursion in the Personalizer I get my 110% price difference back in OBC :).

So - yes it is definitely possible and I have just done it myself. :D

Hi guys,

 

I've just done this for a Great Barrier Reef tour - where Princess uses a local provider. The provider charges $80 less than Princess - I filled out the form (takes like 2 mins) and have already gotten confirmation that as soon as I pay for my excursion in the Personalizer I get my 110% price difference back in OBC :).

 

So - yes it is definitely possible and I have just done it myself. :D

I wonder which company did you find the lower price with for your Great Barrier Reef tour? This is one that I am going to try and price match. The only real difference is that I have to walk 5 minutes to the independent operator from the cruise terminal vs. having Princess' coach pick me up on the dock. That might be a deal breaker.

Since you say you have to pre-pay I'm guessing you are on the Grand Princess to Alaska this summer. This is the only Princess ship in the fleet and the only itinerary that currently requires pre-payment for tours booked in advance. Don't know what will happen after this trail on the Grand. Chances are you will have to look hard to find an exact tour like the ones offered by Princess.

Nevermind. Just looked at date of post. Pardon me!

Tried to do it on a TA, Norwegian Fiord Cruise last summer... took the Princess tours, but found identical tours, one with the same vendor Princess used...but they denied my claim since I found them as we arrived in port, not before .

I tried to book it before, but the company was bought out by Princess and the company told me they couldn’t put Princess Passengers with not ship Passengers.. part of their contract

I don’t think they will ever pay out.. just a gimmick IMHO...

Maybe I'm too cynical, but I looked up an excursion that we did a few years ago. We'll be cruising with "first timer" friends, and this might be something they'd be interested in. Princess offers exactly the excursion we did. The current price is $64.95. When we did it thru the tour operator, it was $30.

So I looked it up thru the operator. They still have a $30 excursion but now it only includes the best 2 of the 3 stops. So they have eliminated one 10-15 minute stop at a store (try a sample, now buy it), but this makes it different from the cruise line vendor. Therefore, it is not subject to the price match. Since this is the vendor that the cruise line offers, the cynic in me wonders whether Princess negotiated with the vendor to change their "public" offering.

And, I can do the excursion using public transportation--round trip transportation + admissions to the stops with guide narration at each location will cost $25 per person using a taxi or $22 per person using a public bus. But again, these are not identical to Princess. Very interesting!

The cruise line often makes it impossible for you to book "exactly" the same excursion by buying out all available spaces with the vendor they use. It then falls to you to prove that a different vendor does "exactly" the same tour. It won't count if the groups are not the same size' date=' etc. You are better off booking thru a reputable vendor on your own.

 

As previous poster stated, your "110% of the difference" will typically amount to next to nothing. If you find an excursion that they agree is identical and is $20 cheaper, Princess will refund your $20 + $2. A lot of work for $2.[/quote']

You get $22 OBC which is a lot more then $2. If there are two of you that means $44 not insignificant to me. They give you the cheaper price PLUS 10%. I've used it twice successfully.

Chances are you will have to look hard to find an exact tour like the ones offered by Princess.

I respectfully disagree, with a "but". I made a list of the Alaska excursions that I booked and compared them to excursion listed on an online travel site, the same one I booked my cruise through (someone in another thread said we weren't allowed to name these??). Anyway, for each Princess excursion, I found the identical excursion through the online site. In each case the online tour was $2 or $3 more than the Princess tour.

The "but" being that I didn't go looking for the similar excursions individually through local Alaskan tour operators.

The tour that I am wondering about is the "Bear Country & Wildlife Expedition" in Ketchikan in August. The tour is run by Wildlife Alaska Sanctuary. They offer the tour for $189.00. Princess offers the same tour run by the same people for $219.95. This is a difference of $30.00 + $3.00 pp X 2 $66.00. I contacted the tour group and Princess has bought out all the spots available. It is identical (pick up, group size, leader, etc.). Thoughts?:rolleyes:

This is exactly what I said above--cruise lines buy out all the available spots during the time they are in port. This is not unique to Princess; we found the same thing on Celebrity. The tour operator will give them a discount in exchange for a guarantee that a high percentage of the available spots will be booked, allowing Princess to make a profit of more than $30 pp. ($30 + the discount from the operator).

You get $22 OBC which is a lot more then $2. If there are two of you that means $44 not insignificant to me. They give you the cheaper price PLUS 10%. I've used it twice successfully.

To those who pointed out that Princess will refund canceled excursions (if canceled early enough), so will most tour operators. Of course, they have individual policies. Also, reputable tour operators will either not charge your credit card till the day of the tour or will issue a full refund if your ship is unable to dock or tender.

I realize that there are benefits of booking directly thru the cruise line, but cost is not typically one of them.

I respectfully disagree, with a "but". I made a list of the Alaska excursions that I booked and compared them to excursion listed on an online travel site, the same one I booked my cruise through (someone in another thread said we weren't allowed to name these??). Anyway, for each Princess excursion, I found the identical excursion through the online site. In each case the online tour was $2 or $3 more than the Princess tour.

 

The "but" being that I didn't go looking for the similar excursions individually through local Alaskan tour operators.

Old thread...but I'll answer with my recent experience.....

Alaska...is was very easy to find duplicate tours.....and that is why I decided to try the price guarantee on 2 of my booked excursions.........and guess what? It worked....I received confirming emails... I will see my OBC on my acct. once on the ship, over 100 bucks....so I'll have to come back after cruising and post if I got it.....