How much was your OBC from your TA?

[mobster75]

The things that disappear from "My Celebrity" once you transfer to a TA are:

 

* Any mention of the cruise pricing

* The ability to change your stateroom, dining time, or bed configuration

* Transfers, pre/post hotel packages, and airfare

* Ability to link your booking with friends or family bookings

 

All of these items now must be handled through the TA.

 

However, there are plenty of other details which you can still arrange for yourself via "My Celebrity", such as:

 

* Shore Excursions

* AquaSpa treatments

* Specialty Dining

* Beverage Packages

* On-line check-in questionnaire

 

The things that only a TA can change are likely to be settled before you transfer the booking away from Celebrity. However, if any of those need to change, a simple phone call or e-mail to the TA should take care of them.

 

The only one I could see being a bit dicey due to timing is if you decided you wanted to switch cabins and had a new cabin picked out - in the time it takes to reach your TA and have them respond, the new cabin could be grabbed by someone else. So, best to wait until you're completely satisfied with the cabin booked then transfer.

[darsura]

Thanks for the info Mobster!

[TenerifeSharon]

 

The only one I could see being a bit dicey due to timing is if you decided you wanted to switch cabins and had a new cabin picked out - in the time it takes to reach your TA and have them respond, the new cabin could be grabbed by someone else. So, best to wait until you're completely satisfied with the cabin booked then transfer.

 

The easiest way of handling this is to put that newly found "better" cabin on courtesy hold. Contact your TA immediately and she can take care of it for you. You will have to release the cabin to her and let her simultaneously "grab" it. It's worked for me in the past!:)

 

I don't transfer the booking to my TA until a couple of weeks before final payment is due, and I am relatively certain that I won't be making any additional changes.

[CrusingJoe]

On our last cruise, we booked with an online TA that I had used 4 years earlier for my first cruise and we received a $100 OBC as well as 3 price drops along the way with the cruise costing $1,900 pre-tax (5% OBC). Once on the ship, we received only $75 OBC - Celebrity looked into it for 2 days but was unable to do anything for us, even after speaking to HQ in Miami. After a 10 minute phone call to the online TA and their supervisor, they agreed to send us a check for the $25 within 2 weeks of the cruise's completion - which they did.

 

After reading this thread, for our upcoming cruise in January on Eclipse, we booked directly with Celebrity to get the exact cabin we wanted then put the booking out for bid online. Within 24 hours, we had 5 bids submitted with 4 that we called on the phone to nail down specifics (1 seemed shady).

 

The one that offered the most OBC also seemed the most knowledgeable on the phone and was very courteous (We were offered $306 OBC on a $2,837 pre-tax booking - 10.7%). Mind you, I am an experienced traveler who prefers to make all my own arrangements (flights, excursions, transfers, insurance, hotels, etc.) and I also enjoy saving $$$ where I can.

 

It took no more than 5 minutes to fill out the Celebrity booking transfer form and fax it down to Miami this past Saturday. By this morning at 10am, the booking had already been moved over to the TA according to "My Celebrity".

 

Aside from the $306 OBC from the online TA, we also have a $100 OBC provided by Celebrity as we put down an open-ended future cruise deposit during our last cruise. After our last cruise, we also signed up for the BoA Celebrity Rewards Visa and use it for all of our daily expenses (we pay the balance every week and haven't paid a penny of interest) and anticipate having 50k points by November which we plan on redeeming for cash instead of more OBC (we've also gotten close relatives to allow us to pay for a number of large ticket items w/ our card then received the full amount in cash from them). The redemption value is the same ($500), and we can get double points on all of our expenditures with Celebrity (aside from $406 going to OBC) while using the cash towards the cruise payment on the card.

 

We'll see if our online TA drops the ball between now and January, but so far we've been really happy with all the ways we've found to stretch our cruise dollars farther. We're saving a total of $906 that would have put a C2 cabin on Eclipse out of our budget otherwise (and we're getting the extra cruise credit as well)

 

CC has been instrumental in helping educate us and become very savvy cruises in short order.

 

How do you put your cruise up for bid online?

[madelinerose]

Sounds like there's some good deals out there.

[madelinerose]

How do you put your cruise up for bid online?

 

 

Google your question. ;)

[terrierjohn]

I was told that it could be up to 10% the cost of your cruise.

Is this OBC the only discount given by US TA's vs the cruise line price?

UK TA's do discount their prices by up to 11% against cruise line prices, but seldom give OBC's unless as part of a cruise line special, eg early booking or a low season special deal.

[niceneasy]

Just got off the phone with Celebrity and any reservation made after May 17 will only be honored for price reductions up to final payment date. I have had most of mine after final payment.

[labeachcomber]

Resurrecting this thread since I think it's the most appropriate place for my question.

 

We were getting close to $700 of OBC from our online TA on a cruise fare of $5700. Contacted the TA this past week to take advantage of a residency discount that saved us $480. The TA told us that the amount of OBC that we would receive would subsequently be reduced because the cruise cost now is less. Fine, I said, I completely understand.

 

Imagine my surprise when I got the revised invoice and our OBC was reduced to $350! A $350 reduction in our OBC because I asked and received a $480 state residency discount. So the "savings" I'm getting now is $350 OBC + $480 residency discount = $830. Only $130 more than our original $700 OBC.

 

I guess I can't complain because we're technically getting $130 more than we would have had. But I'm annoyed because I thought the savings would have been more. I would have been happy with a reduction in our OBC to $600 or even $550. Anybody know exactly how Celebrity gives commissions to TAs? Isn't it simply a set percentage of the cruise cost? Not sure why our OBC was reduced so much, but I guess the TA can pretty much decide any kind of number to give me, can't he?

[krewzin]

Wow, I guess I didn't do my homework as well as I thought I did!

 

Utilized a well known internet TA just last week, and booked Solstice for the end of July ( 7 day Caribbean). We booked 2 cabins, for a total of about $8k.

 

We were given a total of $100 OBC, and will get a 'rebate' of $250 after returning home from the cruise. That's around 4%. We also receive a discount booklet to use onboard (although I doubt it will be that useful).

 

They had better deals for the week before, and the week after the sailing we picked...but we couldn't swing it.

 

Perhaps I would've gotten a better deal had I booked farther in advance....but after reading some of the OBC deals mentioned in previous posts, I feel like I done bad, LOL!