Price drop after booking

[Len Baker]

It will be very interesting to see what their approach to prices/offers will be for the 2013/14 season.

 

Hi, I found this thread quite interesting. We tend to cruise with Thomsons but for 2013 might do something a little different because we have a double celebration in September 2013.

 

We quite liked the idea of a P&O cruise but seeing forum posts it looks like we dont know what type of "animal" we are dealing with. If loyal customers struggle it is even harder for those unfimiliar with the ways of the beast.

 

Having said that a view being expressed by some Thomsons customers is that for 2013 they may book much later as in 2012 they appear to be offering large discounts. However, there is no guarantee cruise companies will follow their former strategies. These doubts make it harder for customers to accept an early deal and possibly pay a little more for the "insurance" to guarantee the itinerary, ship, cabin, obc, flights, parking etc.

 

There is nothing worse than meeting people who insist on saying how little they paid. We never meet those who missed out on the cruise altogether.

 

Let the battle commence when the brochures are issued.

[daiB]

Hi, I found this thread quite interesting. We tend to cruise with Thomsons but for 2013 might do something a little different because we have a double celebration in September 2013.

 

We quite liked the idea of a P&O cruise but seeing forum posts it looks like we dont know what type of "animal" we are dealing with. If loyal customers struggle it is even harder for those unfimiliar with the ways of the beast.

 

Having said that a view being expressed by some Thomsons customers is that for 2013 they may book much later as in 2012 they appear to be offering large discounts. However, there is no guarantee cruise companies will follow their former strategies. These doubts make it harder for customers to accept an early deal and possibly pay a little more for the "insurance" to guarantee the itinerary, ship, cabin, obc, flights, parking etc.

 

There is nothing worse than meeting people who insist on saying how little they paid. We never meet those who missed out on the cruise altogether.

 

Let the battle commence when the brochures are issued.

 

We have 2 cruises booked, on one our cabin has gone up £500 each and on the other in 6 weeks time there are no cabins left we would have booked. Some cruises sell out and some do not. Our last one on Azura was not discounted at all.

 

If you do not care where you go or when then you are in a good position for a bargain. If you are restricted then you may find you lose out, or not.

 

 

Gan Canny

 

Dai

[Dorset Cruiser]

US passengers get a better deal because of their consumer laws which favour the customer. Even in the UK Princess will allow you to cancel free of charge with no loss of deposit up to 180 days before sailing. P&O allow nothing.

 

No that's wrong. With Princess, if you cancel, at any time, you will lose at least your deposit. If you cancel nearer sail time then you will lose a lot more. Have recently cancelled a cruise with Princess and had to forfeit my deposit which luckily was only a small one.

[PRINCESSTHE BEST]

No that's wrong. With Princess, if you cancel, at any time, you will lose at least your deposit. If you cancel nearer sail time then you will lose a lot more. Have recently cancelled a cruise with Princess and had to forfeit my deposit which luckily was only a small one.

 

Very strange Dorset Cruiser, para 32 of booking conditions states 180 days or more before departure - No cancellation charges. 179 to 57 days - deposit only. 56 to 42 days - 50%. 41 to 14 days - 75%. Less than 14days 100%. Grab a copy of any Princess brochure and take a look for yourself. The only time charges kick in is for flights cancelled 54 days or less prior to departure.

[Dorset Cruiser]

Well I'll certainly check the brochure again and if you are correct, a letter will be going to Princess 'tout suite'. Thanks for the info:)

[Dorset Cruiser]

Just checked and missed the cut by 23 days - ah well!

[HomelessBear]

When we booked a Princess cruise in January, the TA told us then that we woukd be able to cancel before final payment without any penalty and our deposit would be refunded. I did ask her if she was sure, as I had never heard of that before for us UK cruisers, but she said it was definitely correct and was a recent change to the terms and conditions.

However, the P&O cruise we booked does not follow this trend. Pity! It would be good if they also agreed to add this into ther terms for cruisers.

[Bobbyjean]

When we booked a Princess cruise in January, the TA told us then that we woukd be able to cancel before final payment without any penalty and our deposit would be refunded. quote]

 

What is the point of the deposit in such cases, I wonder?

[Enjoyacruise]

We have been hit by the dreaded "fluid pricing" 3 times and we never learn.

 

We booked 2 weeks ago; paying in full for a cruise on the Azura on 15 April. We were therefore so disapponted on Tuesday to get e-mails offering our inside stateroom grade for £200 less than we had paid and an outside for £100 less than we had paid. Even balconies are only £100 more than we had paid.

 

P&O nor Cunard care about upset customers:eek:

[julietu]

We have been back n forth with correspondence to p&o over our price drop, which should have been thomas cooks job but ill just say wont be booking through them again. We got knowhere they said if they reduced our price they would have to do it for everyone, and yes our cabin had come down in price, but no they wouldnt do a thing, we would have been happy with a bottle of wine or a discount for another cruise but no they were adamant they were not doing anything not even the small gesture. We have paid our balance now and still looking forward but at time it was frustrating

[philipsw285]

We have been back n forth with correspondence to p&o over our price drop, which should have been thomas cooks job but ill just say wont be booking through them again. We got knowhere they said if they reduced our price they would have to do it for everyone, and yes our cabin had come down in price, but no they wouldnt do a thing, we would have been happy with a bottle of wine or a discount for another cruise but no they were adamant they were not doing anything not even the small gesture. We have paid our balance now and still looking forward but at time it was frustrating

 

my 1st cruise with p&o was the last 2 weeks of april this year than god i didn't look at pricing untul i came back. But when i got on the ship there were people who had paid £500 per person less than me in the same cabin type and they were mid ship i was at the front. My next cruise is oriana on 3rd july(175 aniversery) that sold out on the day of opening so every ones the same i believe as a rule of thumb school holiday time is not worth trying but iam going to take my chances and leave booking until two months before and if the price isn't right i won't go..............i can always change my dates at work.....

[julietu]

we have booked school holidays on our cruise, but as i quoted these prices have come down even in the height of the season

[Chunky2219]

Here's a useful tip.

 

Any line in the Carnival Group (P&O, Princess, Cunard, HAL, etc) will not give you any reduction if prices fall. The best you can hope for is an upgrade if you whinge and whine a bit. Having learnt this lesson, I now only book quite late and get some fantastic deals.

 

Celebrity, on the other hand, will almost always honour the first price drop for free and will sometimes honour subsequent drops, albeit maybe with an admin fee. The deposit is also smaller at £150 each, which makes the cancel and re-book option feasible. I have two very early booked cruises in the offing, on both of which I got big, big price drops once they started to tumble. All it cost me was the price of a phone call. I don't know if RCI is the same, but suspect so.

 

The upshot of this is that although we like P&O, we've not sailed with them for 3 years. We've found far better late prices with Cunard and better price flexibility with Celebrity.

.

.

[A Paladin]

Hello all, I have found this thread and read it with great interest.

 

I believe my own experience was an example of P&O bait advertising where I was lured into believing there was no availability of my chosen cabin grade (6.30pm) and ‘sold-up’ to a higher priced cabin. Within hours (9am following day) not only were further blocks of cabins released but the fare reduced by £1200 and on-board credit increased from £250 to £350. Within just a few weeks this was yet again increased to £500 per stateroom plus the additional benefit of a complimentary x3-day pre-cruise hotel package. In all, this represented a saving of c£2.2k pp. With the exception of the on-board credit increase, I accept that fares may reduce shortly before a cruise is due to sail to fill ships capacity but one year in advance is not acceptable.

 

It was evident that P&O were falsely stating availability for a very limited time in order to lure customers and entice them to make an immediate decision to take advantage of inclusive travel to Australia. I was misled and my ability to make an informed booking decision was impaired by the lack of accurate information needed to make an enlightened choice. Had this information been more honest I would have taken a different transactional decision.

 

I came across similar examples during the 2011 P&O Grand Alaska Adventure. There were many passenger complaints that only limited cabins were available at time of booking. After boarding it became evident that late bookers, often of lower grade accommodation, received the benefit of not only a greatly reduced fare but being accommodated in a early-booking passengers first choice location that was unavailable to them when booking - or – late booking upgrades to superior cabins thereby leap-frogging early booking passengers who were not offered this courtesy ahead of the late bookers.

 

P&O market their cruises with the promise of benefits for making an ‘early commitment’ including “being able to take advantage of early booking discounts” and “giving the best chance of securing preferred cabin and dining choices”.

 

P&O Cruises has a duty not to trade unfairly and loyal repeat (Gold/Caribbean+) customers, including myself, have stated that they feel they have been subjected to unfair practice when they made an early booking in the belief they were receiving true benefits and value for money.

 

Needless to say all requests to review my booking were rejected so I voted with my feet and cancelled. I have since cruised with alternative cruise lines and in future will only travel with P&O if they offer a particular schedule I am looking for that is unavailable from an alternative supplier.

[julietu]

What you said was really our experience. We were told by thomas cook that you had to book early to get any discounts (we were told this last year as we did book last minute) therefore we booked as soon as we got back for this year. But when it came to paying the balance our cabin had come down lower than we actually owed and they had a deposit of £800 of us from september last year. After we were told there was nothing they p&o (not thomas cook who were not helpful at all even though they should have contacted p&o on our behalf and refused...what were we paying them for then) could do we even said a bottle of wine in the room or a voucher for a future cruise (not a lot) would be suffiecient but it was met with a no, p&0 even told us that yes our cabin had gone down in price c est la vie!!!

[Enjoyacruise]

Yes it is really annoying. It has happened to us several times with both P&O and Cunard. A few years ago we did get some additional obc from Cunard but nowadays they both have toughened their attitude and refuse to assist.

 

In March we booked a late deal for mid April on Azura down to the Mediterranean and even then it dropped £200 only 10 days after we had booked. We had an inside cabin and pointed out to P&O that for £100 less at the new price we could have had an ioutside cabin.Needless to say we got nowhere with P&O.

 

The amusing thing is that P&O call their staff "Customer Solutions Executives"; perhaps we could have a competition to choose a new punchy title for them perhaps "Standard reply Executives"

 

Each time we say we won't book early but get tempted and forget our resolution. Now those Cunard getaway offers in September look good and I am sure the prices won't go down again...................!

[alvin moondust]

We booked with a travel agent 15 months in advance for our December 2011 cruise, It looked like a good deal with £250 of OB spend thrown in.

On the ship we spoke with people who had paid £800 less, But we had chosen a specific cabin that we wanted so we were happy with the price we paid.

[A Paladin]

Its interesting to read the Carnival Corporation corporate governance and code of ethics for P&O, Cunard and others in their charge:-

 

"We are committed to governance policies and practices that ensure shareholder and other stakeholder interests are represented in a thoughtful and independent manner. Sound principles of corporate governance are critical to obtaining and retaining the trust of investors. They are also vital in securing respect from other key stakeholders and interested parties -- including employees, our guests, suppliers, the communities in which we conduct business, government officials and the public at large."

 

Hmmm!