Rebooking to take advantage of better offer

[DivotMaker]

I'm sure this has been covered before, but it appears searching has been disabled. At any rate, we booked a 12 night cruise to Europe through a TA when there was a $1,000 on board credit (about a week ago). The 123 offer now is something that fits us better, and I found a great deal online without going through the TA. I emailed the TA and he said we aren't allowed to do it and Celebrity will cancel the promotion for us. My search of other forums has said this may not be the case, but I'd like to get the straight answers from folks here. We are even willing to change sail dates if that would make us eligible.

 

And if it helps, we've only paid the $450/pp deposit and there's no cancellation fees per our TA. We also don't mind if we lose our cabin that's been assigned.

 

I think our confusion is that the new offer says for "new bookings only" and we are unclear if that means we don't qualify if there's ANY previous booking, or one through the online company.

 

Thank you.

[JanineM]

If you have a reservation number, you have a previous booking - doesn't matter if it was made through Celebrity or a TA.

 

It doesn't matter what folks here experience, it's what Celebrity allows. Host Andy posted a thread here with the comment that it was for new bookings only. You could always call X and ask. If you don't like the answer you could probably try again.

[fninsn]

We had booked another caribbean cruise while onboard in December. With that booking we received $100 OBC, category upgrade from 2D to 2A and reduced deposit.

 

Called Celebrity yesterday in the hopes of taking advantage of the free drink package. In order to get it, we lost the $100 OBC and had to pay the full deposit of $530. As for the cabin upgrade, we had the choice of moving to a 2D cabin or paying the extra for the 2A. Since the extra was only $30 per person more, that was our choice. Taking everything into account we saved almost $550.

 

Celebrity was very helpful in making this change and I was pleasantly surprised.

 

Hope that helps

 

Linda :)

[megfla]

Sounds like your TA is giving you some bad info.

 

Celebrity will change the promotion for you. I called yesterday and could have done it but decided the $1,000 OBC is still better for me since I would not use the drink package to make it worthwhile.

 

If you change, you will lose the $1,000 original OBC and if the cabin price has increased you will pay for it accordingly. My sailing did not have a price increase.

[DivotMaker]

Just so I'm clear, the better deal we found was through another company, not the TA we reserved with initially. I just called the other company and they confirmed that their policy for "new bookings" does not apply in my case since my booking was with another company. I'm on hold now with Celebrity to see what they say. Will update with more info.

[DivotMaker]

UPDATE: Just talked to Celebrity, got a really knowledgeable and helpful rep. She said Celebrity's policy for rebooking is that they will not allow the SAME TA to rebook at a lower price, but there is nothing wrong with rebooking through another TA to take advantage of a lower offer. She laughed and said as a consumer, that's what she would do too and it sounds like my TA doesn't want to lose the sale so he's offering me incorrect information.

[Richiebaseball]

UPDATE: Just talked to Celebrity, got a really knowledgeable and helpful rep. She said Celebrity's policy for rebooking is that they will not allow the SAME TA to rebook at a lower price, but there is nothing wrong with rebooking through another TA to take advantage of a lower offer. She laughed and said as a consumer, that's what she would do too and it sounds like my TA doesn't want to lose the sale so he's offering me incorrect information.

 

That's not correct either. This is from the FAQ sent to agencies:

 

Can I convert a booking made prior to booking window?

Yes, at prevailing rates and other offers will be removed.

 

As someone mentioned above, they were able to change to the new promotion they just lost their old promotion. And if the price had been different they would have had to change to the new price. While there are many agents and agencies out there that seem to be clueless, not everything you hear from a Celebrity rep is correct either. Your current agent could have given you the new promotion and that bunk about not allowing the same TA to rebook is exactly that, bunk.

 

It sounds like you may have a lower price also? That is possible if the other agency has a group with pricing that is both lower than current prices and is also combinable with the current promotion. If that is the case then it's very possible your current agent could not book you at that price although they would still be able to change your current booking to the new promotion as long as it is at today's price.

 

Hopefully that all makes sense.

[casandbliz]

We have an 11 night cruise booked for the end of March 2013, which we booked on our own thru the Celebrity website. I just called Celebrity to see if we could apply the great 1,2,3 Go! promotion to our existing reservation. She said we could, with a couple of stipulations:

 

1. We would have to pay today's going rate for our cabin (which was the same as when we originally booked), and

2. We would lose any OBC (for us, that was only $200).

 

The agent made it very simple for me, no canceling and rebooking.

[DivotMaker]

Yes, we are getting the cruise for about $400 less and going from a Cat 1B to a Concierge Class 3. Thanks.