Never again.........

[Cosmic Rays]

........will I book a cruise when Getaway fares first come on sale!!!

 

Booked in March when these fares were released making an incorrect assumtion that the fare would stay!!! The cruise is in early July and today I see the identical fare has now been reduced by an astonishing £640 each when checking my cruise personaliser - that's another cruise for 14 nights each I reckon! Still six and a half weeks until we depart too so goodness only knows what could happen next if P&O are still unable to sell cabins.

 

It tends to leave a somewhat bitter taste..........

[daiB]

........will I book a cruise when Getaway fares first come on sale!!!

 

Booked in March when these fares were released making an incorrect assumtion that the fare would stay!!! The cruise is in early July and today I see the identical fare has now been reduced by an astonishing £640 each when checking my cruise personaliser - that's another cruise for 14 nights each I reckon! Still six and a half weeks until we depart too so goodness only knows what could happen next if P&O are still unable to sell cabins.

 

It tends to leave a somewhat bitter taste..........

 

No guarantee on getaways. Of course you could wait and find the ship full. Getaways will always change, up and down.

 

 

 

Gan Canny

 

 

Dai

 

:cool:

[Scriv]

Has P&O pushed a 'Self destruct' button? They are alienating customers right, left and centre.

[MattyBarlow]

I recenlty spoke with the loyalty manager on Ventura and he said that there have been lots of complaints and early bookings were down considerably. Apparantly we should "Watch this space".

[Cosmic Rays]

Has P&O pushed a 'Self destruct' button? They are alienating customers right, left and centre.

 

Yes, I think they have - serves them right!!

 

...and yes, I know I have no comeback................this time around!

[daiB]

Yes, I think they have - serves them right!!

 

...and yes, I know I have no comeback................this time around!

 

Well they are doing no more than every other cruise line. As I have said many times.

 

 

Gan Canny

 

 

Dai

[carhirer]

But presumaby you booked a getaway and therefore secured a significant discount? Only not as great a discount as new bookers?

 

I do sympathise. Our getaway dropped by £150 pp 3 days after booking.

 

In these circumstances i remind myself of the words of Rockefeller. This was the guy who bought whenever everybody sold in tbe 1930s, or vice versa. Somebody once asked him how he knew when to sell. Sell when the price rises or wait for a further rise?

 

His curt advice was "nobody got poor by making a profit".

 

Enjoy your cruise.

[KarenR_UK]

We booked a getaway 4-6 weeks ago, just after the particular grade we wanted went down (quite a bit);

They didn't go down again (which was good for us)

 

Its now two weeks before sailing.

 

I checked again yesterday.

 

Only outsides and suites are still available on Getaway prices & those prices are the same as before.

The suites are sold out for Vantage (:confused:) as are insides - for the other 2 grades, outside and Balcony, the vantage fare has now gone UP from 6-8 weeks ago (when I first looked) - the balcony by a whopping £200pp!

 

I wonder if they take these 'final' vantage fares into account when calculating the Vantage price promise 'paybacks' :eek:

 

 

Edit: :confused: just had another look, & its all change again - the vantage fares are about the same as last week & the getaways have gone up (a bit) - more grades are available again (though at least they are not selling the suite(s) on getaway while saying sold-out on vantage anymore) - so last night might just have been a glitch with the website

 

But have I got a cabin yet ? :D

....

No :(

[middy]

We booked a getaway a few weeks back, since then price has risen by £50. So waiting later will not always pay.

[Essexlass2]

We booked a Getaway some months ago only to then find a few weeks on that they had dropped by another £450, something we have to accept and happily do so because we still got a good price for our cruise and I noticed that one week before sailing the prices had all gone right back up again.

 

We pay our money and take our choice without bemoaning the fact. Now we're all packed and really looking forward to taking off tomorrow morning :)

[CASPALL]

After booking last yrs Xmas cruise for 1799pp on a getaway fare - NEVER again! It was supposedly a very special Jubillee offer for 18 nts on Arcadia in December. So money out of our bank and into P&Os in May/June time.

To be fair we did get an upgrade - we paid for cheapest inside and were allocated a large inside cabin.

Then we noticed the cruise price fall - how annoying! If we had only paid a deposit we would have been better off cancelling our booking, losing the deposit and re booking. We could have had a balcony cabin for 1600 at that stage.

By the time we joined the cruise ship balcony cabins were 799pp.

I did contact P&O and wrote to complain but it was a waste of my time.

Say no more.

Caryl

[nannyviv]

We booked a Getaway some months ago only to then find a few weeks on that they had dropped by another £450, something we have to accept and happily do so because we still got a good price for our cruise and I noticed that one week before sailing the prices had all gone right back up again.

 

We pay our money and take our choice without bemoaning the fact. Now we're all packed and really looking forward to taking off tomorrow morning :)

 

 

We booked an Oriana Norwegian Fjords first weekend of May 10 days before sailing and were upgraded to a higher outside from restricted view/porthole only cabin allocated on the Monday of the Friday we sailed. The lowest Getaway price for inside cabins was further reduced by £50 to an astounding £349 right up to the date of sailing. We have already booked (with another cruise line ) for October, and are wondering whether its worth letting the deposit go and getting another bargain. We will certainly be looking the same next year (although to be fair ALL the offers we saw a such low prices were to Fjords - haven't seen such bargains to the Med etc)

[Scriv]

Bargains are to be had on P and O late bookings, nannyviv. I would certainly think about grabbing them. I certainly will another time!

 

I am one of those idiots who booked that same Norwegian cruise on the Oriana 13 months before sailing and was put on an automatic upgrade list 13 months before departure - and never received an upgrade! I would have loved an obscured port hole just for a bit of light.

 

And being an idiot, I still did not realise. Whilst on board, I then put down a Future Cruise Deposit - £50 each - which is £100 wasted as these can only be used on Vantage Fares and I am sure not going to be caught in that trap again.

 

Am I bitter? Of course I am bitter.

[Cosmic Rays]

Well they are doing no more than every other cruise line. As I have said many times.

 

 

Gan Canny

 

 

Dai

 

Princess don't have two tier bookings!!!!

[daiB]

Princess don't have two tier bookings!!!!

 

I was not talking about two tier bookings I was showing that all cruise companies sell of their cabins which are left at cheap rates. Those rates are market led. Princess do it as do all the others from Silversea down.

 

CC has recently, within the past 3 days, sent out an email with the latest offerings. A range of companies were on offer.

 

This has been going on for years P&O have not just invented it.

 

 

Gan Canny

 

 

 

Dai

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Cruise Critic Forums mobile app

[nannyviv]

Bargains are to be had on P and O late bookings, nannyviv. I would certainly think about grabbing them. I certainly will another time!

 

I am one of those idiots who booked that same Norwegian cruise on the Oriana 13 months before sailing and was put on an automatic upgrade list 13 months before departure - and never received an upgrade! I would have loved an obscured port hole just for a bit of light.

 

And being an idiot, I still did not realise. Whilst on board, I then put down a Future Cruise Deposit - £50 each - which is £100 wasted as these can only be used on Vantage Fares and I am sure not going to be caught in that trap again.

 

Am I bitter? Of course I am bitter.

To be honest we wondered at the time what the advantage of paying the future booking £50 fee was. Having said all this up to this year we have been restricted to school hols only, and are still little restricted by hubby's work dates, but will certainly be reading all the last minute offers that come through more closely in the future. PS we were quite lucky with the weather for ssuch an early Norwegian cruise weren't we?

[Scriv]

Yes, I think we got carried away by falling for this Future Cruise Deposit. We were first timers and very naiive. We were having such a wonderful time and wanted to do it again. We had not quite realised what was going on at that stage. Duh!

 

The (only) advantage is that we will get £50 each OBC if we book a (Vantage) cruise, so will get our money back. Obviously will lose it if we don't, but would no doubt offset it in the price anyway.

 

And yes, we were really very lucky with the weather and sea conditions.

[Cosmic Rays]

I was not talking about two tier bookings I was showing that all cruise companies sell of their cabins which are left at cheap rates. Those rates are market led. Princess do it as do all the others from Silversea down.

 

CC has recently, within the past 3 days, sent out an email with the latest offerings. A range of companies were on offer.

 

This has been going on for years P&O have not just invented it.

 

 

Gan Canny

 

 

 

Dai

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Cruise Critic Forums mobile app

 

Of course they do, I agree, but not blatantly and so far out from cruise date as P&O and Cunard are doing these days with their Advantage/Getaway fares. To me, there 'really' isn't a great difference - between them - except for ££ as we all know when all is balanced.............

[KarenR_UK]

Of course they do, I agree, but not blatantly and so far out from cruise date as P&O and Cunard are doing these days with their Advantage/Getaway fares. To me, there 'really' isn't a great difference - between them - except for ££ as we all know when all is balanced.............

 

In 2010, just as we got back from one cruise (late May), we started to get offers through the door for some longer P&O cruises - one which caught my eye was Aurora 23 days over Christmas - only 12 days required off work, the only issue was the price.

 

One Week it was £3500 pp for the 23 days - we considered it but weren't sure.

 

A week later, there was another offer for £2500pp for the same cruise - we jumped at the chance:).

 

I don't know what the brochure price was but that was a reduction between offers of nearly 50pppn.

& This was a full 6 months before the cruise sailed.

 

It may have gone up or down again after that - I was able to avoid knowing as it wasn't being discussed all over the internet (just on a little bit - I suspect it did go down a bit more based on conversations I only saw the periphery of :))

 

I was quite happy - a long cruise on a favourite ship over Christmas :D.

(& I didnt have to pay the balance until about Sept & got all the books and luggage labels as if a regular passenger:eek: )

The good old days (LOL)