Prices very different between UK and USA??

[Gbnut1]

We were thinking of upgrading for our next cruise and I was looking on my phone at prices however the USA site came up and the price was in dollars and the price of suite was from $1999 and when you go to UK site the same suite is from £1929 for exactly the same now with exchange rate the UK price should be a lot less surely??????

 

Should prices not be the same??? Just different with exchange rate!!!!!

 

Regards

 

Susan

[Tudorcruisers]

Very interesting. Will watch this post, us site never comes up when I check anything!!

[jonsmum]

I've just checked the price for a cruise we are interested in. Going via the .com site, it is £200 cheaper than via the .co.uk one, even though both quotes are in £UK . We used to visit the Maldives quite a bit and I do know that the resorts there quote different rates for visitors from different countries. Presumably, this is a similar policy.

[Christine Frances]

Do the UK sites have the taxes/fees included in the price shown? The US sites show the base fare and at the end of the booking you can see the extra taxes etc

[Gbnut1]

Ours do include tax but nothing else and that would not make the huge difference in price.

 

Regards

 

Susan

[Tiggertastic]

The us site adds taxes and fees later in the process where the uk site includes them. Although even when added we usually find a difference. Ncl just changed the uk site to match the USA one and now both add the taxes later.

[cle-guy]

Yes prices vary country to country.

 

Like my Starbucks Quad Grande Americano in the USA costs me $3.40, in the UK it costs GBP 3.50

 

USA UK Germany etc. all have different economies, customs, and regulations that govern travel, The UK provides many alleged protections (which many will argue, but nonetheless they exist) that US folks are not guaranteed, so the pricing tends to be higher to allow for such matters.

 

As an example, in the UK of a port is missed and a new one not visited a portion of the fare must be refunded in addition to the port fees and taxes. In the USA, we only get a refund of the port fees and taxes, no portion of the crusie fare.

cruise fare. Also UK call centers and UK land based staff get paid a far higher wage than their US counterparts, again, necessitating extra costs to the UK consumers to allow for those economic differences.

 

But as other have said, find yourself a USA based Travel Agent and book via them to get the deals, but in the event something goes awry, realize you do not have the customary protections UK consumers are accustomed to.

 

On the other hand, there are sometimes promotions ran that only apply to the UK and not USA. Last year for a while there was a time when UK cursers got to select 2 123 perks, where in the USA we only got 1. This year, on SOME cruises us US folks can now pick 2.

 

The world Economoy, cuts both ways....

[Tudorcruisers]

There always seems to be a huge difference in rates of cruises and 99% of the time it's much cheaper booking with a US agent. The benefits are immense. Don't get "CONNED" and when you want "TO GO on a VACATION" use a US agent. I hold a US, Canadian and UK passport and I would never book anywhere but with a US agent.

 

we used a US TA this year for the first time ever and he was useless. I had a lot of problems and Celebrity actually answered my post on CC and came to the rescue for which I am so grateful. In future I will be staying with a local TA.

[nomad098]

The us site adds taxes and fees later in the process where the uk site includes them. Although even when added we usually find a difference. Ncl just changed the uk site to match the USA one and now both add the taxes later.

 

The NCL site has changed in the last month but the extra on the price is not taxes and port fees as on the US site.

 

On the UK site they are still included in the base fare but it is the "daily service charge" which has been automatically added to the final payment for everyone booking NCL UK.

 

If you wish to pay your "DSC" onboard you must call and have them removed when you book your cruise.

 

I wonder if Celebrity will go down the same route with pricing

Edited August 13, 2014 by nomad098

[mickey89]

we used a US TA this year for the first time ever and he was useless. I had a lot of problems and Celebrity actually answered my post on CC and came to the rescue for which I am so grateful. In future I will be staying with a local TA.

 

There are many good ones, thankfully the one we use gives a great service. The benefits definitely outway any downside, what downsides. Refundable deposites, additional obc, significantly cheaper cruises - we can't lose !

[MR_T]

There are many good ones, thankfully the one we use gives a great service. The benefits definitely outway any downside, what downsides. Refundable deposites, additional obc, significantly cheaper cruises - we can't lose !

 

I agree, we have a great USA agent and we get great prices along with extra perks!

[Project_gal]

We were thinking of upgrading for our next cruise and I was looking on my phone at prices however the USA site came up and the price was in dollars and the price of suite was from $1999 and when you go to UK site the same suite is from £1929 for exactly the same now with exchange rate the UK price should be a lot less surely??????

 

Should prices not be the same??? Just different with exchange rate!!!!!

 

Regards

 

Susan

 

Susan

 

Are you absolutely certain that you were not being shown the prices in pounds both times? Celebrity's US website certainly used to recognise where you were and convert to the local currency. I have not tried it some time so things may have changed but, when I last tried, you had to find the "not from the UK" button to get US$ prices to show. The sterling price difference may then just be because one was including taxes and fees and the other not or there may be a slight difference in the US and UK price.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Project_gal

[steamboats]

cle-guy is absolutely correct! Different market, different price. And that´s the same for all cruise lines.

 

As an example: A med cruise does not sell very well in the US -> the prices in the US are going down. The same cruise does sell pretty well in Germany -> the prices are going up or stay constant.

 

It´s the same with the promotions. Here in Germany we don´t get the same promos you get in the US. For another booked med cruise the UK folks do get a free flight. I don´t have that promo here in Germany.

 

steamboats

[wendychloecruiser]

It really comes down to doing your homework. It costs nothing to enquire, get quotes, compare apples to apples. On my most recent booking, the difference in what I saved by doing bit of research, paid for another cruise. A true 2 for 1.

[timbom]

Sister who is a UK / USA Cit. uses my US address and state in all of her cruise prices.

 

Says she saves at least 40% off of UK pricing. It is crazy what this industry gets away with. No wonder so many ships are staying in Europe and Asia year round.

[simon stingray]

We now use a US cruise agent for our X bookings-cheaper and we get OBC which seems to be unheard of here in the UK.

 

Last year we were going to book a transatlantic with HAL. We love X but we liked the itinerary on the Nieuw Amsterdam and the dates were perfect for our work schedule. Unfortunately our agent informed us that HAL would not allow non US citizens to book through a US agent and the cost of us booking in the UK was almost double the US price.

 

We obviously didn't book and they eventually dropped the UK price in line with the US shortly before sailing-it seems there were many cabins unsold but by then the airfare had become too expensive.

[Gordoncruickshank]

You really need to do the full comparisons. The cruises we did in Feb, Mar this year were via a US TA and were much cheaper than in the UK but when I booked the Feb, Mar 2015 cruises the difference was not so great and because we received a bit of TA discount there was only about £100 overall difference which I decided was worth the cost to ensure that we weren't at risk of exchange rate moves.

 

Generally the Celebrity site in the us does not include taxes in the prices shown.

 

You can usually get free gratuities from the US TAs but not in the UK

 

Gordon

[MR_T]

I recently booked the 7 night celebrity eclipse to the Norwegian fjords in May 15... Now I do have a USA agent that I have now used for 4 cruise bookings, so my first point of call was to contact her to see what was the best price she could offer compared to the celebrity uk site... After getting all the info it would have worked out $300 per person more expensive to book with her even with the OBC she was offering! So I booked direct with celebrity uk... My USA agent did say that she does find it hard to compete with eclipse prices out of the uk as celebrity uk do get a better deal for uk guests... How true this is I'm not sure but on this occasion celebrity uk was by far the best deal...

 

As for using an American agent and the issue with exchange rates I use a pre-paid dollar MasterCard and load some money onto it throughout the year when the rate is good... That way you can spread the cost of the holiday and over the course of the year the up & down rate changes even themselves out! I've used it for all my USA booked cruises and saved a fortune in the process! ; )