Fuel Rebate?

[sparks1093]

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When the fuel surcharges were rolled out we heard about fuel cost and now we're hearing about the cost of scrubbers.

 

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Last I checked, there were over 6 BILLION people in the world including almost 2 in China. What are there, 400 cruise ships with an average crew of a 1000? If you consider that a limited labor pool, please don't consider a career in H.R.

 

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As others have noted its only my problem if I choose to sail with them. Honestly, I didn't start this thread because I'm still miffed on $60 in fuel surcharges I spent 8 years ago. And in the extremely unlikely event lines were to start offering rebates since fuel is so low - it would not affect my vacation purchase decisions.

 

The purpose of my post was to call attention to the fact that lines are cleaning up as a result of the price of oil and - hopefully - make it a little more difficult for lines to say "our fuel costs have doubled so here is your price increase" a couple years down the line.

 

PS - to the guy talking about airfare going up a couple days ago: I book 7 to 9 one way flights a month for travel (on no notice). I booked my flight from ORD to Greensboro tomorrow, this afternoon: $198 bucks, for (lame) first class -but- the fare includes what otherwise would have been $160 in bag fees if I was in coach. As I do fly so frequently, I think I might be more in tune to what's going on with airfares than most. Airfares, at least last minute airfares, are dropping. At the same time, I was scoping out a Magic cruise a couple of months ago for October, had to wait due to uncertain schedules. Stars aligned with schedules a couple days ago, but the cruise I was looking at went up over 20%. So I did not book - yet.

 

Maybe the government should impose a windfall profits tax a la Richard Nixon on the cruise lines;). Yes, there are a lot of people in the world but as I said the number of qualified people that can pass the background check and have the desire for the job is quite limited, I have read about this shortage from a couple of industry insiders and it's not something that I am making up. Even NCL's Pride of America which is crewed mostly by US citizens has a hard time maintaining full staffing. Working onboard a ship is not for the faint of heart and isn't an easy life. I suppose the cruise lines are making more now because of the decrease in fuel cost but since I am not analyzing their balance sheets I have no idea how much but at the end of the day I don't really care.

[thinfool]

IMO, cruise pricing has little to no correlation to fuel pricing. When the economy was bad and fuel prices were high, cruise prices were lowered to fill the ships. Economic conditions limited demand so prices were lowered.

 

Things are better (not great) and so prices rise to meet demand. There are still some great deals out there.

 

Supply and demand have been pals for a long time....not likely to change even if oil drops to less than $40/bbl.

[DirtyDawg]

Not completely true!

CCL only hedges effectively 50% of it`s fuel cost and those futures contracts are coming in much lower.

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If the fuel price of late last year persists, market leader Carnival Corp alone could see its fuel bill decrease from $2bn in 2014 to less than $1.5bn in 2015, estimates Jaime Katz, a Chicago-based analyst at investment research firm Morningstar.

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I don`t think the OP`s suggestion is that outlandish!

 

Since when does the pricing of a product relate to the costs of producing that product?

 

As a business person I am not going to drop the price of my product just because my input costs decline UNLESS my competition decides to try to gain market share by doing so, or the demand for the entire industry declines due to some macro reason. I might drop my price first if my factory was underutilized and I could gain gain market share and further cost reductions by better utilizing the plant.

 

Most cruise lines are sailing full these days and they seen to be discounting less to fill their ships. In this time of pretty strong demand what benefits would any on the cruise lines gain by cutting prices? The cruise lines can't fill the ships up more than they do now.

 

As a customer I would like the lines to drop their prices. That would be nice. But the cruise lines are not in business to be nice.

[DirtyDawg]

Supply and demand have been pals for a long time.....

 

Best line yet!!

[sparks1093]

Since when does the pricing of a product relate to the costs of producing that product?

 

As a business person I am not going to drop the price of my product just because my input costs decline UNLESS my competition decides to try to gain market share by doing so, or the demand for the entire industry declines due to some macro reason. I might drop my price first if my factory was underutilized and I could gain gain market share and further cost reductions by better utilizing the plant.

 

Most cruise lines are sailing full these days and they seen to be discounting less to fill their ships. In this time of pretty strong demand what benefits would any on the cruise lines gain by cutting prices? The cruise lines can't fill the ships up more than they do now.

 

As a customer I would like the lines to drop their prices. That would be nice. But the cruise lines are not in business to be nice.

 

Yep. If I can buy something for a nickel and sell it for $100 to a willing buyer I'd be a fool to sell it for $10 (of course if I could buy something for a nickel and sell it for $100 I'd be buying bags of nickels:D).

[VA_cruiser]

the cruise lines never added the surcharge back.

 

so nothing to return.

 

if prices are higher it is just the cost of cruising

[lido deck larry]

Carnival hedges their fuel purchases, so they're not paying prices reflective of the price of a barrel of oil.

 

So driving to the port and paying less for gasoline will be your only rebate.

 

Sent from my SM-G386T using Tapatalk

[Earthworm Jim]

1st world problems

 

When you lose your job, lose the house, and can't feed your kids,,,, come back and whine about the cost of your cruise vacation.

This is a message board about cruise vacations. Pretty much exclusively "first world problems" by definition. What's your point?

 

I believe their implication by saying "1st world problems" is that as long as someone, somewhere else on the planet, has it worse than you do, you have no right to complain. So if your house burns down, you should be fine with it because there is someone out there with a terminal disease that has things even worse. And they shouldn't complain either because someone else is dying right now.

 

I never really saw the logic of the "1st world problems" supporters, but that's apparently what they think.

[nealstuber]

IMO, cruise pricing has little to no correlation to fuel pricing. When the economy was bad and fuel prices were high, cruise prices were lowered to fill the ships. Economic conditions limited demand so prices were lowered.

 

 

 

Things are better (not great) and so prices rise to meet demand. There are still some great deals out there.

 

 

 

Supply and demand have been pals for a long time....not likely to change even if oil drops to less than $40/bbl.

 

 

I get the concept of supply and demand. Apparently the cruise lines don't since the right to impose a fuel surcharge is still in the contracts we sign with them.

 

What was BS about the way they imposed the surcharges back then was they imposed it on folks who had bought their tickets when the economy was better and prices were higher, then discounted cruise prices to fill the ships when the economy went south. Those buying at the last minute still got a good deal even with the surcharge, while those who had booked early got a double whammy.

 

As the contacts are currently written, laws of supply and demand get broken. The lines get market pricing and protection on high fuel cost with no downside when their costs drop.

[gtouch]

As others have noted its only my problem if I choose to sail with them. Honestly, I didn't start this thread because I'm still miffed on $60 in fuel surcharges I spent 8 years ago.

 

Nealstuber if you not still miffed after 8 years and still are bringing this up then count me as one not wanting to get on your bad side. I have no idea how long you would remember something/someone who you were "miffed" about. Good luck and have a great next cruise.

[nealstuber]

Nealstuber if you not still miffed after 8 years and still are bringing this up then count me as one not wanting to get on your bad side. I have no idea how long you would remember something/someone who you were "miffed" about. Good luck and have a great next cruise.

 

 

I guess it's kinda like that relative you gave money to a while back. It was a gift, not a loan, but since they could give it back it would be nice.