The perils of booking early

[newfarmers]

I promised myself that after we'd booked I wouldn't look at any of the sale emails from P&O but human nature is what it is...

 

We paid what at the time seemed an ok price for our October PNG cruise from Cairns but in today's latest 24 hour sale our cabin is a whopping $1300 (in total) cheaper! And because each of these 24 hour sales is full payment required, there's no chance of cancelling and rebooking.

 

To top it off Qantas has a sale on top of a sale and our booked and paid for flights are now $80 each return cheaper.

 

Repeat to self - do not book early, do not check prices after booking, do not book early, do not check prices after booking

[bigles]

check out my own thread on this very subject

we too have watched the same thing as well . We booked early at a "sale away " expo+ "very special pricing' only to find the very same suite being sold for hundreds less than we paid a few weeks later.

Now we are starting to feel a liittle bitter about the process. Is this usual busines? Only fools buy early?

cheers

les

[peter.kath@hotmail.com]

Has anyone got any idea how the pricing works?

I keep a list of cruises that we might like to go and check the prices regularly as we need a triple room they do tend to sell out.

I got a quote for our Feb 2017 PNG trip in late December it was over $6000 with beverage package, 2 weeks later I booked the same cruise $3000 no beverage package now it is up again over $6000 with beverage package.

No one is getting a FREE beverage package.

[Porky55]

Not much you can do about flights - might be worth a call to P&O and ask the question about the prices on the cruise you are booked on and the prices though - nothing ventured .......

 

 

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[Gerko]

If you haven't paid for the Oct trip in full yet then your travel agent should be able to change you to a cheaper Sale fare at the time of the Sale. If it's a pay in full sale then you won't be able to change again if an even cheaper fare comes along. For example, I changed one of my Princess bookings yesterday (I'm a TA) and go $200 cheaper and $500 OBC. Royal Caribbean is tough as they say For New Bookings Only on most of their Sales but most of the Carnival brands are pretty good about changing. I'd love more lines to do what Crystal does. If they have a cheaper offer they automatically apply it to every booking, paid or not, without being asked.

[Royalty X]

If you haven't paid for the Oct trip in full yet then your travel agent should be able to change you to a cheaper Sale fare at the time of the Sale. If it's a pay in full sale then you won't be able to change again if an even cheaper fare comes along. For example, I changed one of my Princess bookings yesterday (I'm a TA) and go $200 cheaper and $500 OBC. Royal Caribbean is tough as they say For New Bookings Only on most of their Sales but most of the Carnival brands are pretty good about changing. I'd love more lines to do what Crystal does. If they have a cheaper offer they automatically apply it to every booking, paid or not, without being asked.

 

The Carnival Corp way of getting around it is to include things like drinks packages, dinners, etc. While these things may be available on a current booking, they likely won't be included on a lower price rate, so you have to weigh up whether the saving is worth losing the inclusions. :)