Free bottle of wine???

[Optotronics]

I was just looking through our personalizer on our 3/20 cruise on the royal and when I examined the "travel summary" under the heading of special services. Besides the case of water we preordered it shows a line item for

"Bottle red or white wine qty 1 price $20. (Which we did not order)

I then checked the other cabin we booked for wife's parents and it too shows this wine in the booking.

 

Is this something new that's replacing BOGO?

[frugaltravel]

How did you book? Most likely it is a gift from your booking agent.

[Optotronics]

How did you book? Most likely it is a gift from your booking agent.

Yes, it was with a TA, but never mentioned this and they didn't do this on our previous bookings with them. I was hoping everyone was getting this.

[Pam in CA]

You can always take the voucher to the Passenger Services Desk and get OBC.

 

TAs have the option of giving a “gift” to all of their clients on a cruise. All of them get the same thing. It cannot be a different or no gift for one passenger or cabin.

[Thrak]

Not part of the beverage package. Almost certainly a gift from the TA. Please note that $20 will get you a "nice $7 bottle of wine" onboard. Think of it as a choice between "clear or purple" wine. Many people report that they have been able to use the voucher that is in the cabin as a discount against a nicer bottle of wine.

[EddieCruzer]

Not part of the beverage package. Almost certainly a gift from the TA. Please note that $20 will get you a "nice $7 bottle of wine" onboard. Think of it as a choice between "clear or purple" wine. Many people report that they have been able to use the voucher that is in the cabin as a discount against a nicer bottle of wine.

The bottle of wine is a gift Princess supplies to TA's to give to their clients. I have gotten this a few times. They say you can take the voucher to the dining room and get a $20 credit toward another bottle of wine.

Unfortunately, each time we have tried this, our room statement had been billed the full amount of the new wine, with no deduction for the credit. A trip to PS is involved and just not worth the trouble.

Since we are not wine connoisseurs, now we just pick from whatever is available from the 'free' list and avoid any hassle. ;)

[paul929207]

We have gotten this some cruises from our TA.

[Astro Flyer]

Most likely either a TA purchased gift or by using travel agency group booking amenity points as one of the several options for using those points.

 

In the past a bottle of wine was sometimes a benefit included in a promotional offer but don’t recall any recently. The few times we received it we were able to use the $20 value as a credit towards a better bottle of wine.

 

My travel agency uses amenity points for an OBC to use for anything which eliminates the need to exchange a wine voucher for credit & any problems such as EddieCruzer experienced.

[Optotronics]

Most likely either a TA purchased gift or by using travel agency group booking amenity points as one of the several options for using those points.

 

In the past a bottle of wine was sometimes a benefit included in a promotional offer but don’t recall any recently.

 

My travel agency uses amenity points for an OBC to use for anything which eliminates the need to exchange a wine voucher for credit & any problems such as EddieCruzer experienced.

We did get OBC from the TA as well.

I'm not sure why the TA didn't just give us more OBC rather than both.

[Astro Flyer]

We did get OBC from the TA as well.

I'm not sure why the TA didn't just give us more OBC rather than both.

Guess you’ll have to ask your TA about why.

 

It’s been posted that some TAs pass on part of their commission to clients which as I recall was done by purchasing OBC for them.

 

Or to use the group amenity points to determine what the agency thinks would be best for the majority of their clients & my TA uses the points for OBC instead of wine.

[JF - retired RRT]

You can always take the voucher to the Passenger Services Desk and get OBC.

 

TAs have the option of giving a “gift” to all of their clients on a cruise. All of them get the same thing. It cannot be a different or no gift for one passenger or cabin.

They won't do that anymore. Our TA gives us a bottle of wine with almost every cruise. We used to trade it for $20.

On one of our recent cruises (sometime last year), the answer was "NO". We were told we could get 2 $10 drinks at a bar. (DH drinks a little, me not at all). Tried to get a drink at a bar and the answer was "no".

Took the voucher to the MDR and asked if we could use it for a Dirty Banana..."sure no problem". DH got a Dirty Banana and somewhere in the transaction, the additional $10 was turned into OBC. So, we got one drink and $10. :D

Now, DH just gets 2 Dirty Bananas. I prefer the $20.:(

[Crzn-Life]

On the 2/6 cruise on Caribbean Princess we got wine from the TA. The voucher now has statement on the back clearly stating that it could not be exchanged for OBC which were able to do in the past. It was good for Puerto Viejo. Found out that our waiter would take the wine so gave it to him.

 

 

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Edited March 5, 2018 by Crzn-Life

[caribill]

On the 2/6 cruise on Caribbean Princess we got wine from the TA. The voucher now has statement on the back clearly stating that it could not be exchanged for OBC which were able to do in the past.

 

Our experience has been that we can usually trade it in for OBC even with that statement on the back. By the way, that statement has been there for a number of years.

 

We do the trade at the Passenger Services desk. If any problem, I speak with a supervisor.

[Ron the Rev]

Not part of the beverage package. Almost certainly a gift from the TA. Please note that $20 will get you a "nice $7 bottle of wine" onboard. Think of it as a choice between "clear or purple" wine. Many people report that they have been able to use the voucher that is in the cabin as a discount against a nicer bottle of wine.

Well well ! 2 buck chuck now costs $ 7, that's inflation for you. Make sure you don't splash your cabin paint work with it or the ship will have to go into dry dock to be redecorated.;)

[Crzn-Life]

Our experience has been that we can usually trade it in for OBC even with that statement on the back. By the way, that statement has been there for a number of years.

 

We do the trade at the Passenger Services desk. If any problem, I speak with a supervisor.

 

Happy it worked for you as it did for us in the past. We got a flat out "No" from Passenger Services when we asked this time.

[geoherb]

I noticed for our cruise earlier this month on the Regal that our onboard credit from our TA showed up on the travel summary. It was nice to have this in writing. On our previous cruises, I had to rely on our TA's email detailing any OBC from the agency.

[pink845]

On our last Asian cruise (Feb 2017) we arrived to a bottle of wine and chocolate covered strawberries. We never book with a travel agent. Card read "compliments of Princess". I guess they just liked us.