Is there a topic for HAL Sales?

[CanadaGuyEh]

Am always looking to stretch my cruise dollars.   Have booked a Mexico trip in September with HAL - wondering if there is a topic or board showing deals people found so I can get an idea of current prices.

[DaveOKC]

I have not seen a specific board on CC for this, but it would be nice.  People do post sales/deals on the main HAL board from time to time.

[utahtea]

I usually post if there is a sale on my cruise on my roll call.  You do know that if the price drops before final payment you can call Holland America and get the lower price.  The best part of that is you can secure the cabin you want and then get in on deals.  

 

Utahtea

Edited December 29, 2018 by utahtea

[Hlitner]

If you want the best overall deals it is best to simply shop around among multiple high volume cruise agencies.  In fact, registering with many of those same agencies may well get you "private offers" which are prohibited (by the cruise lines) from being advertised on the Web.

 

With HAL bookings we generally save around 10% by using the proper cruise agencies.  That savings will come in the form of generous On Board Credits (often over $1000), pre paid gratuities, and even discounted pricing.  On longer cruises are savings are into the thousands of dollars per cruise.  We are often amazed at how the same folks that will shop all over town (and the Internet) when they are buying a new outfit, will not do the same when booking a cruise.  When our HAL PCC (who we have never used) called us to seek our business I asked if she could match the deals we get from some cruise agencies.  The answer was no, but then it was suggested we book direct with HAL and later transfer the booking to a cruise agency.  My answer to this was why would I want to waste my time dealing with two entities when it was easier to just do it all with whoever offered us the best deal.

 

We are not picking on HAL with this pricing stuff as nearly all their competition has similar policies.  The savings are there for those who shop around.  For those that don''t, they can keep kidding themselves by saying things like "I love my PCC,"  or "We book direct to keep control."  By the way, this latter comment (often seen on CC) makes very little sense.  We actually have a lot more control when using a high volume cruise agency because those agencies have more clout with any cruise line...then one cruiser.  When something goes wrong or we have an issue it takes a few seconds to send an e-mail to our cruise agent...or we can make a quick phone call (never put on hold).  Call a cruise line with a simple question and you are likely to be put on hold, or get a different answer every time you call.  In fact the acronym "HUCA" is well known on the Internet.

 

Hank

[wyobean]

I am always amazed that people get OBC into the thousands of dollars. I am guessing it must be people who book suites, etc. We go through a TA but have never received more than a couple hundred in OBC from them....but, we only book inside cabins, 

[I like vacation]

4 hours ago, wyobean said:

I am always amazed that people get OBC into the thousands of dollars. I am guessing it must be people who book suites, etc. We go through a TA but have never received more than a couple hundred in OBC from them....but, we only book inside cabins, 

 

We booked a verandah cabin for the August 2020 Viking Passage 19 day cruise while on the Zuiderdam in November and received $300 OBC from HAL.  We transferred the booking to a big box store TA during the Cyber Monday sale and received the free gratuities promo and $50 beverage card from HAL and an additional $900 OBC from the TA. We should also receive $250 in CCL shareholder OBC.

[Alberta Quilter]

OBC from the big box TA not only depends on category booked but also on the length of the cruise.  Actually, it really depends on the cost per cabin.  For my last cruise (28 days), we booked an OV and received a total of just over $1600 in OBC, including the HAL OBC.  We also had free gratuities. We walked off the ship with a credit to the credit card.

 

For our upcoming cruise (14 days in a verandah), we have $650 in HAL OBC and $310 in TA OBC.  (And free gratuities.)

Edited December 30, 2018 by Alberta Quilter

[boards]

Can you tell us how you got $650 OBC from Hal so that we get it too?  I am a four star mariner and I think that if OBC's like that are available, I think we should qualify.  What were the conditions attached to the OBC?

[Classynfun1]

Would those here with a great TA send me an email with details? WeAtTheSea at gmail.com  TY!!!

[DaveOKC]

2 hours ago, boards said:

Can you tell us how you got $650 OBC from Hal so that we get it too?  I am a four star mariner and I think that if OBC's like that are available, I think we should qualify.  What were the conditions attached to the OBC?

We book through HAL and getting $650 (or more) is quite common for us.  On our cruise next week we have $950 (for 2) from HAL on a 15 day cruise.  We got $300 from the booking promotion (I think it was Cyber Sale?), $250 from the stockholder credit and $400 for booking with a Future Cruise Deposit (FCD).  PLUS, we got free gratuities (booking promo).

 

Of course, we book the mini-suites, Signature or Vista and generally 2 week cruises.  Also, we use code ZPM with our FCD to double that credit - anyone can use it with a FCD if they book within 2 months of getting back from a HAL cruise.  If you sail often with HAL, you really should purchase FCDs while onboard. 

[RocketMan275]

58 minutes ago, Classynfun1 said:

Would those here with a great TA send me an email with details? WeAtTheSea at gmail.com  TY!!!

It's against the rules of this forum to ask people to send you an email recommending TA.

[RocketMan275]

49 minutes ago, DaveOKC said:

We book through HAL and getting $650 (or more) is quite common for us.  On our cruise next week we have $950 (for 2) from HAL on a 15 day cruise.  We got $300 from the booking promotion (I think it was Cyber Sale?), $250 from the stockholder credit and $400 for booking with a Future Cruise Deposit (FCD).  PLUS, we got free gratuities (booking promo).

 

Of course, we book the mini-suites, Signature or Vista and generally 2 week cruises.  Also, we use code ZPM with our FCD to double that credit - anyone can use it with a FCD if they book within 2 months of getting back from a HAL cruise.  If you sail often with HAL, you really should purchase FCDs while onboard. 

You can improve on those deals by booking with a PCC.  You get the same thing including the ZPM.  Then transfer the booking to a TA for an additional 10% discount or OBC.

[Alberta Quilter]

4 hours ago, boards said:

Can you tell us how you got $650 OBC from Hal so that we get it too?  I am a four star mariner and I think that if OBC's like that are available, I think we should qualify.  What were the conditions attached to the OBC?

 

Like DaveOKC, I book with a HAL PCC using an FCD and I booked within 60 days of disembarkation so received the ZPM.  For our upcoming cruise of 14 days, we booked a verandah cabin which garnered $75 pp with the FCD.  Double that for the ZPM, we're now at $150 pp or $300 total.  Then as we happened to book our cruise in November when there was additional OBC for booking a cruise with a PCC that month, we got an additional $75 (which got lost when I transferred the booking so HAL replaced it with a $100 OBC - I didn't complain!).  Then I got the shareholder benefit of $250 so now we're at $650.  All of this available to everyone, assuming they are shareholders of CCL.  I re-fared the cruise during the Cyber Sale and got the free gratuities and $50 in beverages cards.  

 

Keep in mind that the HAL FCD OBC is dependent on the cabin category and the length of the cruise.  So one booking an inside cabin would get less than a suite.  That would explain the difference between what DaveOKC is getting for his upcoming cruise versus what I'm getting for mine.  

 

As for conditions attached, no there aren't but if I were to refare again, I might lose some of those perks.  For our upcoming cruise, it's too late to refare because we're past final payment.  For our next cruise, if I wanted to refare under the current Why Not Now promotion, I would lose the Cyber Sale perks (free grats and beverage cards).  I'm still considering it because the airfare discount is greater than the Cyber Sale perks and we may actually use HAL air for this cruise.  

[iancal]

We tend to watch pricing across several different cruise lines when we are shopping for a specific itinerary.   The best pricing is always on a common itinerary where there is a fair amount of competition.  

 

We generally buy inside the final payment window but we watch the pricing about a month prior to final payment.  We make a point of understanding what a reasonable price is.  When we see price decreases a week or two outside the final payment window that sometimes indicates to us that there is even more 'room' to drop.  Once we even cancelled a booked cruise because of this, then rebooked a month into the final payment window to score a substantial discount on our original buy.   We are not fussy though. We often book a gty.  So far so good.  We have always had a good assignment with a cabin between two other floors of cabins, ie not above or below a noisy public area.

 

Keep in mind though, we have also seem pricing zoom up in the final payment window.  There is no set rule other than the rule of supply and demand.

Edited December 30, 2018 by iancal

[boards]

Thank you Alberta Quilter for your response.  We have gotten similar OBC's (not as much as you).  I was just wondering if I missed in getting the best deal possible.  It looks like we done OK.  

Edited December 31, 2018 by boards

[iancal]

Keep in mind that oftentimes an advertised sale is not really a sale at all.  More often than not it is simple a bundling of offers.  It is the same on all cruise lines.   The math comes out with the same bottom line.

 

We think the trick is to understand the pricing.  Then place a value on any extras that the cruise line may include, such as a drink package or alternate dining package.  Place your value on the included item since it may be different than the cruise line list price for the option.  Once cent deposit sales are really not representative of a sale to us since at the end of the day we have to pony up with the full fare.

 

The only time we buy a non refundable fare or non refundable deposit is when we purchase in the final payment window (which is most of the time).   The saving is never worth the effort to us and it precludes us from taking advantage of other offers on various cruise lines.

[RocketMan275]

On 12/29/2018 at 9:00 AM, CanadaGuyEh said:

Am always looking to stretch my cruise dollars.   Have booked a Mexico trip in September with HAL - wondering if there is a topic or board showing deals people found so I can get an idea of current prices.

The best way to "get an idea of current prices" is to ask HAL for their cruise price without the perks.  Then you can make an assessment of whether the perks are worth the price.  

[Turtles06]

There are so many reasons I love Cruise Critic, and here are 200 more.  I'd never heard of Code ZPM until I read this thread.  This fall, we returned from our first HAL cruise, but did not receive any sort of "Welcome Home" email, let alone one with a promotion (nor did I know that we might expect one).  As it happens, we'd booked another HAL cruise about two and a half months after returning from the first.  After reading this thread, I asked our HAL PCC if they would add the Code ZPM promo to our recently booked cruise and, bingo, HAL just did so -- $200 OBC added!   

 

Thanks to the discussion on this thread for the info on Code ZPM!

Edited January 3, 2019 by Turtles06

[DaveOKC]

21 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

There are so many reasons I love Cruise Critic, and here are 200 more.  I'd never heard of Code ZPM until I read this thread.  This fall, we returned from our first HAL cruise, but did not receive any sort of "Welcome Home" email, let alone one with a promotion (nor did I know that we might expect one).  As it happens, we'd booked another HAL cruise about two and a half months after returning from the first.  After reading this thread, I asked our HAL PCC if they would add the Code ZPM promo to our recently booked cruise and, bingo, HAL just did so -- $200 OBC added!   

 

Thanks to the discussion on this thread for the info on Code ZPM!

Glad you got it added!

 

[canadianbear]

And another thank you to this forum.  I had forgotten about the ZPM code and lately we haven’t received the Welcome Back email.  With the discussion on here it jogged my memory and just got it added to our cruise.  

[I like vacation]

Thanks!!!!  I was able to get an additional $200 OBC from HAL.  The TA said that HAL applied the VPM code instead of ZPM.  Not sure what the difference is but it almost covers the HSC for 7 days.