"Upgrading" cabin after final pymt

[travelplus]

Just remember TAs are doing a service and one of the first questions to ask is if you are away on vacation or are sick who is your backup or manager who can help me with servicing my cruise? 

 

Also I think Royal should have a policy whereby if after x amount of attempts trying to reach your agent unsuccessfully they should give you the price drop or change the cabin. 

[Clarea]

4 minutes ago, travelplus said:

 ...

Also I think Royal should have a policy whereby if after x amount of attempts trying to reach your agent unsuccessfully they should give you the price drop or change the cabin. 

 

If the travel agent is unresponsive, Royal has been known to take back the booking.

[molly361]

46 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

If the travel agent is unresponsive, Royal has been known to take back the booking.

They did that for me once.  Now I have a MUCH better TA

 

OP did you ever call back??  If your sailing was o the weekly sales fllyer and the price is still there you might want to have them call back again today

[johnjen]

1 hour ago, travelplus said:

Just remember TAs are doing a service and one of the first questions to ask is if you are away on vacation or are sick who is your backup or manager who can help me with servicing my cruise? 

See, that's exactly what we didn't do that first time....great bit of advice, Travelplus! Hindsight, wish we had. I won't name the TA, but they certainly soured the notion of us ever having a third party in between arranging our holidays. I'd prefer not having that extra bowl of fruit, bottle of cheap champagne or a free excursion...doing our own arrangements and making sure all points are covered puts our minds at ease.

[sherrjo]

We are sailing 8/18 HOTS and moved from inside/connecting to Ocean balcony for less than 400$ after final payment our TA did it no problems and 5 minutes later it was showing on the app. :)

[hiccups]

2 hours ago, johnjen said:

See, that's exactly what we didn't do that first time....great bit of advice, Travelplus! Hindsight, wish we had. I won't name the TA, but they certainly soured the notion of us ever having a third party in between arranging our holidays. I'd prefer not having that extra bowl of fruit, bottle of cheap champagne or a free excursion...doing our own arrangements and making sure all points are covered puts our minds at ease.

My online TA offers refundable OBC and/or cash back, so it's not just a bottle of cheap champagne.  We've gotten anywhere between 5% and 12% of our cruise price in OBC/cash back.  I do my research, call my TA and have her make the booking.  I follow the pricing, and if I see a change where we might be able to snag a better cabin or qualify for a better promotion, I give her a call.

Recently I saw a deal from another online agency for a Celebrity cruise on a travel newsletter that was better than my TA could offer, so with the caveat that I wouldn't expect the same level of service, I booked it.  It was a group rate with all of the perks that X offers (beverage package, prepaid gratuities, $300 OBC and WiFi for two), plus another $75 OBC.  X's price for the cabin with no perks at that time was hundreds more than the price we paid.  Even now, a week before final payment, the no perks price is only about $60 PP cheaper.

I'm willing to allow time for my TA to get back to me if I have a question in exchange for saving the kind of money we do.