Price Drop

[paphoslady]

I live in the UK but booked my next cruise on Eclipse whilst on board some 18 months ago. Typically in the UK if the price goes down there is nothing that we can do apart from cancel and re-book. Does anyone know if it's different if you have booked on board?

[ipeeinthepool]

15 minutes ago, paphoslady said:

I live in the UK but booked my next cruise on Eclipse whilst on board some 18 months ago. Typically in the UK if the price goes down there is nothing that we can do apart from cancel and re-book. Does anyone know if it's different if you have booked on board?

 

At least for people in the US, when you book on-board the new reservation automatically gets transferred to the agent that booked your current cruise.   You may be able to override this choice.  So if the new reservation gets transferred the current travel agent, then I suspect the current rules would apply to your new reservation. 

[di T]

1 hour ago, paphoslady said:

I live in the UK but booked my next cruise on Eclipse whilst on board some 18 months ago. Typically in the UK if the price goes down there is nothing that we can do apart from cancel and re-book. Does anyone know if it's different if you have booked on board?

Hi I usually book on board and the booking goes to my agent in the states, so I can get price drops etc. But this summer while on Royal Caribbean I booked a back to back for 2020 on the same ship, I booked direct and transferred to a uk travel agent.

i had good price drops on both cruises and got the price drop because I booked on the ship, so worth asking it seems different rules if booked on board! 

[chemmo]

17 hours ago, paphoslady said:

I live in the UK but booked my next cruise on Eclipse whilst on board some 18 months ago. Typically in the UK if the price goes down there is nothing that we can do apart from cancel and re-book. Does anyone know if it's different if you have booked on board?

 

We have asked before if we can book on board under US terms and conditions and told no as our billing address is in the U.K. This was a couple of years ago.

 

Alternatives to cancelling, loosing deposit and rebooking include....

 

Phone and ask to upgrade to a higher category of room (no refund but at least you have got a better room out of it). Celebrity will usually do this at no cost as long as your new category is at least £1 more expensive than the room you are presently booked in.

 

Phone and change your booking to an alternative future cruise (change costs £75 each for the first two guests, free if you are Elite or above) then rebook your present cruise at  the better price. Obviously this ties you in to a new future cruise but is cheaper than loosing your full deposit. 

 

Be careful that a new cheaper price is actually cheaper when you consider offers that come with it (drinks package, OBC).

 

Once past final payment obviously none of the above applies. Unfortunately this is often the point at which prices can significantly drop.

[Edinburghgirl1]

If you booked on board your booking should have been transferred to a dedicated person at their UK HO in Weybridge. We usually deal withHannah Trusty. In situations like this she gives us our best options and sorts it out for us. If rebooking not an option we’ve had additional on board credit in the past. 

[villauk]

According to post #36 in the thread below, they received a flyer onboard stating X are now honouring price drops on U.K. bookings - how accurate this is and for how long X are honouring, I’m not entirely sure. However, with onboard bookings, you can always move the reservation to a sailing in the future and then rebook the sailing at the new reduced rate, therefore not losing your deposit.

 

 

[PatEv]

We booked on board and the price of the booked cruise fell.  We were able to move our deposit FOC to another cruise in the future and rebook.  We can move the above deposit as many time as we like prior to final payment being due.

[bengaltiger1]

On 11/6/2019 at 10:03 AM, paphoslady said:

I live in the UK but booked my next cruise on Eclipse whilst on board some 18 months ago. Typically in the UK if the price goes down there is nothing that we can do apart from cancel and re-book. Does anyone know if it's different if you have booked on board?

 I am in the U.K. and booked directly with Celebrity UK for one cruise and then booked the second cruise to create a b2b cruise while onboard. That cruise was transferred to the Celebrity agent in the UK. 
We have saved £1904 In total in price drops, upgraded our cabin and received some OBC too on both cruises. We are not past final payment date yet.  
I would ask. 
 

[Mynki]

I hope it's true. I'd want to confirm with either a UK based TA (Most have little knowledge of Celebrity in my experience) or Celebrity UK though. I might find out soon. We were given a very large future cruise credit voucher after an issue on our last cruise that needs to be taken in two years. Annoyingly I planned on sailing on two different lines and was looking at some big land vacations in 2020 and 2021 so feel obligated to use it. A first world problem for sure but they would only extend the date to two years from the original one year and not the three years I cheekily asked for. 

[Mynki]

On 11/7/2019 at 4:15 AM, chemmo said:

 

We have asked before if we can book on board under US terms and conditions and told no as our billing address is in the U.K. This was a couple of years ago.

 

 

 

This was our experience in 2017 onboard Eclipse. However I argued that we had made previous bookings through a US based TA and told the assistant to escalate to his supervisor and also stating that if his supervisor was unable to resolve the issue then we request that he escalate to Miami. We left the future cruise booking office whilst they thought about it. Approximately an hour later we had a call to say that our booking could be moved to our US TA. 

I suspect that Celebrity UK were unhappy about this hence the initial reservations. Since then we've come across another UK based couple who had exactly the same experience as us. If it happens again, escalate whilst being firm would be my advice. 

[villauk]

On 11/7/2019 at 4:15 AM, chemmo said:

We have asked before if we can book on board under US terms and conditions and told no as our billing address is in the U.K. This was a couple of years ago.

 

 

The information wasn’t correct. On one sailing, I actually booked two cruise whilst onboard - one in US$ and one in pounds sterling.