Drink Price Fake Advertising

[Clarea]

1 hour ago, Judyrem said:

Does Royal have "happy hours"?  I have had the drink package so I am not aware if they do.

 

Not regularly.

[ONECRUISER]

2 hours ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Which I doubt.

Sounds good though, like not how much you spend it's how much you "Saved"

[John&LaLa]

47 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Not regularly.

 

You'd be surprised #biggerisbetter

[SRF]

16 hours ago, heathermiller86nj said:

Thank you very much.  What I'm confused about is how is it even buy one get one 50% off if buying one is $65 a day and buying two is $260 per person which comes to $65 a day.  There's literally no movement in price.

 

The % off is off the "on board price."  NOT the Cruise Planner prices.

[SRF]

16 hours ago, Bronx12 said:

Sales rules must be different in the US compared to Canada. Several years ago, a Canadian company was charged with inflating the regular price of an item and then taking off a percentage and calling it a "sale".

 

Try buying the drink package on board and see what the price is.

 

I have heard that the on board price is VERY high.

[Iamcruzin]

17 hours ago, Bronx12 said:

Sales rules must be different in the US compared to Canada. Several years ago, a Canadian company was charged with inflating the regular price of an item and then taking off a percentage and calling it a "sale".

In the past several years Retailers have been advertising sales off of a Fake MSRP. Years ago when I was an assistant buyer for a major department store you had to establish price before you could advertise a discount. Now they are all going the way of a car salesman where they work off of the MSRP.    I have been in the business for 40 years. Those Black Friday deals are no real deal. They are nothing but outdated electronics, poor quality diamonds that were artificially marked up 4 times. and over priced kitchen electrics that are selling for the price they should have been all along.  Now the stores have the consumer shopping on Thanksgiving Day to get the best fake sales.  It's the biggest joke in retail.  It took me a while to accept this but now the cruise lines have jumped on the same shady sales tactics.

[Bronx12]

3 minutes ago, Iamcruzin said:

In the past several years Retailers have been advertising sales off of a Fake MSRP. Years ago when I was an assistant buyer for a major department store you had to establish price before you could advertise a discount. Now they are all going the way of a car salesman where they work off of the MSRP.    I have been in the business for 40 years. Those Black Friday deals are no real deal. They are nothing but outdated electronics, poor quality diamonds that were artificially marked up 4 times. and over priced kitchen electrics that are selling for the price they should have been all along.  Now the stores have the consumer shopping on Thanksgiving Day to get the best fake sales.  It's the biggest joke in retail.  It took me a while to accept this but now the cruise lines have jumped on the same shady sales tactics.

 

I totally agree!!!

[SRF]

8 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

In the past several years Retailers have been advertising sales off of a Fake MSRP. Years ago when I was an assistant buyer for a major department store you had to establish price before you could advertise a discount. Now they are all going the way of a car salesman where they work off of the MSRP.    I have been in the business for 40 years. Those Black Friday deals are no real deal. They are nothing but outdated electronics, poor quality diamonds that were artificially marked up 4 times. and over priced kitchen electrics that are selling for the price they should have been all along.  Now the stores have the consumer shopping on Thanksgiving Day to get the best fake sales.  It's the biggest joke in retail.  It took me a while to accept this but now the cruise lines have jumped on the same shady sales tactics.

 

It works.

 

Because most consumers assume they are getting a good deal, and don't check and shop.

 

You see the same thing in hotels and airlines.

 

There is a reason SW Airline is NOT on any of the comparison sites. 😄

 

 

[jptoz]

RCI math and my kids math. Can't  understand either one.

[Magicat]

Recently I did an experiment.  If we would have purchased the drink package on our last 13 night cruise as advertised at $44.00 per night, it would have cost us $1349.92 including gratuity.  We drank like we would normally during the day.  We are Diamond plus so we have free cocktails in the evening. After dinner we usually head to the Pub or Schooner bar for some entertainment.  Our bar tab over the course of the 13 nights was $354.40 on the ship and $596.39 on shore.  We did purchase a 10 drink $70 drink card which we stupidly used at the Windjammer during Bloody Mary sales but that's another story.  In short, the drink package would have to be in the $30 each range for it to make sense for us.  Now would it have been more if it were a Caribbean cruise or Transatlantic?  Probably but I don't think much more.  

[Magicat]

Oh I should add that the only 2 things we went without was the fresh squeezed OJ in the Jam and Baileys in our morning coffee.

[scottbee]

On 11/23/2019 at 12:17 PM, Bronx12 said:

Sales rules must be different in the US compared to Canada. Several years ago, a Canadian company was charged with inflating the regular price of an item and then taking off a percentage and calling it a "sale".

Air Canada has been caught doing this too.

 

[PatMunits]

Step 1: create a spreadsheet for your sailing with columns for all the items you want to track prices of
Step 2: add prices for each item at the time of booking
Step 3: go compare prices whenever a particularly enticing "sale" email comes over 
Step 4: buy the item on sale if the price is actually satisfactory for your budget

Warning: "Step 4" may never happen

[legaljen1969]

19 hours ago, SRF said:

 

It works.

 

Because most consumers assume they are getting a good deal, and don't check and shop.

 

You see the same thing in hotels and airlines.

 

There is a reason SW Airline is NOT on any of the comparison sites. 😄

 

 

There isn't much to compare SW Airline with.  You get what you pay for, which isn't much, but bad attitudes and lost baggage.
I haven't talked to anyone who has ever flown SW that didn't have their baggage take a MUCH longer voyage than they took.
 

[EDiamond22]

16 minutes ago, PatMunits said:

Step 1: create a spreadsheet for your sailing with columns for all the items you want to track prices of
Step 2: add prices for each item at the time of booking
Step 3: go compare prices whenever a particularly enticing "sale" email comes over 
Step 4: buy the item on sale if the price is actually satisfactory for your budget

Warning: "Step 4" may never happen

sale banners mean nothing on RC though, you have to only focus on the $pp number, that's the only thing that matters. book it anytime you see the price go down at all the first time, if it goes down again you can cancel and re-book if you miss a lower price and it never comes back you're out of luck (speaking from experience) was looking for one more price drop and it went up again and never back down again... missed out on two lower prices lol
just my 2cents and i make spread sheets for everything so i dont disagree with with your theory  

[Joseph2017China]

Go to any store today and a sale is off the suggested price.  However, they never actually use the suggested price.  The price of something is the price you are willing to pay.  For example, with free diamond drinks, $65.00 a day would mean that I would have to drink 8 beers after 8:30 at night.  So I don't buy the package.  But if I am going two days to coco cay, than the $65.00 might be a good price.  Most items today is not a true sale price, but a marketing pitch to get you to buy or at least look. 

[bouhunter]

23 minutes ago, legaljen1969 said:

There isn't much to compare SW Airline with.  You get what you pay for, which isn't much, but bad attitudes and lost baggage.
I haven't talked to anyone who has ever flown SW that didn't have their baggage take a MUCH longer voyage than they took.
 

Well we fly SW 2-3 times/year and have NEVER had an issue with baggage it has always shown up and quickly.  Same for their flights, more on time than any other airline we fly.  And their employees are always nice.  And if you find a better price in dollars or points it's easy to take advantage of it without fees or penalties.

[NateUpNorth]

54 minutes ago, bouhunter said:

Well we fly SW 2-3 times/year and have NEVER had an issue with baggage it has always shown up and quickly.  Same for their flights, more on time than any other airline we fly.  And their employees are always nice.  And if you find a better price in dollars or points it's easy to take advantage of it without fees or penalties.

 

If SW is indeed the company I think it is ....... we also have flown them almost exclusively with the same results as you.

[Mark_UK]

RCL have had a complaint upheld against them by the UK Advertising Standards Agency for this reason (fake sales) - not sure it's made a difference over here though.

 

https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/rcl-cruises-ltd-a17-394476.html 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Mark_UK

[Sharenamichele]

On my cruise I have noticed they are using the same starting list price for each sale.  When they post the sales it says 20% less than onboard prices(percentage varies per sale) So examples......

We will say onboard price is $81 per day for these examples. 

 

20% off onboard prices - 

$81 * 0.80 = $64.80 round up so sale is $65 per day for deluxe drink package

 

Buy one get one 50% off.  (RC  gives you 25% off each package)-

$81 * 0.75  = $60.75 round up so sale is $61 per day for deluxe drink package

 

30% off onboard price-

$81 * 0.70 = $56.70 round up so sale price is $57 per day for deluxe drink package

 

I know the $81 may not be the actual onboard price but they seem to be consistent with using this same value for each sale.  

[SRF]

21 hours ago, legaljen1969 said:

There isn't much to compare SW Airline with.  You get what you pay for, which isn't much, but bad attitudes and lost baggage.
I haven't talked to anyone who has ever flown SW that didn't have their baggage take a MUCH longer voyage than they took.
 

 

MANY people think SW is always the cheapest.  And never shop around.

 

Last year, a friend was planning a trip from San Diego to Minneapolis for a gathering of an online group.  She was looking at SW and it was a bit of a stretch for her budget.  I told her to check the other airlines.  And got the, but SW is cheap.

 

But she checked.  Delta was $300 less for the roundtrip that SW.  And it was a non-stop each way, while SW have a plane change in Denver.

[SRF]

21 hours ago, bouhunter said:

Well we fly SW 2-3 times/year and have NEVER had an issue with baggage it has always shown up and quickly.  Same for their flights, more on time than any other airline we fly.  And their employees are always nice.  And if you find a better price in dollars or points it's easy to take advantage of it without fees or penalties.

 

BTW:

 

Quote

 

Here’s how each of the 13 U.S.-based carriers scored in the most recent report:

 

1. Hawaiian Airlines: (87.8%)  5 Stars
2. Delta Airlines: (83.4%) 4 Stars
3. Alaska Airlines: (80.7%) 4 Stars
4. Spirit Airlines: (80.4%) 4 Stars
5. Cape Air: (79.9%) 3 Stars
6. Southwest Airlines: (78.3%) 3 Stars
7. Allegiant Air: (78.0%) 3 Stars
8. United Airlines: (76.9%) 3 Stars
9. American Airlines: (76.9%) 3 Stars
10. JetBlue Airways: (73.5%) 3 Stars
11. Frontier Airlines: (69.4%) 2 Stars
12. Silver Airways: (68.5%) 2 Stars
13. Sun Country Airlines: (68.1%) 2 Stars[/quote]

SW is also not the cheapest fare, even taking luggage fees into account, in many cases.

 

But you have to work to figure this out, because they will not allow any of the fare comparison sites to list their fares.  Hmm, why would they NOT want to be listed???????   Maybe because most times they would NOT be the cheapest.

 

Also, SW has their own Federal law on price advertising.  SW used to only advertise the airfare, not including taxes and fees.  Every other airline listed the actual cost of the flight, including taxes and fees.  It took Congress passing a law to make such deceptive marketing practices illegal to get SW to stop.

Edited November 26, 2019 by SRF

[bouhunter]

OK thanks I get it now.  SW is the most horrible service, loses every bag, and is always more expensive than anyone else...…..

Edited November 26, 2019 by bouhunter

[MommaBear55]

On 11/23/2019 at 6:48 PM, Judyrem said:

Does Royal have "happy hours"?  I have had the drink package so I am not aware if they do.

They have a "drink if the day" that costs less and sometimes there are drink specials in the casino, but generally no real happy hours.

[SRF]

2 hours ago, bouhunter said:

OK thanks I get it now.  SW is the most horrible service, loses every bag, and is always more expensive than anyone else...…..

 

They are not always more expensive.

 

But they are also not always the cheapest.

 

I can't comment on their service or their baggage handling.