Best price guarantee UK POSITION

[uktog]

Currently onboard and am struggling a bit with information from the Cruise Again associate/manager. 

We aren’t entirely happy with the current deal and are happy to play the waiting game. Initially we were told we could not have Cruise Again Open passages for an onshore booking as they’d never existed. Corrected that misnomer to be told it’s now been withdrawn. Challenged that one and now after 48 hours we have the certificates. 
 

The sales pitch is now high pressure spiced with what some might consider emotional blackmail so today when we said we would not commit to options that were priced for us we were also told best price guarantee only applies to bookings made onboard. 
 

I have checked the UK website and it’s still there but the associate says now the website is wrong. Does anyone know when the guarantee was withdrawn for new UK bookings made shoreside? 

[Grandma Cruising]

I have no knowledge of this, but I would have said that if you had a dated screenshot of the UK website with that guarantee on it, then it would be hard for them to say it doesn’t apply to a UK booking made up to the screenshot date!

 

Sounds like the onboard team are making it up as they go along!

[excitedofharpenden]

Ann, I'm a bit confused. You say Cruise Again for an onshore booking.  I thought that Cruise Again Open Passage can only be done on the ship. Or am I misunderstanding you?

 

Phil 

[uktog]

No we’ve used them with our travel agent before hope we can again! 

[excitedofharpenden]

But you can't buy them unless you are on the ship, right?  But you can apply them to a booking that you transfer to a travel agent when you are home. Is that what you meant?  How many times have I heard Johannes say "we keep your travel partner in the loop". 

 

Phil 

[uktog]

You can’t buy them unless on the ship

You then have an open reservation that has to be used by 2039!

When you are ready to book back home you then use that reservation number to convert it to a named booking getting your loyalty discount on the price of that booking which is priced at the prevailing rate on the day you convert it to a named cruise  booking 

[uktog]

2 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

 

Sounds like the onboard team are making it up as they go along!

Yes we sensed the knowledge was very very rusty

[excitedofharpenden]

2 minutes ago, uktog said:

You can’t buy them unless on the ship

You then have an open reservation that has to be used by 2039!

When you are ready to book back home you then use that reservation number to convert it to a named booking getting your loyalty discount on the price of that booking which is priced at the prevailing rate on the day you convert it to a named cruise  booking 

Yes. I have done a lot of Open Passages. It was your initial post they had me confused when you said you could not have one for an onshore booking. Now I understand. It's as it's always been. I'd have told them if it was me!

 

Phil 

[uktog]

20 minutes ago, excitedofharpenden said:

Yes. I have done a lot of Open Passages. It was your initial post they had me confused when you said you could not have one for an onshore booking. Now I understand. It's as it's always been. I'd have told them if it was me!

 

Phil 

I did but was left to feel like the out of date ignoramus!  Grandma is right I think a lot of urban myths are created. It’s all to force a hard sell! 

[excitedofharpenden]

1 hour ago, uktog said:

I did but was left to feel like the out of date ignoramus!  Grandma is right I think a lot of urban myths are created. It’s all to force a hard sell! 

I never do well with hard sell. I just switch off. 

 

Phil 

[uktog]

19 hours ago, excitedofharpenden said:

I never do well with hard sell. I just switch off. 

 

Phil 

Yes and to be told again and again you are making a big mistake and you will only regret not making the booking just brought the shutters right down for dear husband. That was after being reminded they’d all been unemployed and life had been tough. 
 

Well we now have the possibility of making four bookings when we feel the price is right. 
 

Im still curious to know if uk guests booking at home (not onboard) get the best price guarantee still. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by uktog

[Mrs Miggins]

Just wondering if you mentioned your problems to any of the Senior Officers.  Your experience would really leave a bad taste, and is unlike my previous experience of the onboard sales team.  

[uktog]

20 minutes ago, Mrs Miggins said:

Just wondering if you mentioned your problems to any of the Senior Officers.  Your experience would really leave a bad taste, and is unlike my previous experience of the onboard sales team.  

They are aware. 
It is very unlike how it used to be and was the only negative in an absolutely positive trip. 
We are now even more angry as we’ve discovered one of the cruises was priced wrong and he’d forgotten to deduct the quarterly promotion discount- had we seen the correct figure we would have booked and enjoyed the $300 onboard benefit. 
We had said no to the promotion that ended yesterday ($500 obc plus WiFi) as we get the WiFi anyway as Platinums. 
Had we had the correct price we would have booked and so have really lost out due to incompetence onboard 

[excitedofharpenden]

1 hour ago, uktog said:

Yes and to be told again and again you are making a big mistake and you will only regret not making the booking just brought the shutters right down for dear husband. That was after being reminded they’d all been unemployed and life had been tough. 
 

Well we now have the possibility of making four bookings when we feel the price is right. 
 

Im still curious to know if uk guests booking at home (not onboard) get the best price guarantee still. 

This is so not Azamara and the attitude needs to stop. Right away. My experiences have been good, but as I said earlier, my interactions with future cruise sales has been very limited of late. I'll see how I get on in November. 

 

Phil 

[Riocca]

This sounds like the experience we had on Celebrity a while ago, we made a few Cruise Now bookings pre pandemic on Azamara and received good service always feeling the sales people were on our side.

As Royal Caribbean are still acting as booking agents for Azamara are the onboard booking people Azamara or RC? 

We are currently on Sky Princess and the big push on here is for future cruise certificates with a reduced deposit and I think some OBC. They are time limited but you do get your money back if you don’t use them. Pre cruise we priced up a Princess cruise and the non refundable deposit was almost £1600 in total, with the certificate it’s just £75 pp. We ended up thankfully booking Azamara Onward instead, 5 days on a big ship is quite enough!

[royallondon]

5 hours ago, uktog said:

Yes and to be told again and again you are making a big mistake and you will only regret not making the booking just brought the shutters right down for dear husband. That was after being reminded they’d all been unemployed and life had been tough. 
 

Well we now have the possibility of making four bookings when we feel the price is right. 
 

Im still curious to know if uk guests booking at home (not onboard) get the best price guarantee still. 

Not good form.  If this approach continues they (future cruise advisors)  will again be unemployed and life tough.  So unlike the Azamara experience.

 

UK home booking:  We booked a Greece intensive a couple of months ago.  The cruise was recently included in the $500 obc promotion and so rang to see if this could be applied retrospectively under the “best price guarantee”.  Unfortunately not as we have a balcony and they are now sold out.  I wasn’t holding my breath and the bottom line is we were happy with the price when we pulled the trigger.

 

Regards

[Mrs Miggins]

Having spent my work life in Sales I would guess the Sales Associates are heavily incentivised and have high targets to achieve.   Looks like some urgent re-training is urgently required especially as misinformation can obviously lead to lost sales and ongoing high buyer resistance.

[PirateWife]

I am not from the UK but I have frequently booked future cruises while onboard. One of the best future sales associates is no longer with the company. She went above and beyond what I expected and was never pushy. She was a friend I looked forward to visiting with and talking about future cruise possibilities. If the sales associates are heavily incentivised, I am disappointed.

[Werangels]

This gave me a feeling of deja-vu from our experience on Pursuit in 2019.  Way too pushy. Not completely truthful.  I could go on…..