Reminder--"free" bar tab offer must be booked by 1/31/2023

[cantgetin]

The title basically says it--for anyone looking at whether a cancel and rebooking or a new booking would be to their advantage with the $300/$600 free bar tab offer, VV is currently stating that the offer will end on 1/31.  I am not a "First Mate" and do not claim any expertise.  I just know that I've seen the cruise fare go up by $150, but add a $600 bar tab benefit.  Whether it works for you depends on your original booking and any price increases since then.

[Alsmez]

I checked our Scarlet Lady booking the other day for this deal and the fare had gone up $250 ($125/pp), but I couldn't tell from their website whether we qualified for the full $600 in free bar tab. I didn't have time to reach out to my TA to check at that moment, and unfortunately when I checked again today the fare is up about $1100 from what we paid. Not sure whether we missed out on a deal, though, because there's no way to see exactly how much free bar tab you're getting when booking (and website is careful to specify UP TO $600). Oh well. Our cruise is almost a year out so I'm sure there will be other deals along the way.

[cantgetin]

52 minutes ago, Alsmez said:

I checked our Scarlet Lady booking the other day for this deal and the fare had gone up $250 ($125/pp), but I couldn't tell from their website whether we qualified for the full $600 in free bar tab. I didn't have time to reach out to my TA to check at that moment, and unfortunately when I checked again today the fare is up about $1100 from what we paid. Not sure whether we missed out on a deal, though, because there's no way to see exactly how much free bar tab you're getting when booking (and website is careful to specify UP TO $600). Oh well. Our cruise is almost a year out so I'm sure there will be other deals along the way.

The bar tab deal is $300  for short cruises, $600 for 8 days or longer....I THINK 7 days gets $600 but I could be wrong on that.  Yeah, my cruise was going to cost me $642 more to get a $600 bar tab.....I passed.  That was the report from my First Mate

[Alsmez]

19 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

The bar tab deal is $300  for short cruises, $600 for 8 days or longer....I THINK 7 days gets $600 but I could be wrong on that. 

Ah, okay - very good to know! We're on a 6-night so wouldn't have been worth the bother. It would be nice if they made that clearer on their website, though - would probably save a lot of calls to TAs and their own customer service department!

[HughMann]

2 hours ago, cantgetin said:

The bar tab deal is $300  for short cruises, $600 for 8 days or longer....I THINK 7 days gets $600 but I could be wrong on that.  Yeah, my cruise was going to cost me $642 more to get a $600 bar tab.....I passed.  That was the report from my First Mate

If you're a Sea-Rover, you should get an additional $200 on 7+ day cruises. According to the website, the bar tab promotion is guaranteed for 2 years

[AtSeaWithChris]

10 hours ago, cantgetin said:

The bar tab deal is $300  for short cruises, $600 for 8 days or longer....I THINK 7 days gets $600 but I could be wrong on that.  Yeah, my cruise was going to cost me $642 more to get a $600 bar tab.....I passed.  That was the report from my First Mate

300 for up to 5 nights. 600 for 6 or longer. 

[rebeccac]

Actually here is the official wording:

 

All Sea Terrace and below categories are eligible for this offer. Sailors on any 2023 6-night voyage or less get a free $300 Bar Tab per cabin. Sailors on a 2023 7-night voyage or more get a free $600 Bar Tab per cabin. This offer ends on January 31st, 2023.

[cantgetin]

18 hours ago, HughMann said:

If you're a Sea-Rover, you should get an additional $200 on 7+ day cruises. According to the website, the bar tab promotion is guaranteed for 2 years

Sea Rovers get a $100 bonus on each PURCHASED bar tab.  I don't think they get the extra on a free bar tab.

In October, there was also a rebooking on board offer where status match sea rovers who were not using a future cruise credit got an extra $200 in Loot on a cruise booked during that interval.

Edited January 25, 2023 by cantgetin

[WIBadgerFan]

We were just about to book a Seriously Suite before noticing the fine print on the $600 bar tab.  This exclusion of Rock Star Suites is making us reconsider.  This makes no sense to me.  Any insight on this exclusion out there?

[jon81uk]

13 minutes ago, WIBadgerFan said:

We were just about to book a Seriously Suite before noticing the fine print on the $600 bar tab.  This exclusion of Rock Star Suites is making us reconsider.  This makes no sense to me.  Any insight on this exclusion out there?

I don’t think they have any issue selling the suites, so no need to offer a promotion. There isn’t that many suites on the shops so they book up quickly anyway. Whereas they have a lot of sea terrace rooms.

[_tacocat_]

22 minutes ago, jon81uk said:

I don’t think they have any issue selling the suites, so no need to offer a promotion. There isn’t that many suites on the shops so they book up quickly anyway. Whereas they have a lot of sea terrace rooms.

they do actually seem to be having issues selling the suites.  TAs are apparently able to hold blocks of rooms, and a handful of them grab suites to sell to their clients.  all of my recent voyages have shown "sold out" of suites for months, yet a week or 2 before the sailing, magically every single seriously suite, most of the brilliants, and even both posh and fab suites have become available.

 

on my last few sailings + the one i have coming up next week, a lot of people have reported in the sailings' FB groups that they've gotten suite upgrades from plain old sea terraces with bids a hair above the minimum.

 

i think they flew too close to the sun with their increased suite fares + exclusion of them from promotions.  they can't be making more money off of the ~$1k/suite upgrades than they did when the suites had more reasonable fares last year + were eligible for sales.

[jon81uk]

12 minutes ago, _tacocat_ said:

39 minutes ago, jon81uk said:

 

they do actually seem to be having issues selling the suites.  TAs are apparently able to hold blocks of rooms, and a handful of them grab suites to sell to their clients.  all of my recent voyages have shown "sold out" of suites for months, yet a week or 2 before the sailing, magically every single seriously suite, most of the brilliants, and even both posh and fab suites have become available.

Yeah I guess they are going to need to do something about the holds at some point because it isn’t good if they are being held stopping others from booking them. 

[Lustate]

14 hours ago, _tacocat_ said:

they do actually seem to be having issues selling the suites.  TAs are apparently able to hold blocks of rooms, and a handful of them grab suites to sell to their clients.  all of my recent voyages have shown "sold out" of suites for months, yet a week or 2 before the sailing, magically every single seriously suite, most of the brilliants, and even both posh and fab suites have become available.

The TA being able to block book really annoys me. I get booking a few if they have a rate in terms of standard terrace, but when they book and hold suites when others want then just seems selfish. VV I think need to limit it so each TA can only book one suite per voyage. The agent can then sell to a known client and the rest of us can buy what we want without them hogging!!

[FFMilesJunkie]

On 2/10/2023 at 1:35 PM, WIBadgerFan said:

We were just about to book a Seriously Suite before noticing the fine print on the $600 bar tab.  This exclusion of Rock Star Suites is making us reconsider.  This makes no sense to me.  Any insight on this exclusion out there?

Suites still get the Bar Tab. They just don’t get the 55% off the second guest. A travel agent will be able to hold the cabin and send you a confirmation that shows the bar tab. 

[cantgetin]

On 2/11/2023 at 1:32 AM, Lustate said:

The TA being able to block book really annoys me. I get booking a few if they have a rate in terms of standard terrace, but when they book and hold suites when others want then just seems selfish. VV I think need to limit it so each TA can only book one suite per voyage. The agent can then sell to a known client and the rest of us can buy what we want without them hogging!!

Very interesting.  I have never seen a suite available on any of our 4 cruises, and this would certainly explain it.  I really don't see how agents holding suites that don't sell can benefit VV. I understand the concept of them being able to "hold" a suite for something like 5 days in order to contact clients, when new booking dates are released, but  the current model seems like it would hurt VV's bottom line.

[AtSeaWithChris]

Agents can hold rooms up until a point then if not booked go back available. Certainly not after final booking. 

[cantgetin]

Interesting....my next cruise is well beyond final payment date, but still shows no suites available.  It will be interesting to chat with people on board and try to find out if anyone got a suite on an upgrade bid.  On our last cruise, there were never any suites showing on line, but they were taking bids on them....I figured that was just in case someone had to cancel.