Direct booking with Princess or with Travel Agents?

[pa_snowbird]

Is there any benefit to book directly with Princess (either through the website or with their Vacation Planner)?

Would they offer cabin upgrade to their direct customer first (after all they make more money by not paying commission to TA)?

 

With TA, do you get better price with large volume TAs or with small independent TAs?  It seems like most everyone offers the current published rate, the extras may come from OBC or some small discount that the TA kicks back to you from their commission?  It would make sense that Princess may have better commission rates to higher volume TA?

[nini]

We receive benefits through our Big Box TA which includes possible OBC and a very nice reward cash card after our return.

This would not happen by booking directly. Plus, we can typically see available cabins when the Princess website does not offer that.

Edited May 19, 2023 by nini

[caribill]

2 hours ago, pa_snowbird said:

Is there any benefit to book directly with Princess (either through the website or with their Vacation Planner)?

Some people like to deal directly with the company offering the product.

 

But the Princess employee alliance is likely to be with Princess, so if you have problems and your booking is with a TA, the TA can fight for you, not for the company.

 

 

2 hours ago, pa_snowbird said:

Would they offer cabin upgrade to their direct customer first (after all they make more money by not paying commission to TA)?

No.

 

But the money they save by not paying commissions to a TA  is spent to support their own sales staff.

 

 

2 hours ago, pa_snowbird said:

 

With TA, do you get better price with large volume TAs or with small independent TAs?  It seems like most everyone offers the current published rate, the extras may come from OBC or some small discount that the TA kicks back to you from their commission?  It would make sense that Princess may have better commission rates to higher volume TA?

 

The answer is that "it depends."

 

Some TAs just charge the same current price that Princess would charge. I know of one large volume TA that always charges what the current Princess price is, but words its offerings to imply it is special pricing when it is not. Example "Princess offers our customers this discount on balcony cabins." The statement is true, but it is the same price you would pay if you booked directly with Princess and Princess offers that pricing to all TAs.

 

But for those TAs that do discount the Princess price and/or add amenities, some will have pricing better than than a large volume TA and some will have worse pricing than a large volume TA.

 

Any TA can set up a "group" booking for as many cruises as they want to. Then if you book with such a TA, the "group" pricing is better than the regular pricing. How much of that better pricing is shared with the customer varies with the TA and some TAs may share none of it with the customer. (Although it is a "group" booking, it is not a real group and you will unlikely know who else on a cruise used the same TA and is a part of that "group" booking.)

 

In addition, TAs get amenity points with each sale they make. These points can be used to provide amenities to the customer such as OBC, bottles of wine, a specialty dinner, etc. But the points can also be used  instead to just give the TA a higher commission with none of it having to be shared with a customer. Amenities coming to the customer via amenity points may be listed as coming from the TA, but they are really coming from Princess through the TA.

[travelin.sisters]

it is a personal preference thing...I like having a person I can e-mail, call or go see in her office...I still pick our cabins out & look for price drops for refaring, but she spends the time on hold w/Princess, we don't get price discounts, but sometimes extra OBC, specialty dining or other extras...there are probably as many reasons for the various choices people make on how & with whom to book as there are cruisers

[luv2kroooz]

TA offer additional amenities such as OBC or fare discounts not available through princess.

 

However, you are giving up some degree of control over your booking because the TA owns the booking. 

 

Want to upgrade or refare? Need to use TA. Etc.

 

At the end of the day, seems like personal preference.

[lx200gps]

4 hours ago, travelin.sisters said:

it is a personal preference thing...I like having a person I can e-mail, call or go see in her office...I still pick our cabins out & look for price drops for refaring, but she spends the time on hold w/Princess, we don't get price discounts, but sometimes extra OBC, specialty dining or other extras...there are probably as many reasons for the various choices people make on how & with whom to book as there are cruisers

We fell exactly the same way, particularly the comment about "...time on hold w/Princess" Having done that once myself, as much as we love our dedicated TA, we're happy to let her sit for hours on hold which, sadly, she's done for us many times.

[Princess Chatterer]

Refare?  Oh really?  I thought Princess doesn't let TA's do that anymore.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Princess Chatterer

[kywildcatfanone]

I always get a better prices and OBC from my TA that I don't get booking directly with Princess.

[CruizinSusan70]

We book it initially through Princess and then transfer to a TA.  On a Princess booking, since we pay for the Plus package and possibly buy excursions with a 10% discounted gift card, I want my TA to discount my total to save me money on the front end instead of giving me OBC that I won't use. I call around to the small number of TA's I use and hopefully one of them has "group" space and can provide a good discount.

[caribill]

1 hour ago, Princess Chatterer said:

Refare?  Oh really?  I thought Princess doesn't let TA's do that anymore.

 

Not sure why you would think that.

[memoak]

We use a Princess CVP. She returns emails and calls swiftly, can go directly to customer relations and if we tell her we are looking for a particular itinerary she will call us as soon as the new cruises roll out.  Plus she is just a great person

[pa_snowbird]

If you log on to the Princess website, the system can see that you are a previous guest and on certain itineraries you can get a small discount from the current price.

 

I have seen invoice statement from Princess to a big box TA that shows the commission break down and it could be as much as 11 to 13% of the fare you pay, depending on the itinerary.  Lower volume TAs probably get lower commission rate.  So you can see there is a bit of leeway for the TA to give something back to you.   In the case of this big box TA, you get about half of that commission back in the form of a shop card after your cruise.  For a long cruise, this could be a non-trivial amount of money.  Getting some chocolate, flower or specialty dinner is nothing compare to that.  I rather get a cash card to use later than some OBC that I have to use onboard.

 

And yes, you can book directly with Princess (onboard or on their website) and transfer the booking to your TA (including big box TA) within 60 days.  Be careful if you use Princess Vacation Planner (their internal TA), those bookings are not transferable.

 

What I don't know much about is the these "group" rates.  Does anyone know how much the discount that can be?  To get these group rate does the TA have to put up some deposit to grab a block of rooms that they can sell back to their clients?  As such your cabin selection may be limited from that TA?

Edited May 19, 2023 by pa_snowbird

[Princess Chatterer]

18 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

Not sure why you would think that.

That’s what T.A. told me.

[caribill]

5 minutes ago, Princess Chatterer said:

That’s what T.A. told me.

 

Each time a TA refares to lower pricing, the TA is doing extra work for a lower commission.

 

Good TAs are willing to do this because it makes for satisfied customers who will book with them again in the future.

 

What your TA told you is not correct, at least for refares before the final payment deadline.

 

Of course any refare means you get the Princess amenities (OBC, for example) included with the refare pricing, not the amenities of the original booking.

[Coral]

49 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

Each time a TA refares to lower pricing, the TA is doing extra work for a lower commission.

 

Good TAs are willing to do this because it makes for satisfied customers who will book with them again in the future.

 

What your TA told you is not correct, at least for refares before the final payment deadline.

 

Of course any refare means you get the Princess amenities (OBC, for example) included with the refare pricing, not the amenities of the original booking.

My TA (who I have used for 25 years and trust) could not re-fare my cruise that I booked end of December (February final payment). She was willing to cancel my cruise and rebook me - so she was willing to do the extra work and did take less of a commission.

 

When she went to re-fare, the lower prices were not available. We had to create a new booking to get that pricing.

 

Princess seems to be changing things daily these days. Hard to keep up.

[caribill]

9 minutes ago, Coral said:

My TA (who I have used for 25 years and trust) could not re-fare my cruise that I booked end of December (February final payment). She was willing to cancel my cruise and rebook me - so she was willing to do the extra work and did take less of a commission.

 

When she went to re-fare, the lower prices were not available. We had to create a new booking to get that pricing.

 

Princess seems to be changing things daily these days. Hard to keep up.

 

Sounds like the "only available to new bookings" pricing which your TA was willing to put forth the effort for you to get the better pricing.

 

Does present a problem if the original booking was with a non-refundable deposit.

[Coral]

11 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

Sounds like the "only available to new bookings" pricing which your TA was willing to put forth the effort for you to get the better pricing.

 

Does present a problem if the original booking was with a non-refundable deposit.

I wanted an AD minisuite originally which was non-refundable deposit. I decided against it and went with a BB balcony. At final payment - new booking pricing put mini suites $100 more but with $100 extra OBC so it was a no brainer. I was able to get my AD minisuite (covered) at that point because it all became non-refundable. I lost some referral OBC but it was fine.

 

I probably would have done it with a $100 deposit (cancel a non-refundable cruise) if there was savings. I would not do it with a larger deposit. 

[Cowbell Kingdom]

Well.......   We always always get more for our money with our TA.

She worked her magic and got us upgraded to Premium Plus without more money FROM us. And the bus to the terminal is always a good time.

We've never paid more to go with her than the "rack rate". Less? Yes. More?  Never.

[charliedalrymple]

14 hours ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

We book it initially through Princess and then transfer to a TA.  On a Princess booking, since we pay for the Plus package and possibly buy excursions with a 10% discounted gift card, I want my TA to discount my total to save me money on the front end instead of giving me OBC that I won't use. I call around to the small number of TA's I use and hopefully one of them has "group" space and can provide a good discount.

 

We did the same, but primarily because I was finding it difficult to navigate the Princess website and got tired of holding for 30 to 60 minutes every time I had a question.  We've never used a TA to book our cruises before, but we've decided this is probably the way to go in the future.

[JG&Lcruisingnewbies]

Personally I prefer to book through a TA. I use the same one & often they have deals in addition to what the cruise company provide. Sometimes it’s just a small discount. Other times it’s free upgrades of package or upgrades of cabin, or extra OBC
 

id use even if they charged the same. I have a specific person I can contact with queries and they are good at answering quickly. I trust them which is paramount When parting with so much money. I don’t think the covid cancellations and sickness cancellation would have been so well organised via the cruise lines direct too

[Steelers36]

On 5/19/2023 at 12:53 AM, pa_snowbird said:

Is there any benefit to book directly with Princess (either through the website or with their Vacation Planner)?

Would they offer cabin upgrade to their direct customer first (after all they make more money by not paying commission to TA)?

 

With TA, do you get better price with large volume TAs or with small independent TAs?  It seems like most everyone offers the current published rate, the extras may come from OBC or some small discount that the TA kicks back to you from their commission?  It would make sense that Princess may have better commission rates to higher volume TA?

The small discount you reference is most likely Group OBC that many agencies offer due to reserving blocks of cabins and you may get +/- $75, depending on cabin type and cruise length, etc. 

 

A small independent TA may not be doing sufficient volume with a particular cruise line to be able to offer the best discounting.  That said, some will exist out there that have perhaps been in business for decades and have a huge client base to draw on as repeat customers. 

 

Larger volume TA's may be offering cash discounts off the cruise fare - which is what I go for.  Some, like the infamous Big Box store chain, offer customer kick-backs in OBC or store credits.  You would have the measure the value of those against an agency giving a cash discount.  It helps if a friend can refer you to an good online agency with a great discount, or you can ask around on board a ship among fellow cruisers you meet.  Some of these companies can be found by looking online as they offer to compete for your cruise booking business. 

[Steelers36]

<deleted>

Edited May 20, 2023 by Steelers36

[Steelers36]

On 5/19/2023 at 10:35 AM, pa_snowbird said:

I have seen invoice statement from Princess to a big box TA that shows the commission break down and it could be as much as 11 to 13% of the fare you pay, depending on the itinerary.

Did you calculate that commission rate off the commissionable fare?  There is a non-commissionable fare (NCF) portion of every cruise fare that is normally hidden to guests.  (I am aware that at least some Canadian agencies tend to wrap that amount in with the port taxes).  Anyway, that amount used to generally be $25/day.  It is now generally $29/day and may be less on the really longer voyages.  It was probably increased along with the generally higher fares we see now.  If a customer of an agency is getting a cash discount it will also be calculated on the cruise fare total, less the NCF.  It is a more accurate way to determine your true discount rate and will be consistent across voyages from that agency.  Note that booking an Inside cabin on a short voyage may well not attract the most generous discount rate since so much of the fare is taken up by the NCF leaving little commission for the agency and TA.

 

[pa_snowbird]

I looked at one of the agency invoice that I got.  For this particular cruise, the commission was a whopping 15% (commision / (total fare - NCF portion - tax and port charge)).  Of that, the big box TA kicked back 5%.  They still keep 10%.  For other cruises, they kicked back half or  more of what they got.  Not sure how they determined how much they give back.

I think this can explain all the "magic" that people's favorite TA was doing for them.  They are just giving up a bit of what they are getting in commission to give you the upgrades or OBC.  An independent agent can decide how much they want to give back to you, probably depending on how much business you have had with them.  The cruise line controls all the pricing and incentive knobs.  In fact, all the agents are probably using the same interface to get into Princess' reservation system to get the rates.  It's very unlikely that your favorite TA can magically dig up some special rate that no one sees.