Reprice based on 3rd party pricing?

[CruiseOrRust]

We booked a cruise directly with NCL many months ago. We are three weeks prior to final payment.  The balcony category on our cruise is now available only as a guarantee cabin.  But the specific category that we booked is still available (with specific cabin choice) for about $1000 less on a 3rd party (big box) site.  Will NCL reprice our cabin based on this 3rd party pricing (the guarantee cabin on the NCL site is also $1000 less)?  Or should I plan on cancelling and rebooking through the 3rd party site?

 

Ken

[schmoopie17]

We had a cruise booked with NCL and later found the price to be a bit less through on online TA, along with cash back and prepaid gratuities. I called our PCC to see to let him know about this deal and he said there's no way he can match any of it. So we ended up canceling and re-booking with the TA (a very reputable one, by the way). He said he understood that we can't pass up such a great deal, but his hands were tied.

[CruiseOrRust]

schmoopie17, I really appreciate your feedback.  I was able to get a customer service agent on the line very quickly.  Contrary to your experience, he was able to adjust our fare downwards by about $1050.  He said the pricing on our stateroom category has dropped significantly -- indicating to me that they are still tracking balcony pricing for the specific categories, even though they are only showing "Guarantee" on the website.  Strange that specific staterooms are still available on 3rd party sites but not at ncl.com.

Thanks again.

Ken

[hallux]

34 minutes ago, CruiseOrRust said:

Strange that specific staterooms are still available on 3rd party sites but not at ncl.com.

Large 3rd-party sites will have a block of rooms they can sell, which will not be in NCL inventory to sell direct.

 

Somewhat related - I booked my upcoming cruise through a PCC.  Why?  The price NCL offered was a guarantee cabin at the same price the 3rd-party was offering for a deck 5 cabin, other decks would have cost significantly more.  Could I have saved a little bit overall by booking through the 3rd party and getting their offer of free grats?  Yup, but my direct booking will probably end up with a cabin that would have cost at least that much more through the 3rd party.

[boxedmoon]

5 hours ago, CruiseOrRust said:

schmoopie17, I really appreciate your feedback.  I was able to get a customer service agent on the line very quickly.  Contrary to your experience, he was able to adjust our fare downwards by about $1050.  He said the pricing on our stateroom category has dropped significantly -- indicating to me that they are still tracking balcony pricing for the specific categories, even though they are only showing "Guarantee" on the website.  Strange that specific staterooms are still available on 3rd party sites but not at ncl.com.

Thanks again.

Ken

The NCL site bundles cabin categories together, Balcony can be BF to BA. It can mean that NCL showing guaranteed only means for the BF category.

But 3rd party sites and internal NCL can still separate out the categories.