Price Tracker

[Waju]

Morning everyone, a good few years ago I used to look at a website that ‘tracked’ P&O Cruises (and others I imagine) prices from launch to sailing.

 

Does anyone else remember this?  I keep seeing price drops, Black Friday deals etc and just get more and more confused by what is a good price and what isn’t!

[Selbourne]

46 minutes ago, Waju said:

Morning everyone, a good few years ago I used to look at a website that ‘tracked’ P&O Cruises (and others I imagine) prices from launch to sailing.

 

Does anyone else remember this?  I keep seeing price drops, Black Friday deals etc and just get more and more confused by what is a good price and what isn’t!

Yes, I remember it. It wasn’t terribly accurate. Also, in addition to errors, it only tracked the base price. As we know, P&O have a habit of using on-board credit to mask price fluctuations and imply ‘deals’ that aren’t really there. 
 

For example, one cruise may evolve through several offers such as;

Launch price - £2,500 No OBC

Post Launch - £2,750 with £250 OBC

Double OBC Promotion - £3,000 with £500 OBC

’Sale’ Price - £2,500 No OBC

 

If, as I do, people work out the net cost of their cruise as the base price less OBC, then all 4 different promotions amount to exactly the same net cost, yet a tracker site would imply something completely different 😂 Now if someone could devise a tracker that monitors the price net of OBC then that would be useful. 

 

[Waju]

I wish it was all more simple Selbourne, as explained in your example they put the price up £250 and give £250 obs!  I’ve seen other lines double the price and  then do a bogof offer - they must think we’re daft 🤣

[Son of Anarchy]

35 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Yes, I remember it. It wasn’t terribly accurate. Also, in addition to errors, it only tracked the base price. As we know, P&O have a habit of using on-board credit to mask price fluctuations and imply ‘deals’ that aren’t really there. 
 

For example, one cruise may evolve through several offers such as;

Launch price - £2,500 No OBC

Post Launch - £2,750 with £250 OBC

Double OBC Promotion - £3,000 with £500 OBC

’Sale’ Price - £2,500 No OBC

 

If, as I do, people work out the net cost of their cruise as the base price less OBC, then all 4 different promotions amount to exactly the same net cost, yet a tracker site would imply something completely different 😂 Now if someone could devise a tracker that monitors the price net of OBC then that would be useful. 

 

Just to throw a bit more calculating into the mix:

 

Depending on loyalty discount, the OBC may not be quite as good as initially thought,

 

eg. someone in Caribbean or above will have 10% discount on on board spend, so....

 

Assuming an on board spend of £1000:

 

’Sale’ Price - £2,500 No OBC

No OBC, customer gets a final on board bill of £900.  Total outlay £3400

 

Double OBC Promotion - £3,000 with £500 OBC

£500 OBC, £500 real money spent, less the 10% = £450. Total outlay £3450

 

The OBC has originally been included in what is paid for the cruise, so is really only worth 90% of it's face value.

 

I hope tha! makes sense (an expression I hate btw!)

 

[Selbourne]

1 hour ago, Son of Anarchy said:

Just to throw a bit more calculating into the mix:

 

Depending on loyalty discount, the OBC may not be quite as good as initially thought,

 

eg. someone in Caribbean or above will have 10% discount on on board spend, so....

 

Assuming an on board spend of £1000:

 

’Sale’ Price - £2,500 No OBC

No OBC, customer gets a final on board bill of £900.  Total outlay £3400

 

Double OBC Promotion - £3,000 with £500 OBC

£500 OBC, £500 real money spent, less the 10% = £450. Total outlay £3450

 

The OBC has originally been included in what is paid for the cruise, so is really only worth 90% of it's face value.

 

I hope tha! makes sense (an expression I hate btw!)

 

It makes perfect sense, because I’ve had exactly the same thought, but decided against saying it for fear that someone might think I was nit picking, but you are spot on 😂 If you have decent loyalty discount, it’s far better to have a lower price with less or no OBC. It always makes me smile when people talk about OBC as being “P&Os money and not mine”. No it isn’t! People have usually paid an inflated base price for the cruise in order to get that ‘free’ money. When we were on Ventura last week they were promoting triple OBC. Sounds great until you look at the base prices, which were way too high. They rely on the fact that most people aren’t as anal as us and don’t do the maths, so get suckered in by the headline offer 😂 

[Waju]

To be honest we would usually book early or late saver fare’s anyway so no obs to take into consideration.

I get loads of emails every day with this offer and that offer and I can never remember if they’re better or worse than the price I saw last week 🤣

I suppose if you’re happy with the price you pay then it’s a good deal for you - it doesn’t stop me from sneaking a look to see if the price has dropped/gone up 😊

[terrierjohn]

11 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

It makes perfect sense, because I’ve had exactly the same thought, but decided against saying it for fear that someone might think I was nit picking, but you are spot on 😂 If you have decent loyalty discount, it’s far better to have a lower price with less or no OBC. It always makes me smile when people talk about OBC as being “P&Os money and not mine”. No it isn’t! People have usually paid an inflated base price for the cruise in order to get that ‘free’ money. When we were on Ventura last week they were promoting triple OBC. Sounds great until you look at the base prices, which were way too high. They rely on the fact that most people aren’t as anal as us and don’t do the maths, so get suckered in by the headline offer 😂 

It's always better to have a lower price rather than extra OBC, but the cruise lines would prefer to give you OBC, which means they are guaranteed to win.

[sweep2907]

The website you mention closed down and the cruise companies did not like it understandably. However there is another similar site where you add a specific cruise and it will email you alerts when price alters up or down.

[Selbourne]

4 minutes ago, sweep2907 said:

The website you mention closed down and the cruise companies did not like it understandably. However there is another similar site where you add a specific cruise and it will email you alerts when price alters up or down.

Interesting. Does the ‘other’ site still only monitor base prices?

[Waju]

11 minutes ago, sweep2907 said:

The website you mention closed down and the cruise companies did not like it understandably. However there is another similar site where you add a specific cruise and it will email you alerts when price alters up or down.

Is it allowed mention the website? 

[bobstheboy]

A quick search soon found it.

[jh1809]

5 hours ago, Selbourne said:

It makes perfect sense, because I’ve had exactly the same thought, but decided against saying it for fear that someone might think I was nit picking, but you are spot on 😂 If you have decent loyalty discount, it’s far better to have a lower price with less or no OBC. It always makes me smile when people talk about OBC as being “P&Os money and not mine”. No it isn’t! People have usually paid an inflated base price for the cruise in order to get that ‘free’ money. When we were on Ventura last week they were promoting triple OBC. Sounds great until you look at the base prices, which were way too high. They rely on the fact that most people aren’t as anal as us and don’t do the maths, so get suckered in by the headline offer 😂 

I never seem to get very much OBC on my cruises. I always thought it was a bad thing, but now I realise that it might have been a good thing!

[pete14]

If you buy drinks package, internet, excursions and speciality dining in advance of a cruise, possibly with a loyalty discount which you don’t get with OBC, there is not a great deal to spend OBC on so a large amount of it isn’t necessarily worth having.

[cruising.mark.uk]

10 hours ago, pete14 said:

If you buy drinks package, internet, excursions and speciality dining in advance of a cruise, possibly with a loyalty discount which you don’t get with OBC, there is not a great deal to spend OBC on so a large amount of it isn’t necessarily worth having.

Absolutely.  But I seem to remember @molecrochip suggesting a while back that there was a plan afoot to allow OBC to be spent on advance purchases like those you mention. I wonder if there is any update on that as it would be a very beneficial change, especially for cruises on Arvia and Iona where there is so much that can be bought in advance and where the OBC is often pretty high.  If they let us spend it before we got on board for bookings for restaurants, the Limelight etc, we would be able to ensure we reserved slots that might be quite hard to come by once on board and also avoid the 'trolley dash' around the onboard shops in the last couple of days trying to burn off the excess!