New Booking and Black Friday

[WVU_Neal]

Earlier this week, November 15, I booked a cruise on the Rotterdam. And then this morning I discovered that the Black Friday Sale going on now includes prepaid gratuities. They were not shown with my booking.

 

I’m thinking given only a couple days difference, I should be able to get that sale discount applied to my booking. What do you suggest is the best way to approach this? Contacting my travel agent at a big box shop? Contacting HAL?

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Neal

[canadarocks]

It's supposedly for new bookings only. If you cancel and rebook, will you be losing any perks? 

[WVU_Neal]

Sheesh. I only made the booking last Thursday. And I had to pay the whole thing because it is inside 90 days. 

[Spudd]

Check what the cancellation penalty is. It should be on your confirmation document. If the new fare is lower than your fare plus gratuities plus penalty, then it would pay to cancel and rebook. They should be able to shift the funds to your new reservation.

[RuthC]

19 minutes ago, Spudd said:

If the new fare is lower than your fare plus gratuities plus penalty, then it would pay to cancel and rebook.

The OP says it is past final payment. Cancel and rebook won't work. 

[crystalspin]

1 hour ago, WVU_Neal said:

Earlier this week, November 15, I booked a cruise on the Rotterdam. And then this morning I discovered that the Black Friday Sale going on now includes prepaid gratuities. They were not shown with my booking.

 

I’m thinking given only a couple days difference, I should be able to get that sale discount applied to my booking. What do you suggest is the best way to approach this? Contacting my travel agent at a big box shop?

I would lean on your travel agent. They should have counselled you to wait for the BF sale which was announced before the 15th, I believe. Pizza-store may not honor the gratuities amount, but might give you OBC or a store-card.

[POA1]

You're in full penalty. After final payment, you can't change your reservation.

[KAKcruiser]

Since it is in the penalty phase, you are not entitled to anything.  However, sometimes they will work with you.  But, you have to go through your travel agent.

[Spudd]

10 hours ago, RuthC said:

The OP says it is past final payment. Cancel and rebook won't work. 

I included penalties in my post. Depends how far out the cruise is, but if it's far out, the penalty may be only the deposit and it might be worth it. Only they can know for sure.

[RuthC]

 

7 hours ago, Spudd said:

Depends how far out the cruise is, but if it's far out, the penalty may be only the deposit and it might be worth it. Only they can know for sure.

Since the OP posted it was already past final payment---as in: the cruise is coming up very soon---then we can all know for sure. 
It would be a total loss of the entire cost of the cruise to cancel now. 

[WVU_Neal]

Thanks for your responses, folks.

 

Here’s the thing. I booked this late January cruise 2 days before the sale started. Needless to say, had I known about the Black Friday sale, I would have waited the two days to save myself almost $300. I felt pushed a bit by my big box travel agent to book. She claims neither she nor her agency knew about the sale. Quite honestly, I feel screwed and cheated out of $300.

 

I get the “rules”, yet sometimes accommodations should be made to good customers. And I know for sure that other companies price protect when sales like this happen. Best Buy being one of them.

 

I am working with the travel agent who is going to appeal to her superiors who might have more “clout” at their company and with HAL. My next step would be with HAL with maybe some emails up the line. I’m not one to let things go when I feel wronged. 

 

Neal

 

[Ready2go11]

The Black Friday sale details were announced on November 7 well before the start on November 17. There was a press release and it was reported on another thread here on CC, so it was public. 
 

If you booked two days before the sale started, or November 15, your TA surely should have known the details of the upcoming promotion. I would push them on that point. 

[recruiter 28]

Be sure to do the math.  When we looked at our current reservation we found the cost of changing to a new reservation would be higher than the actual amount of adding on the gratuities to our original reservation. We can pay our gratuities on reservation #1 for less than making a new reservation. In other words it might not be a "deal."

[RuthC]

36 minutes ago, WVU_Neal said:

Here’s the thing. I booked this late January cruise 2 days before the sale started. Needless to say, had I known about the Black Friday sale, I would have waited the two days to save myself almost $300. I felt pushed a bit by my big box travel agent to book. She claims neither she nor her agency knew about the sale.

Personally, I believe your grievance is with the travel agent, and hence her company, to make this right. She should have known---everyone who reads CC did! 
If they can't get HAL to give the Black Friday benefits, then the agency itself should. 

[WVU_Neal]

10 minutes ago, RuthC said:

Personally, I believe your grievance is with the travel agent, and hence her company, to make this right. She should have known---everyone who reads CC did! 
If they can't get HAL to give the Black Friday benefits, then the agency itself should. 

She claims her company never received any email about the sail, although they have in the past. 

[Mary229]

I am sorry, Neal but your agent dropped the ball.  Here is the press release from November 7.  Even if they didn’t know about the specific terms they should have been well aware that all of the lines offer specials for Black Friday. 
 

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/holland-america-lines-black-friday-sale-features-prepaid-crew

 

adding, your agent might reach out to get some small perk for you if the total package is truly cheaper - I doubt it but they could try 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Mary229

[Spudd]

3 hours ago, RuthC said:

 

Since the OP posted it was already past final payment---as in: the cruise is coming up very soon---then we can all know for sure. 
It would be a total loss of the entire cost of the cruise to cancel now. 

I'm sorry, but you are not correct.

 

ALL OTHER VOYAGES 7 NIGHTS OR LONGER (effective Fall 2021):

90-76 days before commencing travel: an amount equal to deposit requirement;
75-61 days before commencing travel: 50% of gross fare;
60-31 days before commencing travel: 75% of gross fare;
30 days or less before commencing travel: 100% of gross fare.

 

Now, we know her cruise is late January so it's probably either 50% or 75% depending on date, so cancellation won't work in this case. But we didn't know that originally.

[RuthC]

1 hour ago, WVU_Neal said:

She claims her company never received any email about the sail, although they have in the past. 

Your TA may, or may not, be telling the truth. If she has been there for a few years, she should have been aware that there is a Black Friday Sale every year, and she should have at least asked about it; if she is new, then she might not have known to ask. 
However, there has got to be someone at that agency who has been there, and should have brought up the topic. It wasn't a secret 2 days before you booked. 
The travel agency should have been aware, and should have let their employees know. It was their mistake, and it is now their responsibility to fix it. 

Don't they have insurance to cover their mistakes? 

[WVU_Neal]

1 hour ago, Mary229 said:

I am sorry, Neal but your agent dropped the ball.  Here is the press release from November 7.  Even if they didn’t know about the specific terms they should have been well aware that all of the lines offer specials for Black Friday. 

I also found that press release from HAL and forwarded it along with similar comments to my travel agent. Indeed she should have known and/or have been informed by her big box cruise agency. I would have easily waited a couple days to make the booking.

 

Discovering this press release confirms that HAL is not the problem, it is the agency who failed to provide me with the correct pricing information.

My plan is to be directive (assertive) in addressing this issue with said agency. I would fully expect them to add OBC to my account in the amount of gratuities that I would be paying. 

 

Thanks for your help,

 

Neal

[POA1]

The weird thing is that you could have done a booking hold two days prior and then decided if you wanted to book the Good Friday offer or the one you booked. Holds, except for casino rates, are usually good for 5 days.

[WVU_Neal]

5 minutes ago, POA1 said:

The weird thing is that you could have done a booking hold two days prior and then decided if you wanted to book the Good Friday offer or the one you booked. Holds, except for casino rates, are usually good for 5 days.

My TA told me that due to this late date for booking, that HAL would not do any hold. 

[Thetideishigh2021]

3 hours ago, RuthC said:

Your TA may, or may not, be telling the truth. If she has been there for a few years, she should have been aware that there is a Black Friday Sale every year, and she should have at least asked about it; if she is new, then she might not have known to ask. 
However, there has got to be someone at that agency who has been there, and should have brought up the topic. It wasn't a secret 2 days before you booked. 
The travel agency should have been aware, and should have let their employees know. It was their mistake, and it is now their responsibility to fix it. 

Don't they have insurance to cover their mistakes? 

This is an agent error but the amount in question is too small to trigger an errors and omissions insurance claim.  Some agencies have agent error/goodwill general ledger budgets.  Suggest you lean on the agency owner/manager for them to pre pay the crew gratuity for your booking

[POA1]

4 hours ago, WVU_Neal said:

My TA told me that due to this late date for booking, that HAL would not do any hold. 

Casino rates and flash sale rates require payment within 24 hours, but it you did the Have It All fare, it's definitely 5 days. You can try to make test booking hold on the website and you'd see 5 days.

 

I guess as long as the rate you got or the big box incentive is worth the cost of the tips, it's okay.

 

The things that went away from the previous sale were the extra $100 for shore excursions and the $500 Europe airfare credit.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

The unfortunate thing here is that while the TA may have known about the BFS there is no guarantee that there would have been a saving with the Pre paid Crew incentive. There were several itineraries that went up in price with the Black Friday Sale. until that Sale actually hit no one would knew for sure if the price was going to be better. Also if the booking was done with the Flash promotional the hold time for this pricing is normally 24 hours which could be why the TA was pushing.

This could have very well turned the other way and you waited only to have to pay more to get the Pre paid Crew Incentive. I have seen a couple of cases of that this weekend. I know this stinks but unfortunately that is what can happen.

 

[reefisher]

20 hours ago, LAFFNVEGAS said:

The unfortunate thing here is that while the TA may have known about the BFS there is no guarantee that there would have been a saving with the Pre paid Crew incentive. There were several itineraries that went up in price with the Black Friday Sale. until that Sale actually hit no one would knew for sure if the price was going to be better. Also if the booking was done with the Flash promotional the hold time for this pricing is normally 24 hours which could be why the TA was pushing.

This could have very well turned the other way and you waited only to have to pay more to get the Pre paid Crew Incentive. I have seen a couple of cases of that this weekend. I know this stinks but unfortunately that is what can happen.

 

So for those of us that made the final payment on Sunday 11/19 are we out of luck getting the prepaid gratuities added?  It amounts to about $1800 on our Tahiti cruise.