What is huge (or a lot of) OBC?

[buncosquad]

So, I'm seeing a number of people state they get "huge" or substantial OBC, whether from the cruise line or their TA?

 

Is this on the order of $4K to $6K for Celebrity? This would seem to be a good amount.*

 

*Obviously, stateroom type and length of sailing are determinants.

 

However, without empirical evidence, the definition is very subjective, so I'm curious of others' experiences.

[Alakegirl]

We have $575 for our next cruise.  That seems substantial.  Most of it was from booking on board at the Future Cruise Sales office.

[buncosquad]

5 minutes ago, Alakegirl said:

We have $575 for our next cruise.  That seems substantial.  Most of it was from booking on board at the Future Cruise Sales office.

That's good. Can you advise ship, length of sailing, stateroom type?

[Alakegirl]

Silhouette 10 day verandah

[Georgia_Peaches]

We have $950 on our May, 2024 Alaska cruise. $600 is coming from Celebrity as a suite guest (before they dropped the obc) and the rest is coming from our TA. The following year we are booked on Regent for a 10 night Med cruise. We are getting $1000 from regent for being new to the brand and $800 from our TA. To date,That will be the most we’ve ever had. 
on our Ascent cruise this week we have $425 from our TA (first leg) and $600 from Celebrity (second leg in a suite). 

[Ken the cruiser]

We recently booked an 18-day Jan 2025 PCL cruise from BA to Ft Lauderdale with 3 stops in Brazil and received $2300 promotional OBC, $300 FCD OBC, $500 Military OBC, and $250 Shareholder Benefit credit for a total of $3,350, all from PCL.

 

Prior to that the most we have ever received was around $1700 from Celebrity when cruising first started back up and we were allowed to refare our booking after the Final Payment Date and would receive the difference in OBC. In fact part of that OBC was used to buy the iPad I’m currently typing this response on! 😂

[garyl62]

We typically have sailed in suites and many times there is 2-300 OBC per person as part of that package so that OBC, coupled with OBC we receive from our TA we always have over $1,000 OBC for a 7 day cruise. I think the most we've had is about 2,300.  Our next trip is in March on the Ascent and we are in a Sky Suite. Our OBC break down is 300 for booking onboard, 50 bonus, 600 Retreat Guests, and 1000 from our TA so 1,950 total.

[phoenix_dream]

On an upcoming cruise we have over a thousand from Celebrity. Got $300 pp with the suite, and booked online which gave us more, and there was some kind of promotion going on at the time as well. With the OBC dropped from suites now people in suites will have quite a bit less going forward unfortunately.

[mahasamatman]

We regularly get over $2,000 on Cunard, but max out around $1,650 for Celebrity.

[buncosquad]

11 minutes ago, mahasamatman said:

We regularly get over $2,000 on Cunard, but max out around $1,650 for Celebrity.

For what ship and stateroom types?

[jelayne]

We just completed a cruise with  $1250 from Celebrity and $1,250 from our TA.  
 

if you book a Edge Villa, Penthouse or Iconic suite on a E class ship you are in the $25 -50k+ price range which could get you OBC from some TAs of $2500-$5000+. 

[Jim_Iain]

Huge can mean different to many.   Also Huge may be related to accumulation of OBC's from a number of different sources.

 

I can't remember our record but on one cruise right after cruising resumed we had a 1,800 NR OBC Plus $200-300 Stockholders plus we had a problem with  TA that stiffed us -  the executive office covered her OBC and gave us another $1800  and that was in addition to the RF Credit from our agent.   Then to top it off the price of our Suite Dropped $3,500 after final payment (they would match prices up until sailing but as an OBC.  I was lucky and was able to pull it off on the Slots at the time.  I would come back to the room and do a money dance. 

 

On top of that there was a problem with out room and they gave us an OBC as a goodwill gesture. 

[buncosquad]

20 minutes ago, jelayne said:

We just completed a cruise with  $1250 from Celebrity and $1,250 from our TA.  
 

if you book a Edge Villa, Penthouse or Iconic suite on a E class ship you are in the $25 -50k+ price range which could get you OBC from some TAs of $2500-$5000+. 

Yes, that's been my experience.

 

We've done two Iconics and two Edge Villas with high OBC like that.

 

I've got another 11-night IC booked (with great OBC from Celebrity) and looking at 18 more nights in an IC when bookings open for other regions. These new ones, though, do not look like OBC is forthcoming from Celebrity. TA, for sure.

 

I've seen a number of people stating that they had huge OBC, so I was curious about others' experiences. 

[buncosquad]

17 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

Huge can mean different to many.   Also Huge may be related to accumulation of OBC's from a number of different sources.

 

I can't remember our record but on one cruise right after cruising resumed we had a 1,800 NR OBC Plus $200-300 Stockholders plus we had a problem with  TA that stiffed us -  the executive office covered her OBC and gave us another $1800  and that was in addition to the RF Credit from our agent.   Then to top it off the price of our Suite Dropped $3,500 after final payment (they would match prices up until sailing but as an OBC.  I was lucky and was able to pull it off on the Slots at the time.  I would come back to the room and do a money dance. 

 

On top of that there was a problem with out room and they gave us an OBC as a goodwill gesture. 

A substantial accumulation, for sure. TY.

[Jim_Iain]

2 minutes ago, buncosquad said:

A substantial accumulation, for sure. TY.

Believe me that's not the norm.   

 

Especially since October they have cut down substantiall the OBC offers .    Even Booking while aboard -  Current Promotion is Max of $500 for a Suite and as low as $50 for a short inside cruise.

 

And current Promotion is Max of

 

[paulh84]

Dollar amounts don’t really matter since prices vary so wildly. You may be in a $700 inside or a $70,000 Iconic Suite. In my experience OBC equal to 10% of the fare is very easy to achieve, 20% or close to it is possible but all things must align (onboard booking, TA, Celebrity, bonus, Amex, etc). You can’t get OBC for price drops after final payment anymore so that source isn’t so relevant now. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by paulh84

[billc23]

TA gives me 9% to 11% all the time. Some as OBC and others as cash back post cruise. The most NR OBC I received from Celebrity for one room was $2850. On a Silversea sailing they made a change to one of the countries we were to visit (Myanmar) before final payment and I will receive over $8500 to apply to a future sailing. I guess they didn't want people to cancel. I know this is not a tipping discussion but...If you're sailing in a top suite there is really not much to spend the OBC on so I just give it as tips to the crew. Silversea has an easy method called the crew resource fund that rewards all the crew. Celebrity has a form to fill out where you can reward specific individuals and behind the scene workers too. 

[mrgabriel]

We do not sail in suites so our experience is very different. The most we have ever received was $900 from Celebrity for a 7 nighter after the restart. The fare was also excellent & we got the premium AI package. 

[happyyaya]

Just booked a Sky suite for back-to-backs on the Infinity in November 2025 in their Black Friday deal. It still includes premium drinks, premium wifi, and access to Luminae and the Retreat but does NOT include On Board Credit and does NOT include prepaid gratuities. That's quite a change.

[Notagoose]

I was really excited about the $650 OBC I got for our upcoming 11 night holiday cruise until I read this thread! 😂  In fairness, we're just in an IV and that's roughly 11% of what we paid in fare so we probably did pretty well. I think the most I had ever gotten before was something like $150 so I was stoked to book a bunch of specialty restaurants for "free"!

[Cruise till you drop]

I’m from a school of thought that says nothing in life is free.

 

So for me, large obc means I’m probably paying for it myself somewhere in the price.

 

So the lower the obc, the better I feel about what I paid for the cruise to start with.

 

[Cruise till you drop]

6 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

Believe me that's not the norm.   

 

Especially since October they have cut down substantiall the OBC offers .    Even Booking while aboard -  Current Promotion is Max of $500 for a Suite and as low as $50 for a short inside cruise.

 

And current Promotion is Max of

 

All these deals are smoke and mirrors.  I would say that the 40% off every guest is better than the 75% off of the 2nd guest but most people would see this as opposite (and that’s not even considering the obc in the 40% deal)

 

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Cruise till you drop

[Tyler414]

I'm in a SS Veranda on Beyond coming up and have $800 OBC all from Celebrity.  I booked this back in June 2022.  

[billc23]

2 hours ago, Cruise till you drop said:

I’m from a school of thought that says nothing in life is free.

 

So for me, large obc means I’m probably paying for it myself somewhere in the price.

 

So the lower the obc, the better I feel about what I paid for the cruise to start with.

 

Most of the travel agent provided OBC comes from their commission which may be as high as 20% of the cruise cost.  Some keep it all and some give up to around one half of it to their client. Some TA's are much better at servicing the booking and have more clout with the cruise company if issues arise than others, but in my experience the amount of OBC vs level of service are not connected.

[Georgia_Peaches]

2 hours ago, Cruise till you drop said:

All these deals are smoke and mirrors.  I would say that the 40% off every guest is better than the 75% off of the 2nd guest but most people would see this as opposite (and that’s not even considering the obc in the 40% deal)

 

 

Have to agree. The cruise I was looking at when it was 40% off each person was cheaper than the 75% off second guest.