Canadians, check your pricing

[bookbabe]

FYI, Canadians, Viking’s current exchange rate, in combination with better sale pricing for the US, means that your cruise may currently be cheaper if you book in USD.  

 

Saved over $800 Cdn per person on our recently booked British Isles Explorer cruise, even with forfeiting the $25pp deposit, by cancelling and rebooking in USD.

YMMV, but it’s maybe worth checking just in case.

[CDNPolar]

4 hours ago, bookbabe said:

FYI, Canadians, Viking’s current exchange rate, in combination with better sale pricing for the US, means that your cruise may currently be cheaper if you book in USD.  

 

Saved over $800 Cdn per person on our recently booked British Isles Explorer cruise, even with forfeiting the $25pp deposit, by cancelling and rebooking in USD.

YMMV, but it’s maybe worth checking just in case.

 

Please tell us how you got to book in USD?  The Viking.ca site is in Canadian dollars.

 

Did you pay in full?

 

If not, then by the time you pay the exchange rate may not be in your favour?

Edited February 12 by CDNPolar

[bookbabe]

4 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

 

Please tell us how you got to book in USD?  The Viking.ca site is in Canadian dollars.

 

Did you pay in full?

 

If not, then by the time you pay the exchange rate may not be in your favour?

VPN if you want to book online, travel agent or by phone with Viking otherwise.  Didn’t pay in full, but you might have to if you don’t have a USD credit card, unless you are willing to call in to make any future payments.  That’s the only real catch, the later payments.  See below for details, but whether or not it’s worth the hassle of calling in to make payments depends a lot on how much you’d save.

 

We did recently move outside of Canada, and all our credit cards and most of our bank accounts are in USD now with a US billing address, so keeping bookings in Canadian also meant getting hit by the exchange converting our US funds to Canadian so that Viking could then charge us exchange as well.  We originally had to keep our bookings in CAD, since they would not change currencies without also charging us the cancellation penalties and they also wouldn’t price-protect.  But it’s a pain, since payments online of any kind can only be with a card or bank account with a billing address that matches the currency of the booking.  So final payments and shore excursion bookings have to be done by phone to use our USD credit card with a CAD cruise.  Pain in the butt.

 

So, yeah, without a US credit card, I guess this savings is more of an advantage if you are willing to make final payment by phone, and you know that you aren’t likely booking any paid ship excursions (or you are saving enough that booking shore ex by phone isn’t a problem).