Unfair Pricing Policy by Hal and price drops be informed (4 merged threads)

[twinkletoes4445]

Our first cruise was over New Year's and as time went by, the price of our cruise went up $400 per person (and there were six of us). I was glad I didn't have to pay more! Supply and demand...it's what it's all about.

[Moonhead15]

Not to change the subject of cruise prices but I was booked into a group rate with amenities(Pinnacle Grill dinner and monogramed robe). Now that everything is paid for, HAL says u have free transportation (which was why I booked to begin with) so u can't get the other amenities. My TA is trying to get what we were promised but so far they aren't budging.

[xpcdoojk]

Celebrity will honor a lower price as long as it is not a Tuesday only X-Citing deal. I have been able to lower prices many times.

Royal Caribbean will do the same., even after final payment.

 

I agree, I even got $1000 price drop on RCI for airfare... This was after 911. I love blanket postings that are wrong or false that are posted with absolute authority!:D :rolleyes:

 

jc

[xpcdoojk]

Not to change the subject of cruise prices but I was booked into a group rate with amenities(Pinnacle Grill dinner and monogramed robe). Now that everything is paid for, HAL says u have free transportation (which was why I booked to begin with) so u can't get the other amenities. My TA is trying to get what we were promised but so far they aren't budging.

 

Group bookings are a horse of a different color, BTW.

 

jc

[Pam in CA]

If you see a lower price, make sure you read the fine print. It's standard cruiseline practice to offer "flash" promotions or "new booking" promotions. Normally, these price reductions do not apply to those who have already booked. There are also price reductions that are not promotions that will result in the lowering of your cruise cost so it's important to make sure when you see a lower price, what are the conditions for the lower price. A good TA will continously monitor the pricing on a cruise and get you the lowest rate possible for your booking.

[Margie201]

Celebrity will honor a lower price as long as it is not a Tuesday only X-Citing deal. I have been able to lower prices many times.

Royal Caribbean will do the same., even after final payment.

 

 

 

I have been cruising with Celebirty and RC and have always watched the prices and called my TA when the price has dropped and she has alway gotten be the price over the last 10 years.

 

I book early for the cabin selection and ports. I just didn't know that HAL didn't do the same. Next time I will wait. If this is the wave of the future. I feel like it is an early booking penalty. Thanks for all the feedback.

 

I will enjoy my trip anyway, but I would have rather spent the $800 on tours, drinks, tips, etc.

 

Margie

[hammybee]

Speaking of fairness -- I just have to address this issue.

 

It seems that many here would be happy if HAL would keep to their booking contracts when it is to the advantage of the cruiser, and break their booking contracts when it is to the advantage of the cruiser. Is anyone else bothered by this? How can we have this both ways?

 

Arzz: I'm with you on this one. It seems to me that oftentimes consumers want every price advantage and then are apt to be dissappointed when the carrier has to reduce and/or eliminate services, to offset the lower fares.

 

Competition is doing to cruising what it has done to air travel.

[crazy4cruisn]

Celebrity refunded $500 after the final payment due to a price drop. Our TA said they would refund but you have to be aware and ask for it. She said Celebrity and Royal Caribbean were easier to deal with on this issue.

[Navy_Chief]

I have been cruising with Celebirty and RC and have always watched the prices and called my TA when the price has dropped and she has alway gotten be the price over the last 10 years.

 

I book early for the cabin selection and ports. I just didn't know that HAL didn't do the same. Next time I will wait. If this is the wave of the future. I feel like it is an early booking penalty. Thanks for all the feedback.

 

I will enjoy my trip anyway, but I would have rather spent the $800 on tours, drinks, tips, etc.

 

Margie

 

I have to ask this question seeing how I did exactly what you did and I got the reduction as I related in my earlier post on this thread (Only difference was I booked with HAL direct, no TA in the middle):

 

Was this price reduction you speak of after the date that everyone's "Final Payment" was due? For example, our cruise is on December 6th, the "Final Payment" day was September 22nd. Before the 22nd, I could cancel with HAL WITHOUT a cancellation fee. So I would like to know if this "Price Drop" took place before or after the "Final Payment" date? My savings was $1100 in the room cost and $120 in bus fare kicked in (wich in fact, saved me an extra $100 in driving and parking costs). The key is that was all done BEFORE September 22nd. After that date there were no sales anyway.

 

Celebrity refunded $500 after the final payment due to a price drop. Our TA said they would refund but you have to be aware and ask for it. She said Celebrity and Royal Caribbean were easier to deal with on this issue.

 

As I said, I didn't have any problem getting these savings and I was "Paid in Full". It just was before the "Final Payment Due" date.

[Nasmas]

We got the credit after the final payment was made, because we were last minute bookers and had to pay it all when we booked. So, I think it might depend on things we're not aware of. We were booked on a cruise that got cancelled because of a hurricane and we'd gotten $100 room credit for some reason (AAA, I think) we booked one for a month later at a higher price but we couldn't get the room credit because we'd gotten such a 'low' price for the cruise. I didn't feel like it was so low, considering it was more that the one that was cancelled, but that was their answer.

[Dolphins]

HAL was a page one story in the travel section "Destinations & Diversions" of today's (11/17/06) USA TODAY. The headline was "Cruise line's pricing gaffe soaks passengers- And it won't reverse course." The writer described the situation as "...turning into a public relations debacle." There is also a comment by CC editor Carolyn Spencer Brown. Not exactly good press for HAL.

[sddee]

Is the article from USA Today true regarding pricing? Has anyone booked and received a demand for extra payment?

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2006-11-16-cruise-pricing_x.htm?csp=28

[longhorngrandma]

A lot of people booked on the Noordam were hit with the extra payment after they thought they had paid in full. There are suppose to be 100's of bookings, not only by Expedia, but also by travel agents.

[jhannah]

This was discussed a couple of months ago when it happened. Here's the link to several threads combined. I personally wish HAL had taken responsibility for their mistake, but they didn't. It wasn't such an apparent blunder as an airline ticket for loose change. But they chose to bill the passengers and, as the article stated, took a bath in the PR department.

[duckman715]

Anyone else see the article in today's issue of USA Today regarding the recent HAL pricing troubles? Think it was the Noordam where many folks had booked a cruise in early September only to be told later by HAL that it was a computer error and additional funds were owed.

 

Not sure of the maxim that any publicity is good publicity when applied to this instance. No matter how one feels about the incident, HAL does seem to have received a bit of a black eye over it.

[kryos]

Not sure of the maxim that any publicity is good publicity when applied to this instance. No matter how one feels about the incident, HAL does seem to have received a bit of a black eye over it.

And it's a well-deserved black eye, in my opinion.

 

I'm glad to see a publication like USA Today taking HAL to task over this very unfair way to handle a consumer. Hopefully, they will learn from this ... that if you make a mistake such as this one, you suck it up and deal with it. You don't make your customers pay. Rather, if the situation warrants it, you discipline the employee(s) responsible.

 

Hopefully, as a result of this news coverage, maybe HAL will re-evaluate their stance on this matter and give all those passengers involved their cruises for the originally agreed upon prices.

 

In this case, I say kudos to USA Today.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[hammybee]

They missed two PR opportunities. The first was that they could have chosen to honor the mistaken fares and issued a press release about it. Or, if they chose not to honor the reservations, they could have been upfront about it and appologised for dissapointing passengers. This might have pre-empted subsequent bad press. Instead, it looks like HAL tried to sweep in under the rug and it's backfiring.

 

Back when bankerbabe and others made us initially aware of the situation, I personally called HAL many times to learn HAL's version of what might have happened. ( Yes, I need a life) Not a soul at HAL seemed aware of the "glitch" and the PR department scoffed at what was termed a "poster's fabrication" on cruisecritic.com and more than implied that most of what one reads on this forum, is untrue. So either they have big ole pinnochio noses or the organization never thought to clue in the folk who work the front lines.

 

There remains an additional piece of this that is confusing- that is, that passengers who thought they had paid in full found out that this was not true. This suggests that many passengers were not notified that the mistake impacted their reservation until after final payment date. Somewhere in all this, it seems communicatons blunders between HAL and travel agents may have made a bad situation worse.

 

All I can say is " HAL, what were you thinking?"

[dougnewmanatsea]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

I accidentally merged two threads about the USA today story into this thread when all I wanted to do was merge those two threads together. (I'd accidentally selected this one too, and not noticed it.)

 

Unfortunately, I am not able to un-merge the threads.

 

Sorry :o .

[alphakitty]

Here's the article:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2006-11-16-cruise-pricing_x.htm?csp=34

[Dolphins]

Not exactly a public relations triumph for HAL. When a company fouls up, don't make the customers pay the price. First rule of PR- if you create the problem, you own it.

[RevNeal]

As I've already said elsewhere, this will be a very low moment in HAL's PR history. When HAL does things right, they really do things right ... and when they crew the pooch, they REALLY screw the pooch. :( Most unfortunate.

 

As for me ... I booked a G-category outside cabin aboard the Noordam for our Jan 6, 2007 11-day cruise at $550 LESS than what I paid for a J-category inside cabin on her 10-day Inaugural cruise. Total paid for that G-category, inclusive of single supplement, taxes and port fees? $1440 and change. That's really quite good. And, no, I'm not being charged anything extra. I booked AFTER they caught that pricing SNAFU. But, had I booked when I WANTED to (before I knew I was going to be able to actually go) I would have been caught ... the offer I was looking at early in Sept was (gasp) $920 ... inclusive of single supplement, taxes and port fees! That was too good to be true ... and it was.

[Thoth]

I read about that price issue in the paper. HAL looks bad, real bad.

I've sailed with them 3 times, so hopefully they will fix their good name.

[twinkletoes4445]

As I've already said elsewhere, this will be a very low moment in HAL's PR history. When HAL does things right, they really do things right ... and when they crew the pooch, they REALLY screw the pooch. :( Most unfortunate.

 

My sentiments exactly.

[sirarthur]

I could almost understand their position if the original price had been so rediculously low that everyone would have initially realized it was a mistake.... so that if they signed up they would be intentially taking advantage of someones mistake. However, the original price here was a bargain but not so off the mark that one would not think it was serious.

[jvermonttravel]

I posted the lengthy entry below on the "Steal or Deal?" Poll thread, but thought I would post it here as well. I had posted earlier on the "Raising our Rates" thread when I thought I had been one of the lucky few who had had my problem with the September computer pricing glitch favorably resolved. People speak very highly of HAL and it's integrity on this board - but in my case, I found HAL does not even stand behind what their own reservations supervisors tell you (and/or "protect").

 

As posted on the "Steal or Deal?" poll:

 

I was one of the people caught in HAL's September computer pricing glitch. I booked through VTG (TA) 9/11 for the Noordam 1/6 and paid in full at the time of booking (using a debit card). TA sent me confirmations 9/8 and 9/12 for this reservation, with a HAL booking number, indicating no balance due. HAL also took my money (in four installments as it was a debit card and that is how they do it, 9/12, 9/13, 9/18 and 9/22). (HAL discovered their pricing glitch 9/12, but if they were not going to honor my booking, why did they continue to take my money?)

 

I was informed by a manager at the TA on 9/19 that HAL would "not sell me this cruise at the original price - that I must either pay $900 additional or cancel before Oct. 20th in order to get a full refund."

 

On 9/23, I spoke with a supervisor at HAL reservations and she spoke with her supervisor and he said he would "honor the price booked and he would protect my booking." He said this was an exception to what they had been doing, but the difference wasn't much money so he would do it. He said they were "dealing with these on a case by case basis." They sent the invoice to my TA showing the rate had been protected and my TA faxed a copy of it to me. I HAVE THEIR GUEST CONFIRMATION - TRAVEL AGENT COPY DATED 23 SEP 06 SHOWING BALANCE AMOUNT $ 0.

 

I went on HAL's website for booked guests 10/10 using my booking/reservation number and filled out our immigration forms and obtained our express boarding passes. I received HAL's form email "Thank you" letters 10/11 and 10/13 for my booking.

 

October 31 I went on HAL's website for booked guests to check if I had been assigned a cabin. Using my booking number, I received a message saying, "This booking has been cancelled." When I called HAL to check on

this I was told that that booking number was cancelled and transferred to or assigned a new booking number, which now shows a balance due!

 

Since October 31st, I have been attempting to get this resolved AGAIN. I have gone from the supervisor who "protected" my reservation on September 23rd saying, "this shouldn't be a problem" to "it's in the hands of our legal department" and the person he is dealing with only works Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and he is waiting for that person to get back to him. As of Friday, November 17th, I was still without an answer.

 

Today, Saturday, November 18th, I receive in the mail from HAL a copy of a GUEST CONFIRMATION form FINAL PAYMENT NOTICE - TRAVEL AGENT COPY, dated 15 Nov 06 with the new booking number and now showing and highlighted BALANCE AMOUNT $400.00 BALANCE DUE DATE 23OCT06. (This is all that is in the envelope - no letter, no explanation.)

 

HAL's own reservation supervisor had agreed to protect my booking and original booked rate 9/23 (this being well after they discovered their error on 9/12). HAL sent a comfirmation showing this booking was confirmed and paid in full on 9/23. HAL is now trying to welch on this booking a second time!

 

I guess with HAL, as many posters to this poll are finding out and saying, you cannot trust them, even when their own people protect your booking. BUYER BEWARE.

 

(As an aside, September 22nd before I got this resolved [or thought I had on September 23rd] I had written the Attorney General of Washington's office about this, two weeks later writing them again telling them they could close my case as I had resolved it. Last week I received a letter from the Attorney General's Office saying they had closed my case based on a letter they received from HAL in October and including a copy of that letter. HAL's letter spoke about my booking and contained several statements that were not true. They also made it sound like they had communicated with me on this - which they never had. This I find really disturbing.)