Cruise Pricing as sailing date approaches

[Nemo2]

I'm also Leary of on-board credits. They often can't be used on the things we're likely to buy on board (which isn't much) so they have zero value to us.

Use them to offset the 'mandatory gratuities'.

 

[brett]

We have always been able to use OBC's for gratuities.

On an RCI cruise we scored more OBC's than we could use. They were provide by the cruise line and it was either use them or loose them.

We had about $200. left. We went to the casino, took out $200 in cash against our OBC. We had to pay a five percent fee but this was better than loosing 95 percent of spending the money onboard on something we really did not want.

Our online TA give us OBC's on every cruise that we book with them. Usually equal to about 8 percent of the commissionable fare. Sometimes a few points more or less depending on the cruise or whether the TA has a group booking on the cruise.

 

[beowulf]

On some cruise lines you can get cash at the end of the cruise for those credits. It runs about 50% of the point value, however, since you didn't pay for them, it's still free money. You can also use it for wine, drinks, shore tours, etc. This is in addition to the items mentioned in earlier posts.

 

[Sunset]

.......

2) What's this crap about "per day" pricing? I view this as somewhat dishonest. ....

It makes it easy to compare the value or is this a good deal between cruises that are different 7 day cruise vs 13 day cruise vs 23 day cruise, if you can see the per day cost, then you know which is a better deal.

It's like having a $ per pound for hamburger, vs this pack is $5 and this pack is $8.50

 

[CaptTom]

I'm glad to see there are some folks who find the per-day pricing useful. Personally, I think of "a cruise" as one unit.

Pre-retirement, I'd already know how many days I could take, so that wasn't something I needed to compare. Now, I wouldn't care if it were 7 days or 10 days. It' still "a cruise" that will cost me a total of X dollars. If it's in the budget, I'll go. If not, I'll wait.

Also glad the OBC's can be used for useful stuff. I remember one cruise where they didn't count toward booze, excursions or several other things we wanted. Only spa treatments and the like. I'm not a big spa user, so that didn't help me.

 

[brett]

When we were cruising frequently a few years ago we had a target per diem price. It the price fell into the 'range' we would book. The range was net of OBC etc. Bottom line pricing.

We did four or five Med cruises over a two year period when the economy was bad. Invariably we came down to three cruise lines. Celebrity, HAL, and Princess. Celebrity was usually the first to drop around day 40 for a balcony cabin. Over that period the per diem prices on the cruises we booked were similar. Celebrity was the lowest. Then Princess at plus 25, and HAL at plus 30-35. But...this was only for a certain point in time when we hit the buy button. As the countdown approached the numbers changed. The other pricing variable between the lines was sometimes a selected cabin location vs a guarantee.

It is different now. Demand is up, some cruise lines pulled ships from the Med because of reduced demand. Never had any luck getting a good price on a UK-Canary Islands cruise either. We can always find late booking deals on Alaska and Caribbean cruises. No luck in Asia while we were there over three winters. China economy is hot. Australia was very good for late booking when we were there-we will find out next year.

 

[JustCurious]

WE are only in our room to sleep or shower.

WE like to do more than that in our room.

 

[gayl]

When your price hits...buy. Don't think about it overnight. Think about before and be ready to hit the buy button. ... only care about the bottom line price, net of OBC's.

Bears repeating