mtd716

We booked an Alaska cruise for next summer a week or two before the AARP OBC was announced. We were able to get the OBC added when I called HAL to make an adjustment to the cabin category we had originally booked. Apparently changing the cabin category was actually creating a new booking, which automatically triggered the AARP. If you decide to attempt this, make sure you've verified your AARP membership number of the HAL website first.

Yesterday, I called HAL to make a change to my booking (downgraded my cabin and then added Club Orange). Apparently this modification with price change was enough to automatically trigger the AARP OBC even though they had already told me I wasn't eligible since the original booking was made before I was AARP verified. My updated booking confirmation now shows the OBC.

So it sounds like it was the downgrade that triggered it, and that if I had only added CO without also downgrading at the same time, I would NOT have received the AARP OCB. That is good to know, thank you!

This may be an unusual question, but what is the correct pronunciation of Koningsdam? I’ve heard the ‘o’ pronounced different ways on various YouTube videos, and I want to know what is accurate. Is the ‘o’ a long (cone) or short (con) vowel sound? It seems trivial, but I would really hate to show up for our cruise next summer and discover that I’d been pronouncing it wrong in my head all this time. Thanks!

Hi everyone, I wanted to follow up with my outcome after following some of the advice shared here, in case it's helpful for others who may have similar questions in the future. TL;DR version: Every one of my questions resolved nicely to my satisfaction and I did NOT have to cancel and rebook after all. Long version: First, I did some research on the travel insurance benefits for my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. I found the benefits guide online and it turns out that every single one of the travel benefits states that the benefits apply as long as I charge "all or a portion" or "any portion" of the trip to my card. This seemed promising, but I also called Chase to verify. They confirmed that even though I didn't put the deposit on the card, we'll still be eligible for the travel insurance benefits if I put some or all of the remaining balance on the card. First problem solved! I've also downloaded and saved the benefits guide to my trip folder for documentation. Next, I reached out to HAL via their website chat to inquire about adding AARP onboard credit. The answer, as I expected, was no, since I verified AFTER making the booking. I also asked whether I could downgrade my booking to category VH (yes, saving $220/person), and then add Club Orange and select within-category cabin upgrade (yes, at CO cost of $175/person). Kind of a no-brainer to pay less and end up with a better cabin AND CO benefits. However, before making a final decision, I wanted to discuss with my husband since you have to pay for CO upfront. About an hour later I called HAL (rather than using online chat again) to initiate the downgrade and CO purchase. I am so glad I waited and did this over the phone, because two things happened to my benefit. 1. Downgrading to category VH ended up saving us $260/person (vs. the $220 quoted by the online chat person). So after downgrading (-$260/person) and then adding CO (+$175/person), we ended up $170 ahead in total. 2. I decided to ask again about the AARP onboard credit even though I knew the answer was no. To my surprise, he looked into it, and apparently in the process of mucking around in the booking to downgrade our cabin and then add CO/corresponding cabin upgrade, it had already triggered applying the AARP credit. Sure enough, on the updated confirmation I received via email, we now have a $100 OBC that wasn't there before. I'm still puzzled about why this happened since from everything I've read that should not be the case, but I will not look a gift horse in the mouth. Moral of the story: Talking to a live person on the phone was worth the extra effort.

Thank you, everyone. I will give HAL a call tomorrow to see if Club Orange is even available for my sailing, and then make some decisions from there. We have Chase Sapphire Reserve. There is a hefty annual fee, but for me that more than pays for itself with the travel benefits.

Being experienced cruisers but new to HAL, now that I am reading this forum I realize that I would have done a few things differently if only I had known: - Didn't know about Club Orange, so we didn't book a lower category that would allow us to take advantage of within-category upgrade (not worth it to us to add CO onto our existing fare as we're already at max budget, but would very much like to "downgrade" to the lowest fare in category, then add CO to get the benefits for essentially net zero additional cost) - Missed out on AARP credit, which was announced a week after we booked (and which I can't add to an existing booking) - Inadvertently put the deposit on the wrong credit card that doesn't include any travel insurance benefits (rookie mistake - I knew better, but we haven't cruised since pre-Covid and I just wasn't thinking. Even if I use the preferred card for remaining balance, I don't think travel insurance benefits would apply if I didn't use the card for the full payment) Between all of these things, I kind of want to cancel the entire booking and just start over with a new booking for the same sailing, while the Have It All Early Booking Bonus is also still in effect. Will HAL permit me to do this?