Onboard Future Cruise Incentives on Oceania?

Our last ten cruises have been on either Holland America or Silversea, but on Feb. 12 my wife and I are taking our first Oceania cruise (on the Riviera). Both HAL and Silversea (but especially HAL) have good incentives for booking future cruises while still onboard. Does Oceania do this? In general, we do onboard future bookings only if there's a substantial discount, or if there's only a minimal deposit required at the time of booking. Thanks for any and all info and advice!

Oceania does. Since I haven't used the service recently I can't say more ... but my recollection is that the benefit is minor. You do get some sort of discount but it definitely is not significant!

You do get a slight discount - not a fixed amount (I believe it used to be 5% off?)

You also get $100 OBC on your current cruise and best price guarantee till sailing (i.e. even if the price drops after final payment).

Paulchili: Thanks. That's not a bad deal.

there is also a reduced deposit amount.

It used to be 5% on any initnerary and easy to apply even if already booked (with conditions)

However they stopped that and IMHO coplicated it way too much for me.

Now on a regular basis they send out to you cabins sheets of offers. Adn then more and the next day more. Cruises are listed in a table of prices.

Actual discount to what is on offer from O at that moment on their web site is unknown.

Maybe a big discount for something close in or not selling well or mostly sold and just want to get the last few cabins booked w/o offeriing the discount to the world (annoying those already booked who follow such things). Or maybe calculates to a 5% discount. Or maybe the same offer that is available not on board BUT does come with the other two 'book on board' perks Paulchili wrote about.

I get overwhelmed by the '31 flavors' of offers and only showing a price and not knowing what the actual discount is. So I lose interest quickly and they go straight into the bin.

To book one has to pick a few that are of interest then line-up to speak with the on-board booking staff. I don't recall if one can make an appoinment. I know at one time no.

Do this early if interested as they can get lined-up on sea days near the end of the cruise with all us procrastinators.

O might also still have the alternative for those who cannot decide or confused. We could fill-in the future cruise booking form, pay the reduced deposit ($250?) and get the $100 obc. It was valid for long time. If one did not go through with the booking when cancelling the certificate O could refund the deposit less the OBC (fair enough).

That was to discourage bogus bookings which from a post hear and there sounds like they are back. Unable to decide they book a cruise that is a long way out that has lots of availability. Months later when they find one that does interest them they can canel that and transfer the credit to a 'real' booking.

This can of course shut out others who do want that itinterary they booked a cabin on plus it skews sales and revenue predictions.

I think that type of booking is not a good practice.

I am sure more recent pax will update/correct me with the current status.

Do the onboard perks apply to all cabin categories or just the higher ones. My recollection is that it only applied to higher level cabins. On our last cruise, we weren't sufficiently interested to pursue it but I thought it only applied to some cabin categories.

Mary

Do the onboard perks apply to all cabin categories or just the higher ones. My recollection is that it only applied to higher level cabins. On our last cruise, we weren't sufficiently interested to pursue it but I thought it only applied to some cabin categories.

 

Mary

Onboard booking perks apply to all without any difference in cabin category.

Hmmm. Now that you mention it I have a vague memory this. I recall on one set of offers there was an additional perk such as pre-paid gratuities or such that was not available for the insides and maybe as well, not for the Oceanview so just verandah and above.

Again, these offers can vary depending on the booking situation at the time. Which would be one reason they like to use this new method with the charts of offerings rather than a preset percentage off. This gives them the ability to target better incentives where needed.

Paulchili's experience could well be newer than mine and so I qualify my answer.

 

Paulchili's experience could well be newer than mine and so I qualify my answer.

Well, maybe I am the one who has to qualify my answer :D

Of course, I only know for certain the offer that we receive and have not compared it to offers that others may have received.

The Oceania ambassador onboard would be the one with the definite answer to this.

YoHoHo,

Thinking further about our posts above, I think we were talking about two different things.

I believe that you were referring to the occasional flyer being distributed into the cabins promoting a few specific future cruises where different benefits might be offered to different cabin levels. These would refer to only a few specific cruises – usually in the near future which may not be selling well.

I was referring to booking future cruises in general – that would apply to most bookings made from the catalogues. For these future cruises all categories of cabins booked receive the same benefits – lower deposit, certain discount on cruise fare, $100 OBC and best price guarantee till sailing.

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"...you were referring to the occasional flyer..."

Occasional? Only slightly more frequent than the snail mail brochures :)

Yes, I think you are correct that we were speaking of two different things - maybe.

I thought the promo sheets were the only discounts available. When we booked ours off that promo sheet we got:

"lower deposit, certain discount on cruise fare, $100 OBC"

MAYBE "and best price guarantee till sailing" or maybe not - dont remember clearly.

See - I said that this type of on-board booking benefit was confusing to me. Maybe these end up better than the flat 5% but too much work / decision-making. I have to conserve my decision-making processes for other important issues: sun or shade; all chocolate or vanilla ship-made ice cream with chocolate syrup milkshake (malted of course); Manhattan or Sidecar; linger over dinner and conversation or off to the show; embarass DW at Name That Tune in Martini's or Horizons or an early tour start ...

It used to be 5% on any initnerary and easy to apply even if already booked (with conditions)

 

However they stopped that and IMHO coplicated it way too much for me.

 

Now on a regular basis they send out to you cabins sheets of offers. Adn then more and the next day more. Cruises are listed in a table of prices.

 

Actual discount to what is on offer from O at that moment on their web site is unknown.

 

Maybe a big discount for something close in or not selling well or mostly sold and just want to get the last few cabins booked w/o offeriing the discount to the world (annoying those already booked who follow such things). Or maybe calculates to a 5% discount. Or maybe the same offer that is available not on board BUT does come with the other two 'book on board' perks Paulchili wrote about.

 

I get overwhelmed by the '31 flavors' of offers and only showing a price and not knowing what the actual discount is. So I lose interest quickly and they go straight into the bin.

 

To book one has to pick a few that are of interest then line-up to speak with the on-board booking staff. I don't recall if one can make an appoinment. I know at one time no.

 

Do this early if interested as they can get lined-up on sea days near the end of the cruise with all us procrastinators.

 

O might also still have the alternative for those who cannot decide or confused. We could fill-in the future cruise booking form, pay the reduced deposit ($250?) and get the $100 obc. It was valid for long time. If one did not go through with the booking when cancelling the certificate O could refund the deposit less the OBC (fair enough).

 

That was to discourage bogus bookings which from a post hear and there sounds like they are back. Unable to decide they book a cruise that is a long way out that has lots of availability. Months later when they find one that does interest them they can canel that and transfer the credit to a 'real' booking.

 

This can of course shut out others who do want that itinterary they booked a cabin on plus it skews sales and revenue predictions.

 

I think that type of booking is not a good practice.

 

I am sure more recent pax will update/correct me with the current status.

As mentioned on another thread, I'm a Seabourn customer and am now looking into Oceania since I read yesterday about their new vegan offerings.

On Seabourn, the future cruise deposit program is rather simple. You pay USD500 per person (or similar amount in GBP or EUR) while on board, and you will get a 5% discount off ANY future cruise. You can book a particular cruise or make an open booking (no need to make a bogus or placeholder booking). You have 4 years to apply this discount and can cancel at any time within 4 years to get a full refund. If you do nothing, at the end of 4 years, the amount will automatically be refunded to you. There are no additional OBC or other benefits.

Based on what I've just read above, for Oceania, the discount varies by cruise and can be 0 for the one that I want. Is that true? If so, the program does not sound attractive to me.

Based on what I've just read above, for Oceania, the discount varies by cruise and can be 0 for the one that I want. Is that true? If so, the program does not sound attractive to me.

When you are onboard the ship there are several offering for future cruise bookings the discount amount varies by sailing

You get $100 obc for the sailing you are on plus $100 OBC for the future sailing you are booking

I believe you need to sail within 2 yrs if you just have a place holder FCC & you can only make 1 transfer if you change your mind

When you are onboard speak to the Future sales rep & they explain it to you

Things changes ..so what may have been policy last years may not be policy when you book

As mentioned on another thread, I'm a Seabourn customer and am now looking into Oceania since I read yesterday about their new vegan offerings.

 

On Seabourn, the future cruise deposit program is rather simple. You pay USD500 per person (or similar amount in GBP or EUR) while on board, and you will get a 5% discount off ANY future cruise. You can book a particular cruise or make an open booking (no need to make a bogus or placeholder booking). You have 4 years to apply this discount and can cancel at any time within 4 years to get a full refund. If you do nothing, at the end of 4 years, the amount will automatically be refunded to you. There are no additional OBC or other benefits. Based on what I've just read above, for Oceania, the discount varies by cruise and can be 0 for the one that I want. Is that true? If so, the program does not sound attractive to me.

O used to use the simpler 5% off.Yes, the discount varies by cruise. I suppose it is possible that there are cruises with $0 on board deduction. It may appear that way because on board, they list a great many cruises along with their varied discounts.

But it could be that these are just the one that they are wanting to promote onboard and that there are in fact discounts on other cruises as well. One could learn that if they speak to the sales consultant onboard and ask about a specific itinerary that they are interested in. It did not occur to me to ask that question if ALL cruises had an on board booking discount.

The system now is better than it was because previously they would just list the discount and not the price of the cruise itself which can vary greatly from one cruise to another so for me 'shopping' for several cruises that might interest me was not possible. So for several cruises we skipped the onboard booking completely.

I do understand O wanting to give a dollar discount rather than a flat percentage because then they can push sales / create greater interest towards itineraries that they want to fill and that's name of the game. A cynic might suggest that by offering a flat 5% discount knowing that, say 20% of cruises are booked on board that they could simply have increased the base pair price by 1% and that would cover the discount and no one's not going to book a cruise because of 1%. Still, like you this new system does not appeal to me and I don't want to spend my vacation time pouring over tables of itineraries and discounts.

Remember though as LHT28 reported there are the OBC credits that are in addition to the price reduction PLUS there is the lowest price guarantee so even if they offer a better discount at a later date you would get it (caveat - it is up to YOU to monitor and request a reduction - again something I'm not much interested in - I'd rather be planning excursions than monitoring for a price drop or repeatedly bothering my TA to go through the work of rebooking and actually get a reduced commission. )

That said, I did look into the Future Cruise credit (? - I dont recall what they call it) and that does appeal to me. You purchase it which is akin to making a deposit, and then when you find an itinerary that interests you and you can get the CURRENT onboard booking discount that cruise. Of course that means you have to get your TA involved to find out what the discount is but the starting point is an itinerary that interests you.

I hope that makes some sense