Anyone else have a recent booking cancelled due to "incorrect pricing" by Seabourn?

Anyone else have a recent booking cancelled due to "incorrect pricing" by Seabourn? This happened to us last week after we booked a newly offered March 2019 54-day cruise. This was listed on the Seabourn web site at a competitively low price. We received confirmation email and ePass and paid full deposit after booking directly on Seabourn.com. Booking and price were also confirmed by Seabourn when we phoned to change our cabin selection. A day later we received calls and emails saying Seabourn will not honor the price.

Anyone else have a recent booking cancelled due to "incorrect pricing" by Seabourn? This happened to us last week after we booked a newly offered March 2019 54-day cruise. This was listed on the Seabourn web site at a competitively low price. We received confirmation email and ePass and paid full deposit after booking directly on Seabourn.com. Booking and price were also confirmed by Seabourn when we phoned to change our cabin selection. A day later we received calls and emails saying Seabourn will not honor the price.

Wow. That is bad form, even though their terms and conditions allow for it. How much more are they now charging for the same type of cabin you reserved?

Friends of ours had the same experience.

When they saw the fare (which was ridiculously cheap) they checked with Seabourn and a travel agent. Each confirmed the fare was correct so they went ahead with the booking and paid the deposit.

Then Seabourn sent an email to say the original fare was incorrect and the new fare was quoted.

I don't know if they are going ahead with the cruise.

SB obviously made a big mistake - their fault. Presumably you can at least get your deposit back, and I would like to think a sweetener of some sort as an apology for their error.

Could someone post what the incorrect price was? I am curious if this is like some of the past mistakes by airlines or hotels who loaded rates but put the decimal in the wrong place. If this is the case of a 54-day-cruise selling at 10% of the normal fare then that is a pretty big difference.

The original price posted by Seabourn for a veranda on this Sojourn sailing was about $8,000 plus taxes, fees and port expenses. There were a couple other cruises with similar low prices per person/night. That price did not seem out of line with promotional fares that cruise lines charge when they want to boost cash flow for a while or fill some cabins with early bookings. This price was up online at least since Friday Aug. 25 until late Monday Aug. 28 when Seabourn phoned and emailed cancellations. The price Seabourn substituted seems typical of what it tries to charge when there are no promotions in place: $28,000. After Seabourn reneged on the original price, it offered a 25 percent discount on a future cruise.

The original price posted by Seabourn for a veranda on this Sojourn sailing was about $8,000 plus taxes, fees and port expenses. There were a couple other cruises with similar low prices per person/night. That price did not seem out of line with promotional fares that cruise lines charge when they want to boost cash flow for a while or fill some cabins with early bookings. This price was up online at least since Friday Aug. 25 until late Monday Aug. 28 when Seabourn phoned and emailed cancellations. The price Seabourn substituted seems typical of what it tries to charge when there are no promotions in place: $28,000. After Seabourn reneged on the original price, it offered a 25 percent discount on a future cruise.

So, $16000 ++ for two on a 54 night cruise on Seabourn certainly looks like a mistake to me.

The original price posted by Seabourn for a veranda on this Sojourn sailing was about $8,000 plus taxes, fees and port expenses. There were a couple other cruises with similar low prices per person/night. That price did not seem out of line with promotional fares that cruise lines charge when they want to boost cash flow for a while or fill some cabins with early bookings.

So, $16000 ++ for two on a 54 night cruise on Seabourn certainly looks like a mistake to me.

So, $16000 ++ for two on a 54 night cruise on Seabourn certainly looks like a mistake to me.

There is no way you didn't realize that was a mistake. Even when trying to fill cabins on Seabourn cruises that are selling poorly, I have never seen them go as low as $148 per person/night on that long of a cruise.

 

I agree!

+1 Obviously a mistake fare. Even lower than the interline fares that some of my friends (i.e. airline employees and retirees) can take advantage of - an opaque way for SB to fill cabins for cruises that are selling poorly, as mentioned above. SB is right to cancel these "mistake" fare bookings; at least they realize their mistake so quickly. (OP was notified "the next day.")

I've read online that hotels and airlines publish mistake rates from time to time, due to human and/or system errors, and those mistake rates are sometimes honored, or a special deal is offered, depending on the situation (e.g. severity of the error, # of bookings, legislation and consumer protection laws in the home country, etc.).

I wonder how often cruise lines get involved in mistake fare, as this is the first time I've read about a SB mistake fare on this board. In any case, SB realizes their mistake quickly and the fallout may be rather limited. If a guest has already made airline booking prior to being notified and canceled by SB, I wonder if SB may offer to pay for change/cancellation fees, etc. In this particular case, since OP was notified within a day, even if a non-refundable airline booking was indeed made in the interim, the flight booking can be cancelled without any penalty within 24 hours, as per US rules at least, not sure about other jurisdictions. Not true for non-refundable hotel booking, though...

I've read online that hotels and airlines publish mistake rates from time to time, due to human and/or system errors, and those mistake rates are sometimes honored, or a special deal is offered, depending on the situation (e.g. severity of the error, # of bookings, legislation and consumer protection laws in the home country, etc.).

I would be interested to know what the break even point for a room would be considering Seabourn has much less of a chance of upsell onboard opportunities are. The mainstream cruises may sell cheap but when you add in all the extras including drinks, tips, specialty dining, bingo. aggressive art sales, slot tournaments, blackjack tournaments they know that they will make back a lot of their cheap fare by all the extras.

One of the great things about Seabourn is the lack of constant selling. I had a nice OBC on one cruise and honestly had trouble using it all. I ended up spending the last of it on a baseball cap and a bottle of perfume that I had been eyeing but really didn't want to shell out the money to buy on my own. :)

I spotted those crazy low prices when they came up (I think there was an Owners Suite cheaper than a V1) thought "someones stuffed up" and moved on

I'm suprised that Seabourn didn't wake up earlier though !

I spotted those crazy low prices when they came up (I think there was an Owners Suite cheaper than a V1) thought "someones stuffed up" and moved on��

I'm suprised that Seabourn didn't wake up earlier though !

Me too! And a Travel Agent. I would say that 25% off a future cruise is a pretty generous offer.