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New: pre-pay your Onboard Service Charges


time2cruise1

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NCL now offers you the ability to pre-pay your Onboard Service Charges of $12 per person per day for guests over the age of 3. Please contact your travel professional to add to your reservation. See our brochure or http://www.ncl.com for details.

 

I think a number of folks were looking for this option. I was checking my edocs today and noticed the above added since I printed mine.

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NCL now offers you the ability to pre-pay your Onboard Service Charges of $12 per person per day for guests over the age of 3. Please contact your travel professional to add to your reservation. See our brochure or http://www.ncl.com for details.

 

I think a number of folks were looking for this option. I was checking my edocs today and noticed the above added since I printed mine.

 

 

I like to give the cruise lines, airlines and tracel companies as little as possible in these turbulent times.JMO

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I will not give the cruise line (or anyone else, for that matter) use of my money by paying for anything in advance that is not required.

 

I'd rather be earning interest on the money.

 

 

 

 

I agree as we use a credit card to pay our onboard expenses and that way we have some extra time after we return home to pay our card off (we never carry a balance.) However, some folks need to budget every single dollar and prefer to have everything already paid for in advance so I do see that there is a need for this extra service. This would also be helpful for people without credit cards who usually pay their onboard expenses in cash or with a debit card.

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I pay with a credit card, and actually do have plenty of assets. I still like to pre-pay as much as possible, and find it helps with resource management (otherwise known as budgeting). It doesn't have you have to pre-pay WAY in advance :)

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For us Canadians this could be a great thing - right now our dollar is high against the US dollar and I am considering paying the service charges with final payment due soon for my November cruise. No telling what our dollar will be like in November.

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I agree as we use a credit card to pay our onboard expenses and that way we have some extra time after we return home to pay our card off (we never carry a balance.) However, some folks need to budget every single dollar and prefer to have everything already paid for in advance so I do see that there is a need for this extra service. This would also be helpful for people without credit cards who usually pay their onboard expenses in cash or with a debit card.

 

I pay with a credit card, and actually do have plenty of assets. I still like to pre-pay as much as possible, and find it helps with resource management (otherwise known as budgeting). It doesn't have you have to pre-pay WAY in advance :)

 

If you have the money now, instead of forking it over to the cruise line in advance, set it aside in a separate interest-bearing account. All it requires is a bit of discipline to not spend it before your cruise.

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If you have the money now, instead of forking it over to the cruise line in advance, set it aside in a separate interest-bearing account. All it requires is a bit of discipline to not spend it before your cruise.

7 day cruise for two people equals $168.00 x 1% interest for 12 months will give you $1.68.

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I pay with a credit card, and actually do have plenty of assets. I still like to pre-pay as much as possible, and find it helps with resource management (otherwise known as budgeting). It doesn't have you have to pre-pay WAY in advance :)

 

Fail to see how giving your money away before you need to is "resource management". If you are budgeting, you know that at the end of the cruise, certain funds will be due, and you have them. Meanwhile the money is yours.

 

This subject continues to come up and I don't think anybody has ever changed their mind as a result of these discussions.

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7 day cruise for two people equals $168.00 x 1% interest for 12 months will give you $1.68.

 

And for 90 days would yield 42 cents. After taxes, perhaps 25 cents.

 

 

I knew I'd see responses like this. :rolleyes:

 

It's not about making 10 cents or 10 dollars on the amount of money for a cruise line's Daily Service Charge. It's about managing your money to maximize its value to you over your lifetime. I'll be happy to take that $1.68 or 42 cents off your hands if it's unimportant to you.

 

Tell me, do you think there's a chance that NCL corporate realized that not only might some passengers want to do this, but that NCL might make some money out of the deal? You have one guess...

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7 day cruise for two people equals $168.00 x 1% interest for 12 months will give you $1.68.

 

I figured it was something like that, but I'm not sure I'm presently getting that high a percentage on savings. (SADDDD)

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I knew I'd see responses like this. :rolleyes:

 

 

Tell me, do you think there's a chance that NCL corporate realized that not only might some passengers want to do this, but that NCL might make some money out of the deal? You have one guess...

 

They will not get my money early but I have to believe it is 100% about passengers wanting to do this. They are not going to make any money if you figure the cost to post the credits to each ship every week.

The crew might make a little when those that can't budget and thus want to pre pay are not pulling there tips to make up for over spending onboard.

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They will not get my money early but I have to believe it is 100% about passengers wanting to do this. They are not going to make any money if you figure the cost to post the credits to each ship every week.

 

The crew might make a little when those that can't budget and thus want to pre pay are not pulling there tips to make up for over spending onboard.

 

 

Large corporations are usually chock full of people whose work expands to fill the time available to do it. The cost of posting this to your account will essentially be zero. I guarantee that NCL will not have to hire one additional person nor pay a penny in overtime to implement this program.

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I knew I'd see responses like this. :rolleyes:

 

It's not about making 10 cents or 10 dollars on the amount of money for a cruise line's Daily Service Charge. It's about managing your money to maximize its value to you over your lifetime. I'll be happy to take that $1.68 or 42 cents off your hands if it's unimportant to you.

 

Tell me, do you think there's a chance that NCL corporate realized that not only might some passengers want to do this, but that NCL might make some money out of the deal? You have one guess...

 

I have to say I'm with you on this one - it's been one of the reasons I've always been happy about the DSC being added to my OBC rather than included in my fare. If I had a choice between buying a pencil for $.08 or $.50, I'd take the former, and saving is saving. :)

 

That being said, depending on how quickly one can pay off a credit card balance, I can see where it would be more prudent to pay portions in advance - say one DSC at a time. We are among those that pay off our credit cards every month, but for many this is not always possible, and I know we're earning a LOT less interest on our savings right now than we would pay on a credit card balance. As a Canadian, Cardex makes a very good point as well, and I'm definitely also watching the exchange rates in relation to my final payment; I think I'll be considering this option as well now.

 

For those who have consistently stated that they would prefer it to be included ahead of time in their fare, also, now they can be happy - well... happiER, anyway... :p

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They will not get my money early but I have to believe it is 100% about passengers wanting to do this. They are not going to make any money if you figure the cost to post the credits to each ship every week.

 

The crew might make a little when those that can't budget and thus want to pre pay are not pulling there tips to make up for over spending onboard.

 

I do not believe NCL will be paying any more for implementing this service than they do now charging it while on board. Credit card companies charge a percentage based on dollar amounts, so it makes no difference when the charges are billed. As for 'transferring the credits', there is no actual money changing hands, simply the transfer of information. At the beginning of every cruise the computer is updated with information concerning all the OBCs; some start at 0 and some have credits; it's all just data transfer though.

 

Any company that collects money in advance makes money as a result. The sooner they get the money, the sooner it starts earning interest for them and being available for use in other ways. While someone noted that we might only earn 42 cents on one person's DSC for a week, think how many individuals will be prepaying and how much interest all of that money might earn - or how much interest might be saved by not having to finance something else. I am a firm believer in NCL making decisions (as all companies do) that they believe will benefit their customers - but I also know that for each of those decisions they have considered how it will impact them financially and if it doesn't look good, they are unlikely to go ahead with it. This will absolutely be good for them financially, as well as making many customers happy. In my opinion, it was a really good move.

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I think it's a great idea. For my Carnival cruise out of Baltimore next year, I added the tips and I'm going to email my travel agent and have them add the tip on to my POA cruise in 2011. I like having as much paid for as possible before going.

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7 day cruise for two people equals $168.00 x 1% interest for 12 months will give you $1.68.

 

Let's play with the numbers:

 

For the three months ending 3/31/09, NCL had 2,263,459 Passenger Cruise Days (number of ticketed passengers X number of days sailed). Annualized, this number is 9,053,836. Multiplied by $12 per person, per day =$108,646,032. At 1% interest for one year, this is a million dollars. Even if only 20% of pax opt for this option, the gain to NCL is $200,000. One thing to note, the company will earn more than 1% in their cash management/repurchase agreement accounts.

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Let's play with the numbers:

 

For the three months ending 3/31/09, NCL had 2,263,459 Passenger Cruise Days (number of ticketed passengers X number of days sailed). Annualized, this number is 9,053,836. Multiplied by $12 per person, per day =$108,646,032. At 1% interest for one year, this is a million dollars. Even if only 20% of pax opt for this option, the gain to NCL is $200,000. One thing to note, the company will earn more than 1% in their cash management/repurchase agreement accounts.

 

One flaw in the math with final payment ~90 days before the cruise they will not get a years interest on any of it.

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They will not get my money early but I have to believe it is 100% about passengers wanting to do this. They are not going to make any money if you figure the cost to post the credits to each ship every week.

 

The crew might make a little when those that can't budget and thus want to pre pay are not pulling there tips to make up for over spending onboard.

 

 

Indeed, and that is the whole reason for introducing this pre-pay arrangement...once the payment is made, it cannot be pulled, as many seem to do on board!!

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