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Incentives from your TA


tigger54
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Hi. I was just wondering if anyone gets free gifts or incentives ( obc, bottles of wine etc.) from your carnival TA. I know some TA's offer extras if you book through them but my husband says carnival TA's are not allowed to give anything extra like a thank you gift. We have taken at least 8 carnival cruises in the last 4 years and have 5 more booked and we have never gotten any kind of extras from our carnival TA.

Just wondering

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Hi. I was just wondering if anyone gets free gifts or incentives ( obc, bottles of wine etc.) from your carnival TA. I know some TA's offer extras if you book through them but my husband says carnival TA's are not allowed to give anything extra like a thank you gift. We have taken at least 8 carnival cruises in the last 4 years and have 5 more booked and we have never gotten any kind of extras from our carnival TA.

Just wondering

Do you mean a Carnival Personal Vacation Planner and not a travel agent?

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Hi. I was just wondering if anyone gets free gifts or incentives ( obc, bottles of wine etc.) from your carnival TA. I know some TA's offer extras if you book through them but my husband says carnival TA's are not allowed to give anything extra like a thank you gift. We have taken at least 8 carnival cruises in the last 4 years and have 5 more booked and we have never gotten any kind of extras from our carnival TA.

Just wondering

 

 

 

Carnival PVPs are not travel agents. Travel agents are not employees of Carnival. Two completely different professions. And, no your Carnival PVP is not going to incentive you for booking.

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That's how I read it to. OP is booking with a Carnival PVP who is a carnival employee, not a TA. TAs are self employed or work for travel companies. Some specialize in cruises and some will book any type of vacation. I use a large online TA that specializes in cruises. As standard practice they offer a token amount of OBC if you book with them. I mostly use them because if I book a celebrity cruise they have much better pricing than Celebrity offers. I have noticed that if you use the same agent for multiple cruises the benefits increase.

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Elaine,

I didn't see where she said "carnival" ta...Mine is a TA not employed by carnival. I get minimum 150.00 OBC each cruise. Sorry for the confusion,

That is the point. No TA is employed by Carnival. Travel Agents can offer incentives like OBC which they purchase to give to their clients. The people who are employed by Carnvival to plan cruises are PVPs.

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  • 7 months later...

Can anyone tell me what is the benefit of using a Carnival Personal Vacation Planner? I am a veteran cruiser and don't need much advice on booking. Unless the PVP can offer me a better price or some other incentive than I'd receive by simply calling Carnival directly, why would it be useful to use one? Perhaps there are reasons of which I am unaware.

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Can anyone tell me what is the benefit of using a Carnival Personal Vacation Planner? I am a veteran cruiser and don't need much advice on booking. Unless the PVP can offer me a better price or some other incentive than I'd receive by simply calling Carnival directly, why would it be useful to use one? Perhaps there are reasons of which I am unaware.

 

For me it's the convenience. I never have to call carnival. If I have a question I just send a text to my pvp. Price drop I don't fill out any forms. I just send a text and he takes care of it. Payment I buy the egift cards and if I don't feel like entering them online, send them to the pvp and he applies the payment. If it's the weekend or after hours I don't want to bother him so I'll email instead of text but even then he gets back to me almost right away. I've had him answer a question I had at 10pm on saturday before.

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For me it's the convenience. I never have to call carnival. If I have a question I just send a text to my pvp. Price drop I don't fill out any forms. I just send a text and he takes care of it. Payment I buy the egift cards and if I don't feel like entering them online, send them to the pvp and he applies the payment. If it's the weekend or after hours I don't want to bother him so I'll email instead of text but even then he gets back to me almost right away. I've had him answer a question I had at 10pm on saturday before.

 

Nothing beat having a good pvp at Carnival. We had a good one who left suddenly last year and fortunately for us friends gave us the name of an excellent one

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Nothing beat having a good pvp at Carnival. We had a good one who left suddenly last year and fortunately for us friends gave us the name of an excellent one

Unless you're booked under a rate that could possibly result in price drops, then I feel the benefits are better through a TA. On our next two Horizon bookings staying in Havana cabins, I was able to snag a discount of just under 13%, which far outweighs any possible price drop benefit, which would not happen anyway since we are in Havana insides which only have 13 cabins on board.

But I could see the benefit if you're staying in a basic inside or balcony which may have multiple price drops that your PVP could take care of for you.

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:p

Nothing beat having a good pvp at Carnival. We had a good one who left suddenly last year and fortunately for us friends gave us the name of an excellent one

 

I realize that it's probably against the site rules to name names. However is there any way to find out your PVP's contact information or preferred PVP's/TA's? We unfortunately had one that was not that knowledgeable or professional.

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Unless you're booked under a rate that could possibly result in price drops, then I feel the benefits are better through a TA. On our next two Horizon bookings staying in Havana cabins, I was able to snag a discount of just under 13%, which far outweighs any possible price drop benefit, which would not happen anyway since we are in Havana insides which only have 13 cabins on board.

But I could see the benefit if you're staying in a basic inside or balcony which may have multiple price drops that your PVP could take care of for you.

 

When you run into an unexpected problem a pvp has access to people a TA will not. Also he knows the company better than a TA will and can give good advise.

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An agent is limited by their Carnival contract as to the gifts that can be rebated back to clients. Some of the gifts people receive may be due to a group booking, which the passenger is unaware. In general, the higher the price of the cruise, the more the agent can offer, if anything.

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:p

 

 

 

I realize that it's probably against the site rules to name names. However is there any way to find out your PVP's contact information or preferred PVP's/TA's? We unfortunately had one that was not that knowledgeable or professional.

 

 

 

Yeah you can’t name names, but if your PVP has the same name as someone who used to be a bullfrog, get a new PVP or a TA.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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I use two TA's. One gives it to me at cost, he removes the commission. Another TA gives me OBC ($100-$200) and sometimes other goodies. Never used a PVP but some are highly recommended but they can't give you OBC. The cabin price should be the same wherever you go, its the gifts that can vary. A few years ago Carnival tried kicking TA's to the curb but it didn't work...For awhile TA's had to be creative to give you OBC.

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