First post on Oceania - our first cruise is next year in September, and we booked it when Oceania was heavily promoting Simply More.
We had been happy cruising with Celebrity but after 33 days on an Edge Class ship recently we felt nickel and dimed to death so we searched for an alternative.
We're not wealthy. We try to take a cruise once a year and it costs us quite a bit of our discretionary funds to do so. Oceania was an extravagance... but as it turns out... not really all that much more expensive once we did a fair comparison of what is an extra cost on Celebrity that we get as part of the fare on Oceania.
It comes to $50/night more to cruise Oceania. Part of this mathematical gymnastics was how much we paid for ship sponsored excursions, beverage packages, WiFi, and specialty dining that are included on Oceania all divided up into cost per day.
I gave all that detail because too many people compare booking cost side by side, but don't add in all the associated costs of the experience. Which brings me to the topic at hand.
We have $1600 in excursion credit for our cruise next year. If the cost of those (hopefully plural) excursions goes up, it just means we get fewer (prepaid) excursions. We have no way of knowing what Oceania pays the tour company, hopefully they're not marking it up too much and passing along the volume discount I'm sure they are offered by the tour operators.
The beauty of this marketing ploy is simple: We were "given" $1600 to spend on a product we either use of lose. Perhaps we will enjoy $800 worth of touring and the other $800 is profit for Oceania. I don't know yet because we won't be diving into the details until September.
Bottom Line, Oceania controls the price as a middle man, but we are hostage to those prices in the use it or lose it scheme. So, if Oceania charges (for instance) $200pp for a tour we could similarly book direct for $100pp I will consider that if/when booking again under the S.M. "benefit".