BigAl666

I think that's terrific, and if I had an agent that provided that level of service I would definitely agree - but I haven't found one, in 12 cruises to date and 5 booked in the future. Luckily, I haven't required that degree of proactivity, but if I found such an agent I would definitely stick with him/her - and recommend them to others. I didn't know about the "welcome back" discount, which is certainly nice - but as I book 12+ months in advance it wouldn't apply to me.

I'm delighted to find out that having a non-responsive agent isn't something that only happened to me (but also sorry it happened to others as well). I used the same agent for a number of cruises, but then he just stopped responding to calls or emails - and he is still there after 4+ years. I didn't think I was being a terrible nuisance, but ...

This is a snip from Viking Guest Services reply: "You can book your future cruises with a travel agent. Travel agents can also takeover bookings if the booking was made within 60days."

Yes - with a caveat. They mentioned - helpfully - that any bookings in the last 60 days can be switched to a TA. Since Viking books up very quickly, my bookings tend to be far (18 months or so) in advance. My March, 2025 booking, however, is nudging up against the 60 day mark, so I'm looking into that. And I completely agree that just because a TA is allowed to offer $500 pp doesn't at all mean that they will offer the full $500. With Viking they really don't have to. I'm looking to find a TA that can help me who books lots of cruises with Viking. We live in Panama (the country) and there is only one travel agent here who does cruises, and they aren't at all familiar with Viking. My usual TA is terrific for air, but doesn't do cruises. Any suggestions - I haven't paid the final amount yet? Following onto that, Viking offers a 3% discount for ACH-ing the final payment - can a TA do that? Thanks!

First - we are huge fans of Viking and have booked 17 cruises with them (4 river and 13 ocean) so far, including 5 from today through to March, 2025. All of them have been excellent and we highly recommend Viking to others. My issue is with Viking's onboard credits (and loyalty recognition). All of our cruises have been booked directly with Viking, and I have been very pleased with the service I have received from Viking agents (with one notable exception). I only recently found out, however, that Viking allows travel agents to provide up to $500 per person in non-cash incentives (e.g., onboard credits) for all cruises 15 days or over - up to $1,000 per cruise for us. For our 17 cruises, all of which have been over 15 days, that adds up to a potential loss of up to $17,000 in non-cash incentives for booking directly with Viking rather than using a travel agent! I understand that such non-cash incentives pertain to travel agents, however I wrote to Viking, asking them if, due to our demonstrated loyalty, they would provide us with some amount of onboard credit for our 5 future cruises. I know that Viking managers do have some discretion in providing credits, etc. I should add that we always book one of the most expensive staterooms, so our 17 cruises represent a very significant amount of revenue (well into six figures) for Viking. I was, very politely, refused by Viking Guest Services. I should add that Viking's loyalty program - the Explorer Society - unlike other luxury cruise lines, does not recognize very frequent guests, and instead offers the same $200 booking discount benefit to Viking cruisers whether they have booked 2 or many, many cruises. This is another source of significant annoyance to me, but that's another matter. My point in posting this is to point out to potential Viking guests that they consider very carefully booking through a travel agent rather than directly with Viking. Booking directly with Viking will mean they will lose a potentially significant amount of money, as represented by onboard credits. We remain huge fans of the Viking "product", however we will not be booking directly with Viking on any future cruises.