Fools ? Hmmm. Re your recent cruise history, your Princess sailings will be known -- because of the Carnival-wide affiliate sharing policy, which in part states, '(w)e may receive information about you collected by other Carnival Corporation companies, businesses, brands and affiliated entities in our family of companies, so that information you provide to one brand may be used by us to better provide you Services and communicate with you.' So recalling that HAL and Princess are in the same CCL operating group headed by the same person, is not a dollar in one's left pocket worth the same as a dollar in one's right ?
One thing I did not mention with SPI modeling, is that there is often a cross-tabbed value to it called LTV - lifetime value -- where customers are scored by their value (ie earned revenue) to a company -- so, I will use myself as an example here ...
I'm relatively young (when compared to HAL's customer profile) and I already have demonstrated loyalty to the product -- four star half way to five) which are pluses -- BUT, I generally travel in an inside cabin on discounted faring, generally booked close to sailing with lots of re-price, never (ie zero spend) darken the ship's shops, spas, casinos, or shorex desk, and generate comparatively little onboard revenue, and simply use the ship as a convenient conveyance to seeing interesting places. I book my own pre- / post-cruise hotels and transfers, and book my own air -- which would be red-flag negatives to my LTV score. Of course, this is all tracked and measured (again see the affiliate sharing policy.) Also, we're both still working, so we need to be careful in our itinerary selection, that fits well in our allotted vacation amounts, and our work-cycle slack times when it's good for us to take it.
So from a HAL perspective, I am likely a seat-filler -- why would they spend incremental dollars to attract me based upon my LTV? In fact, why wouldn't they dissuade me? Working example -- two person household - we have identical HAL sailing histories -- I generally price and book everything on my mariner number (only b/c I know it off the top of my head). A couple of itineraries ago, I used the other mariner number, for kicks. Net? 200$pp better faring, and 100$ more in OBC -- so is HAL trying to fire me as a customer based on my LTV, by offering me a higher price based on my mariner number ? (and yes, companies do generally try to lose low or negative yield customers) -- or simply harvest incremental revenue bc they knew I would book anyway?
Sometimes @rkacruiser, no answer is an answer. :-). I just continue to play the game. Scott.