pompeii

I have a random amount that was credited back to one of my gift cards and would like to apply it as obc to one of my upcoming cruises. But the personalizer only gives me the options of credit card or paypal. Do I have to call in to apply the gift card or wait until I'm onboard? Thx.

No, I was curious what the new bid options would be after getting the upgrade so I went to the bid to upgrade page on the personalizer. I haven’t received a new bid email.

No, we’re not going to bid. This little 2 day is just an add-on to a much longer trip from Vancouver to Sydney and we want to keep it as cheap as possible. For some reason though, it’s priced quite high and not selling well at all. We’re quite happy with the free upgrade so we’ll stick with our balcony. I just had never seen a “bid sale” before.

I should add, we’re still about a month out from our flight.

First time I've seen this - a 40% discount on the normal bid pricing for our upcoming cruise. This is from a standard balcony cabin on a 2-day cruise, Seattle to Vancouver. We originally booked an inside and received a free upgrade the other day to a balcony. Now I guess there is a "sale" on bidding to a minisuite. Only the minis though, none of the other categories have the 40% discount. Interesting we can go to a mini for less than to a premium deluxe balcony. BTW, I moved the offer bar from no offer just to show what the minimum bid is.

So a follow up to my situation...Princess still hasn't owned up to booking us on a basic economy fare and it still shows as a basic saver fare on Alaska Airlines, but miraculously we now have seat assignments. And although they aren't the exact same seats we originally booked, they are in the same row. Interesting...I guess all's well that ends well.

Yes, thank you. As mentioned, I've also received that email and that's what I've been using to access my existing bids. It would appear from the responses that there is no place on the personalizer to simply see your existing bids, like you can with your payment amounts or obc, etc. Instead, at this point you have to either use the email link or re-enter your name and booking number. Maybe it's because the bidding process is handled by Plusgrade and not Princess. Thanks for confirming.

Thanks for the answers. Yeah, I’ve done that too. I just figured there might be a place showing your actual bids without having to enter your info again.

Apologies if this has been asked and answered already in this thread, but is there anywhere in the cruise personalizer that shows your bids? In case you want to change, cancel, place another one, etc? I couldn't find it anywhere so I've just been clicking on the link in the "we got your bid" email. Can't imagine why it wouldn't be accessible in the personalizer somewhere but it's entirely possible I just missed it.

Let me start off by saying I have used EZ-Air many times and I am familiar with searching, buying and changing flights. I recently searched, selected, and paid for economy tickets on EZ-Air. When I went to the airline website afterwards I found that our tickets were actually basic economy and not standard economy. Absolutely nothing on EZ-Air indicated this. I only realized it when I saw that the seat assignments Princess prompted me to make during the booking process didn’t hold. The airline will not allow us to choose seats with this fare type so we either have to wait until check in or purchase expensive upgraded seats. Princess insists that they don’t sell basic economy, even after I sent them screenshots of our basic economy fare reservation. They either cannot or will not answer the question “if you don’t sell basic economy tickets then how did I wind up with one?” They keep falling back on the disclaimer that seats assignments aren’t guaranteed, even though my argument with them is about a bait-and-switch fare type, not seat assignments. It’s within the cancellation period so that’s not an option. Buyer beware.

So my pvp is denying that Princess sells basic economy fares: "We don’t book any savers fares or basic economy seats its always standard, I also spoke with ezair who assured me the same thing." And in a follow up email: "EzAir has advised they offer lowest available fare and they don’t offer basic economy seating." This is after I sent her my flight confirmation from Alaska Air showing clearly that it is a basic economy "X" Saver Fare. I followed up with a screenshot of a chat with an Alaska rep confirming that ours is "indeed a Saver Fare" (his words.) These responses are frustrating and extremely disappointing. I've always been an EZ-Air cheerleader because it's worked out well for us in the past. I've requested that she escalate it; even if I don't get anywhere with my situation, they need to quit doing this.

Thanks for the advice. Are you speaking specifically about Alaska Airlines or just airlines in general? When I spoke with Alaska on Saturday, she said seats would be assigned at check in so I'm hoping you're correct and I can choose our seats when I check in 24 hours ahead. Hopefully we can snag two seats together, but at the very least I want to get my husband an aisle seat. He will NOT be happy if he is in a middle seat. In the meantime, I've contacted my pvp to see if I can get any satisfaction there. Selling basic economy as standard economy seems like a bait and switch to me.

The more I think about this, the less inclined I am to consider that this is a question of Princess not being able to inform us of the restrictions of different airlines. I selected "Economy" when I did my search for flights, I selected from those economy fares, and I expected to receive economy, restricted or otherwise. The fare class I received was "Basic Economy." Those are two different fare classes and should be advertised as such.

Um, well, the point of my post is that if there had been any way to know up front that I would be giving up the option of choosing seats, I would not have changed. I have used EZ-Air for just about every Princess cruise I've been on and never come across this. I posted to caution others that this could be the case if they choose a non-flexible fare.

The fee to select seating is $109 pp.

I had booked our flexible fare on the same flight months ago and only changed it to restricted yesterday. I didn't see any general warning, or specific warning for that matter, that the restricted fare did or could have restrictions other than being non-refundable. My viewpoint is, especially since EZ-Air prompted me to choose a seat assignment during the booking process, how was I to know that there would be no seat assignments? I think that there should be some sort of pop up warning that it was a lower category fare. Anyway, like I said, a cautionary tale. And a mistake I won't be making again.

We're sailing from Seattle soon and had booked a flexible EZ-Air flight on Alaska Airlines. Since we're within a couple of days of the 45 day cut off for flexible fares, I decided to rebook our flight from flexible to restricted on the exact same flight. Fare dropped from $197 to $157pp. During the rebooking process for the restricted fare I had the option to choose seats like normal, which I did. Everything proceeded normally until I completed the booking and saw that the seat assignments didn't stick. I went into manage flights and tried again with no luck. I then went to the Alaska Airlines website and found that unbeknownst to me, this was a savers fare with no seat assignments until at the airport. Nothing on the Princess website indicated this. My previous flexible fare had seat assignments. I read the "fare restrictions" and only difference between flexible and restricted is that the latter has to be paid at the time of booking and is non-changeable/non-refundable. Nothing about it being a savers fare. I spoke with both Alaska Airlines and EZ-Air and was told too bad. My only option is to wait and probably get stuck in middle seats or pony up the extra $$ to buy upgraded seats. Worst $80 I ever saved...

Not a coffee maker but you might be able to request a hot water pot. I don't know if they are available on all ships but we did that recently on the Enchanted and used Starbucks via for our morning coffee. Worked out much better than having to get presentable to go out for our first cup.

Thank you for this advice. We are doing a b4b on the Royal from Seattle to Sydney and around NZ starting in Sept, so I will make sure to close out our USD folio before Sydney so we can start afresh in AUD.

If you travel a lot, and I think perhaps you do, you might look into opening a checking account with Schwab bank. Their debit card won't charge or will reimburse you for any ATM fees for any ATM anywhere, and no foreign transaction fees. Just stop at a local ATM and withdraw whatever you need. You'll get a better rate than ordering through your bank at home and you don't have to try and determine ahead of time how much you might need. I don't use mine for anything other than travel and there are no fees involved with keeping the account open.

I just read this on a Princess fb group as well. They said Princess was the only one that changed and the other cruise line gift cards were still at 10% discount. I purchased the final three I needed to pay off my upcoming cruises first thing this morning when I got up and they were still at 10%. I'm glad I'm an early riser and squeaked under the wire! Hopefully they'll go back to 10%.

Thank you for this comment. When the price of Plus goes up or Princess changes how many drinks or the $$ value included, it won't affect me at all because I don't book Plus. But I won't belittle anyone's complaints or their right to make them. In other words, you won't hear from me "If you don't like it, it's simple, don't cruise with Princess."

The flaw in this analysis is using the $29.99 Zero Alcohol Package as the basis. I would never pay that since I buy my coffee a la carte and a couple bottles of water from the pre-ordered bottled water package for under $10 a day. Adding in crew appreciation and internet I’m no more than $36 a day. Sure, the no alcohol package would provide a bunch of sugar and calorie-laden options that I don’t need or want, even when “wth, I’m on vacation!” If I want something extra every now and then I’ll buy it and still be way ahead over the plus fare.

But the price of eggs will go back down. The increase is temporary. Can't say that about Princess and its unwelcome changes.

As a general fyi, you should be able to access the Princess site in the internet cafe without wifi and find your answer there. I'm glad you were able to get through on chat and get your answer.