Steelers36

Learn something new. Didn't affect us last Fall. I suppose if one was really concerned, just avoid that as a turnaround port. No doubt the process will smooth out in time.

As I say all the time - Princess is consistently inconsistent. I have always booked us separately when doing B2B's and not the combined virtual voyage. If doing so results in a loss of Shareholder $50, it is made up elsewhere. Note that if doing three cruises also sold as one 21-night virtual, you would now get $300 SH OBC versus the $250.

You don't have to do anything special in European ports.

Your booking is not going to cancel over the weekend. Do you know if your TA gave you a discount off the Princess pricing? (I am not sure if that is something that happens in UK). Let's say Princess cost for the cruise was £6000, but your TA sold it to you for £5400. When you paid the final payment, in UK are you paying the agency or does your credit card indicate the charge went to Princess Cruises? Anyway, the agency has to make up the difference between what you are actually paying and the Princess invoice pricing. It could be there was an accounting gap in this and the difference is outstanding. I have seen this happen to me once. The TA needs to fix it. Waste of time to call Princess (unless you lucky to get a person who might explain the amount) because they don't deal with guests for payment issues who have booked with a TA. Don't worry - it will get fixed.

A lot of us would be happy to see that happen.

Sanctuary is $40/lounger for full day and $20 for half-day. I think they still sell for $30 is booking full cruise. Cabanas are north of $200 - $220 or $240 for the day and I have not seen a half-day price before. Anyone? So, $80 for two loungers and $220/$240 for a cabana. IDK Enclave pricing as we don't do that.

Don't see why not if you are "paying". Only possible exception would be that you are using 2 supposedly separate credits at one time. The FAQ might imply you cannot use it this way. I do know that if you received SD credits as part of a cruise booking promotion that you can use them up by "paying" for whoever you dine with. It would be easy for the restaurant to "consume" your SD credits, so will be curious to see if this works for you.

I have encountered smaller independent TA's who are associated in some way with a larger agency that has the means to make the group space and they are able to sell from those. Don't ask me for any details as I don't have particulars of how this works.

As you have seen the answer, you know the agencies are not booking specific cabin numbers. I think this is pretty universal from past comments from TA's, etc.

No doubt one or more TA's may chime in. The large agencies out there have ability to book blocks of cabins on many voyages and Princess must be giving them a lower-than-published rate. So, it is more than the $50 or $75 OBC thing. They can then sell their group space until it is all gone. If they have left over, they turn it back in to Princess. What I don't know is if a large agency blocks 5000 cabins and turns back in 2500 of them if that affects the rate they got. We are not privy to how Princess deals with huge agencies that do large volume of sales. Princess pricing may go down from launch as time passes and the difference between a Princess rate and that original agency rate may shrink. At least this is how I understand it. ETA: That said, the huge agency (online and lots of little boxes) that has traditionally had the "3-Day Sale" in the summer, offered extra goodies and bonuses, similar to when Princess used to have the "Sip 'N' Sail" promo or the "3 For Free" promo. IIRC, the quoted cruise fare prices for the 3-Day Sale used to be Princess normal pricing, but goodies were included. IDK the situation today.

AFAIK, the ship cannot generate a refund to credit card. I would think all they can/will do is generate Refundable OBC for the cancellation and then guest can re-book on board in which case the cost can be paid with Non-Refundable OBC since that is consumed before Refundable OBC.

True. Agencies public advertisements and public facing website pages are supposed to be quoting Princess rates. However, they are free to offer lower rates to customers either directly when talking or via hidden webpages or booking engines that customers may access. They can publicly advertise group OBC AFAIK.

It may depend on how people quote their discount. If I mention a discount percent, it is always based on the commissionable fare since that is how the agencies I have ever seen do it and it is a consistent rate. If you look at the discount as a percentage of the cruise fare, it will vary. This is because the non-commissionable fare (NCF) is a fixed amount per day, whereas the cabin cost varies from Inside to Balcony to Deluxe, etc. A 10% discount on an Inside for a week in the Caribbean will be a lot less percentage on the full cruise fare than 10% for a Mini-Suite for 10 nights around a holiday period. Princess' NCF used to be $25/day for most voyages and is now $27/day. In my case, I can get 10% or 12% off the net cruise fare (cruise fare minus NCF). This is from two different agencies. My former agent and agency used to be 15% pre-Covid. Then, discounting was fluctuating and settled under 10% when I was booking our trip we took last Fall. My new agency was giving me 12%. I have since realized my former agent (now re-aligned with some former associates into their own business) is at 10%. I will return to her next time and forego the 2% since she is just that much better to work with.

I don't imagine an ISP is also a travel agency. They must have made some bulk purchase arrangement as no one is going to get that kind of deal from booking with their TA. If the numbers you mention are accurate, your discount from Princess' rate represents 87% of the commissionable fare and no agency can do that unless they also had some sort of bulk purchase. I have assumed your numbers do not include the standard port taxes amount. Great deal for certain. I am a little surprised it is possible to book a week to/from Alaska for under $450/pp, which must be the case for a B2B to cost $875.

Although several reports on this forum have indicated folks who are not yet Platinum nor Elite (yes, it includes Platinum) are able to make reservations prior to full payment. What has not been clear to me is if this is now broadly the case and no perk, or whether these are isolated situations where the IT programming has somehow allowed early reservations where folks should not be able to do so.

And that is a special situation as PCL has been offering Canadians cruising at par with USD prices in recent months. If the cruise being looked at has this on it, then the pricing in CAD will be the same (or virtually the same) number as the fare in USD. Otherwise, a Plus Cruise Fare option is going to be 1.35 x the USD pricing if that is still the current exchange rate.

We flew to Rome on SEP 28 and returned from there on NOV 14, so was not exactly high-season. I had booked when flights first opened each way, but monitored and scored price drops at various points until achieving the minimum possible. I can pretty much guarantee there were no lower fares on those dates from any airline offered in EZ-Air with max 1 connection.

I didn't go that far earlier this afternoon. Just have to shake the head at that bunch. I was wondering if PCL had such negative blow-back on this fare pricing change, that they abandoned it. There was a time in the past they tried NRD's and that went over like a lead balloon.

Not likely. You can try using EZ-Air filters to narrow down choices and then you might see something. Your only option would be to call in and get an EZ-Air rep and ask them directly. There must be some reason not showing up.

Quite the change-up from a year ago. EZ-Air was easily best for transcon flights. I had Business Class to Europe from YYZ for $1500 USD (maybe $2000 CAD or less at the time). Not AC - they were more expensive. And, yes, that is ~$750 USD/pp. Probably no such thing this year.

And to clarify, Princess does not match any travel agency pricing.

Imagine you have to book a suite to earn $600/pp. Or maybe Premier.

As stated by Thrak, there is no document. That said, your Travel Summary is your booking document, so don't worry. Just have your ID and good to go.

Amuleto in the buffet area as well as at Good Spirits. Check the deck plans at princess.com.

Why not book as separate voyages? Normally there isn't much of a price difference and you will get the extras. Often you are going to get extra OBC and such. About the only one you might lose on (depending on the smaller voyage lengths) is the shareholder benefit, but that may be overcome by other benefits. Although you have read the rules/policy for the cruise fare packages, Princess does treat that single voyage as multiple bookings for purposes of earning loyalty cruises in earning points for Elite qualification and, if already Elite, you get Elite perks for separate voyages regardless (i.e, free minibars).