Cancel or add Olife package after booking

We are looking at one of the new 2019 cruises. The Olife program has some appeal and I might choose it when booking the cruise. If I decide later that I would rather just book my own air, since the deviation charges reduce the Olife benefit, can I go back to just the cruise only fare that was in effect when booking?

Likewise, if I now book the cruise only fare, can I add the Olife air/benefits on later?

We are looking at one of the new 2019 cruises. The Olife program has some appeal and I might choose it when booking the cruise. If I decide later that I would rather just book my own air, since the deviation charges reduce the Olife benefit, can I go back to just the cruise only fare that was in effect when booking?

 

Likewise, if I now book the cruise only fare, can I add the Olife air/benefits on later?

Hi Mike, haven't seen you on this board in a while. Glad to see you here.

You can book the Olife and get the air credit. You don't have to take the air to get the Olife.

If you take it all off and don't get any perks or air I'm not sure if you get the cruise only price that was in effect at the time of booking or not.

You could always take the Olife perks & when airfare is available to compare then decide if you want to do the deviation or cancel the air portion & take the air credit

As ORV said you can get the O Life perks without air ..you do not lose that option

Who knows what O Life perks will still be there when your 2019 cruise rolls around

Glad to see you back

In addition to the above statements by two very knowledgeable O posters I will add that O Life benefits sometimes change over time- presumably based on how well the cruise is selling.

For example, one of our cruises (Tokyo - Bangkok) initially offered a 3 day pre or post cruise stay (or $1000 off instead and then later that was reduced to $750) and 5 excursions/person. Later the pre/post package was not offered at all and the excursions were reduced to 4/pp. Granted, there was some reduction of fare.

So - if you like the O Life as it is now, book it and you can always cancel it later (before final payment).

Hi Mike, haven't seen you on this board in a while. Glad to see you here.

 

You can book the Olife and get the air credit. You don't have to take the air to get the Olife.

 

If you take it all off and don't get any perks or air I'm not sure if you get the cruise only price that was in effect at the time of booking or not.

Hi Orv, it is good to be back on the O boards again. We have been spending most of our time on the HAL and Celebrity boards, since we have cruises to Antarctica and the Suez canal coming up on those lines. As much as we love Oceania, it is hard to justify the higher price unless the itinerary is really special. Glad we found one.

I appreciate everyone's comments, so I will book with Olife on Monday.

Researching the Olife benefits is making them look less appealing. The cost is $1,100 pp more than cruise only; but since we know we will be having air deviation, it is actually $1,275 pp more. With the air being around $650 pp, it is hard to justify the extra $625 pp for internet and 6 individual excursions that might not be what we want, if we can even book them. I will see what the Olife is without the air. That might make sense for us. The Olife drink package is not that good to begin with; but with a 12 day cruise, with no sea days, it wouldn't make sense to upgrade the package for us.

Researching the Olife benefits is making them look less appealing. The cost is $1,100 pp more than cruise only; but since we know we will be having air deviation, it is actually $1,275 pp more. With the air being around $650 pp, it is hard to justify the extra $625 pp for internet and 6 individual excursions that might not be what we want, if we can even book them. I will see what the Olife is without the air. That might make sense for us. The Olife drink package is not that good to begin with; but with a 12 day cruise, with no sea days, it wouldn't make sense to upgrade the package for us.

I'm a little confused. "Researching the Olife benefits is making them look less appealing. The cost is $1,100 pp more than cruise only;" Are you comparing cruise+olife+air vs cruise only and that is the $1100 difference? "I will see what the Olife is without the air." Yes, that is a good thing to do as it will tell you what the credit is for the air and help to evaluate the cost for Olife.

I agree it is hard to gauge the value of Olife. And it is very much an individual preference. We don't need internet on ship other than perhaps last 24/28 to confirm air booking but I know if is required for many. I don't consider it when making my selection.

I admit I did not think to price my cruise without O-life. I knew we would take O's air (international) and just blindly booked with O-life. Only now DW and I have been weighing the choices (oops). I don't know if we would have to re-book in order to switch out of the package but suspect that would be the case and not worth that.

The Olife drink package is not that good to begin with

I think it is a very good package (Prestige). Virtually no restrictions on the liquor of choice. Granted less value if choosing well liquor highballs but I don't understand why you say it is not good to begin with. I can understand if not a good value to you, i.e. don't drink or just a glass here or there or no sea days, etc, but "not good to begin with" makes me wonder what I am missing. Happy to learn.

I admit I did not think to price my cruise without O-life. I knew we would take O's air (international) and just blindly booked with O-life. Only now DW and I have been weighing the choices (oops). I don't know if we would have to re-book in order to switch out of the package but suspect that would be the case and not worth that.

 

Your TA could probably just reprice it without the O Life perks

Might depend on how close the cruise is & if opting out of the air as well

I think it is a very good package (Prestige). .

The O life Beverage package is not the Prestige one just the House select so might not be worth it to some if off the ship most of the day

Just to add it is confusing

I think you can do

1)O Life perks with air

2) O life Perks without the air

3) no O life or air "cruise only"

not sure if you can do Included air & no O life though :confused:

that would be option 4

I'm a little confused. "Researching the Olife benefits is making them look less appealing. The cost is $1,100 pp more than cruise only;" Are you comparing cruise+olife+air vs cruise only and that is the $1100 difference? "I will see what the Olife is without the air." Yes, that is a good thing to do as it will tell you what the credit is for the air and help to evaluate the cost for Olife.

 

I agree it is hard to gauge the value of Olife. And it is very much an individual preference. We don't need internet on ship other than perhaps last 24/28 to confirm air booking but I know if is required for many. I don't consider it when making my selection.

 

I admit I did not think to price my cruise without O-life. I knew we would take O's air (international) and just blindly booked with O-life. Only now DW and I have been weighing the choices (oops). I don't know if we would have to re-book in order to switch out of the package but suspect that would be the case and not worth that.

 

 

I think it is a very good package (Prestige). Virtually no restrictions on the liquor of choice. Granted less value if choosing well liquor highballs but I don't understand why you say it is not good to begin with. I can understand if not a good value to you, i.e. don't drink or just a glass here or there or no sea days, etc, but "not good to begin with" makes me wonder what I am missing. Happy to learn.

I guess I was rambling. The $1,100 is with air; but since we will deviate the Olife with deviated air is $1,275 pp. I will see what it is without air to see if it makes more sense. When I was originally looking at the Olife program, I was thinking that both of us would get 6 excursions; but now know that it is only 3 excursions for both of us. That makes it less appealing. Since I haven't cruised with O for awhile, I had no familiarity with Olife and am now learning much more about it.

For us, the included internet, would be of less value on a cruise with no sea days, since we get unlimited international data with our phone plans while in port.

My opinion on the included drink package was from posts I read. It appears that you can only get beer, wine and champagne at lunch and dinner. I like mixed drinks before and after dinner and perhaps a beer during the day. This package just doesn't compare to the Celebrity included beverage package. I do agree that the $20 per day more for the Prestige package would be worth it for me; but not my wife, who doesn't drink much at all.

Based on my circumstances and this particular cruise with no sea days, Olife probably cannot be justified for me. But thank you all for the information that is bringing me up to date with what O is doing.

The O life Beverage package is not the Prestige one just the House select so might not be worth it to some if off the ship most of the day

 

 

Just to add it is confusing

 

I think you can do

 

1)O Life perks with air

 

2) O life Perks without the air

 

3) no O life or air "cruise only"

 

not sure if you can do Included air & no O life though :confused:

that would be option 4

Thanks again. It is interesting to see the different options that have been developed in the last year and a half since we cruised with O. Fortunately, I can always keep abreast of them on this most helpful forum.

I guess I was rambling. The $1,100 is with air; but since we will deviate the Olife with deviated air is $1,275 pp. I will see what it is without air to see if it makes more sense. When I was originally looking at the Olife program, I was thinking that both of us would get 6 excursions; but now know that it is only 3 excursions for both of us. That makes it less appealing. Since I haven't cruised with O for awhile, I had no familiarity with Olife and am now learning much more about it.

My opinion on the included drink package was from posts I read. It appears that you can only get beer, wine and champagne at lunch and dinner. I like mixed drinks before and after dinner and perhaps a beer during the day. This package just doesn't compare to the Celebrity included beverage package. I do agree that the $20 per day more for the Prestige package would be worth it for me; but not my wife, who doesn't drink much at all.

Based on my circumstances and this particular cruise with no sea days, Olife probably cannot be justified for me. But thank you all for the information that is bringing me up to date with what O is doing.

The O life Beverage package is not the Prestige one just the House select so might not be worth it to some if off the ship most of the day

 

 

Just to add it is confusing

 

I think you can do

 

1)O Life perks with air

 

2) O life Perks without the air

 

3) no O life or air "cruise only"

 

not sure if you can do Included air & no O life though :confused:

that would be option 4

Yes, now that I see it as 1,2,3 (thanks for keeping it simple :), I agree there might no be choice 4. In the back of my mind I was thinking that as I was posting. Too late for me on this booking anyway but good to not confuse those reading these posts. Thanks

Thanks for the clarification

 

I almost don't want to say this because I don't want O to raise the price. In fact, I won't other than to say O's premium package is far better than Celebrity's. But to address your concern with the package as a perq, you CAN upgrade O's package for just you and not DW. That said, if she drinks very little then the the drinks packages is not a good choice for you at all but IMHO the package itself is much better than Celebrity's.

 

Yes, I can understand that and I certainly respect your choice.

I couldn't agree more about the Prestige package being a very good deal and better than X's. I will certainly try it out the next O cruise with some sea days that is less port intensive.

For our next cruise we took the cruise only fare

we did not need air as I had booked that already for another cruise we ended up cancelling that cruise

We rarely drink

we DIY in ports & we did not need more OBC for the 10 day cruise

always good to compare the options & do what works best for YOU

JMO

For our next cruise we took the cruise only fare

we did not need air as I had booked that already for another cruise we ended up cancelling that cruise

We rarely drink

we DIY in ports & we did not need more OBC for the 10 day cruise

 

always good to compare the options & do what works best for YOU

 

JMO

Excellent advice as usual. :)

I just today booked Barcelona to Athens on October 6th 2019. Flying to and from JFK it makes sense to include Olife. Our last sailing we took the OBC. With this sailing I'm considering the shore excursions. We have 2 years to think about it though.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Forums mobile app

This is one of those topics that is a very individual choice - there is no one right answer or formula.

For us O Life works out most of the time but I can certainly see that this is not the case for everyone or every time.

One just has to spend some time figuring out if it makes financial sense for the items one wants included - as Mike is doing now.

This is one of those topics that is a very individual choice - there is no one right answer or formula.

For us O Life works out most of the time but I can certainly see that this is not the case for everyone or every time.

One just has to spend some time figuring out if it makes financial sense for the items one wants included - as Mike is doing now.

Excellent advice, and exactly what we do. We weigh all the factors and decide cruise by cruise.

This is one of those topics that is a very individual choice - there is no one right answer or formula.

For us O Life works out most of the time but I can certainly see that this is not the case for everyone or every time.

One just has to spend some time figuring out if it makes financial sense for the items one wants included - as Mike is doing now.

I couldn't agree more. Which is why I started the thread to see if I could cancel if I took it and found out that it wouldn't work for this cruise. I am sure that it would work out quite well for some people on many cruises.

I wanted to let everyone know what I did, since it really was a no brainier, which makes a decision much easier. :) Once I was able to talk with my TA, I found out that O Life total cost of $1,100 pp, was made up of an $800 charge for air and $300 for the other benefits. Since my issue was with the air being too much with deviation, I just took it off and paid the $300 pp amount. With one of the options being $300 OBC pp, it cost nothing to receive the free internet benefit. I also now have the option of changing to excursions rather than OBC if that makes more sense.

Thanks for all the help I received on this thread. It is really appreciated.

It sounds like you took the O Life option without the air.

Personally, I think the "free" excursions are a better value financially than the OBC. The OBC has a $100 value per excursion while most excursions are over $100 - some even as high as $199. If you take the average of excursions being about $150/excursion then 3 excursions are worth about $450 (or more) vs a fixed $300 OBC.

JMO.

It sounds like you took the O Life option without the air.

Personally, I think the "free" excursions are a better value financially than the OBC. The OBC has a $100 value per excursion while most excursions are over $100 - some even as high as $199. If you take the average of excursions being about $150/excursion then 3 excursions are worth about $450 (or more) vs a fixed $300 OBC.

JMO.

I couldn’t agree more. I plan on changing the OBC benefit to the excursions after I see if I can find excursions that I am interested in.

I couldn’t agree more. I plan on changing the OBC benefit to the excursions after I see if I can find excursions that I am interested in.

Just as an FYI.

To get the YW value for excursions (25% discount) you would need to book one or two more in addition to your 3 O Life ones (the number varies depending on length of cruise). This, of course, is assuming that you like these excursions well enough to book them vs DIY excursions.

Just as an FYI.

To get the YW value for excursions (25% discount) you would need to book one or two more in addition to your 3 O Life ones (the number varies depending on length of cruise). This, of course, is assuming that you like these excursions well enough to book them vs DIY excursions.

That is an excellent recommendation; but I much prefer full day private excursions. I am just hoping to find 3 O excursions that I like.