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Early Payment Discount?


orchestrapal

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Just was told that Regent has recently offered some a 10% discount for early payment. Has anyone had such an offer from Oceania? Sounds like a great deal to me.:)

 

Is this a limited/targeted offer or a new standard policy for all cruises on Regent?

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Is this a limited/targeted offer or a new standard policy for all cruises on Regent?

 

Not sure. My friend was made the offer by her TA and the charge came through from Regent the very next day. He received a 0 balance invoice as well.

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I have always thought having the ability to cancel your cruise with no penalty 90 days from sailing day is a big plus. I assume if you pay earlier you lose that right.

 

Why would you after they have had the interest on your money for whatever amount of time after you pre-paid. I am sure they would refund the money, NO?:confused:

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Just was told that Regent has recently offered some a 10% discount for early payment. Has anyone had such an offer from Oceania? Sounds like a great deal to me.:)

If all this is true, I would be concerned that RSSC may be in need of capital and for whatever reason are willing to pay a considerable premium to secure it. A company with a good credit rating can borrow short term for very little interest expense. Perhaps I am being paranoid, but anybody receiving 10% discount for early payment should be sure insurance or credit card company or somebody would cover losses. JMO

Ralph

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Crystal used to offer a three percent discount and the ability to book certain reservations in advance to those who paid in full six months before the cruise - I do not know if they still do so. There are a few tour companies - Vantage comes to mind as one - which gives you a discount, provided you pay by check and not credit card - it can be as much as 12% if you pay a year in advance. The cancellation penalties do not change if you pay in advance vs at the usual 90 day pre-trip. I did that for a couple of trips, but made sure to buy trip insurance from an outside party, in case of financial default. With these days of stock market uncertainty and practically no interest paid on money markets or bonds, there is no investment I would be willing to buy, with that type of return.

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Because I'm booked on an upcoming Regent cruise and final payment is not yet due (Wendy is going on the same cruise), I had my travel agent check into this. This is his partial response:

 

I called Regent this morning to see what I could find out about the postings you have been reading regarding early payments and discounts. Frankly they didn't know anything about it. However, I noticed that the guests you mentioned were Australian. I know that Australians must use GSAs (General Service Agents) in Australia to book through. I know with Oceania that things are handled very differently with Aussies and the GSAs than they are with North American guests and agents. Possibly there was some sort of agreement made between Regent and the GSA regarding early payments. I believe this or something similar to this is what occurred with these guests.

 

There was also a response on the Regent board that speculated about currency exchange changes, and that it was perhaps to Regent's advantage to get Aussie dollars early to avoid losing money on the exchange later.

 

Based on these, my guess is that it is sound business practices and good decision making that led to these discounts applied to a specific situation. It took very little checking to arrive at this opinion, as opposed to those who automatically imagined some horrible business disaster that would lead to collapse of a very sound corporation. There are always those people who automatically assume the worst negative position about situations, and I've learned to ignore them.

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