Booking thru a club?

[AmyinGA]

Has anyone used a discount travel club to book a cruise?

 

I was looking at one club and reviewing the membership fees and then I did some comparison pricing based on what was shown in the "members only area".

 

At first glance the prices looked great--for example a balcony cabin on a 7 day Caribbean cruise for $689. Now it looked good to me at first since I always think about balcony as a BB or BA since that is what I always book. I pulled up some pricing on a travel agent site to see that the BD was $733. If the baclony cabin listed with the club was a BD there wouldn't be a savings considering the membership fee and $35 per person fee...but if the club cabin was a BA there would be some savings. And then if I booked more than one cruise in a year the membership would be more than paid for.

 

I'd love to hear any experiences with groups like this and if you've gotten better deals than with some of the great agents out there.

[calikak]

We booked an upcoming cruise through one of these organizations but it was a very very good special that nobody else was able to come close to the same price on, so the fees and all that were more than made up for by the discount we got. But it was just for that one particular sailing (I think they'd booked group space) and I haven't booked anything else through them because their prices weren't any better than anywhere else on the sailings I wanted.

[ahracer]

I never have because it seemed prices weren't any better than what you could get from a good T.A.

 

Scott

[CariBlue]

Amy,

This is a good question. I am not familiar with "cruise clubs," but I recommend that you do not join this club. I guarantee that you will signing up for a headache. Normally these kinds of ventures will do and say anything to get you to sign on the dotted line and get you initiation fee. After that, you will be on your own. I joined a travel club and found that the meager savings they offered were outweighed by the continually inflating annual fees, not to mention the startup fee. The club then went bankrupt and I didn't hear from them for four years. Then all of a sudden a collections agency was hounding me for overdue annual fees, totalling over $700 with interest accrued. I explained that they hadn't sent me a bill in over four years, but that didn't matter. I made a settlement with them, which I hated to do, because these types of people are vultures.

 

The savings you described can be found on the Internet by doing a little shopping and watching for specials.

 

Take my advice and save yourself some money and the embarrassment of falling for such a scheme.

 

To get good quotes on cruises, use *****.com. No committments and no fees.:cool: