Australians getting charged more for the same thing?

[Nemspy]

So my Dad (who lives in Australia) was looking to book an Alaskan cruise to take with my wife and I (who live in the US) and we were rather surprised to find out that the exact same cruise for the exact same rooms costs $2889AUD if booking from Australia and only $1999USD when booking from the US!

 

When you consider that the AUD is currently worth more than the USD this is even more disparate.

 

A bit of a slimy move here by HAL, clearly something they are doing because they know that Australians expect cruises to be much more expensive and won't baulk at the price as much as Americans would. We tested both Norwegian and Carnival's websites and they both quoted the same price for cruises regardless of where we were booking from.

 

A word of advice to Australians booking on HAL - run some sort of software like Tunnelbear to make HAL's website think you're in the USA before booking or you'll be paying a lot more than you need to.

[g-didi]

Learned a lot from these boards as I wanted to travel with a South African in their own cabin. Same circus as you. There was a recent thread about it.

 

I did learn that you can book one of the US residents in the cabin with the Australian and this is a way around the rule. Once on board just change the rooms/cards around to arrange the people in the rooms you want.

 

This is a way around the restriction to book with an Australian TA. You can book with a US agency or with HAL direct.

 

Makes no sense to me, but it is what it is.

[KirkNC]

Yes, for some reason Australians do get charged quite a bit more. I was not aware of it until this summer as we made friends with a couple from AUstralia.

 

Kirk

[Nemspy]

It just seems very slimy and shockingly clueless on the part of HAL in this age of the Internet and people from other countries being able to communicate with each other easily.

[iancal]

There is a very good reason why Australians, and sometimes Brits, pay much more for cruises that we in North America do.

 

The reason is R I P O F F.

 

HAL, and other cruise lines are ripping them off because they can get away with it.

[tcook052]

It's been mentioned a few times, most recently:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1492198&highlight=australia

[Nemspy]

It's been mentioned a few times, most recently:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1492198&highlight=australia

 

Had a look at that thread, although it's a little bit different as most people there seem to be talking about paying more when booking through agents in Australia. One poster even suggests using the HAL website where they believe all prices are the same and listed in USD. My issue is that the very same website booking through hollandamerica.com quotes different, higher, prices to people outside of the USA and it's not all in the same USD amount at all.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Had a look at that thread, although it's a little bit different as most people there seem to be talking about paying more when booking through agents in Australia. One poster even suggests using the HAL website where they believe all prices are the same and listed in USD. My issue is that the very same website booking through hollandamerica.com quotes different, higher, prices to people outside of the USA and it's not all in the same USD amount at all.

 

Very interesting thread. I have often wondered why the difference.

In NZ when we access the HAL site the prices are quoted in US dollars and we convert ourselves. In Aust they are quoted in Au dollars and it differs a lot.

As an example , here is the page we in NZ get for a HAL cruise.

 

Are these the same prices that show up on the USA site . ?

 

[aussiedisneyfan]

When I access the HAL website without logging in it shows AUD but when I log in with my details setup up as US it shows USD.

 

There are a few rare occasions where we aren't getting ripped off. I have received a couple of emails lately from Aussie T/As about upcoming Volendam cruises and the deals are actually better than what the US T/As are offering. I guess because she is down here at the moment.

[tcook052]

My issue is that the very same website booking through hollandamerica.com quotes different, higher, prices to people outside of the USA and it's not all in the same USD amount at all.

 

And this is addressed in the legal notice on HAL's website:

 

Persons who choose to make bookings on this web site from locations outside the United States do so on their own initiative, and understand that local laws will not apply to their bookings. International transaction fees for online purchases may be charged by your bank. If you are booking from outside of the United States and would like the laws of your home country to apply to your booking, please contact a travel agent in your country. European guests may book travel through Holland America Line's Rotterdam office at 0900 SAIL HAL or London office at 0845 351 0557 and Australian guests may book travel through our Sydney office at 1300987322.

 

Trust me as a Canadian who sees books printed with a CAD$ & USD$ price and they are very different even though our dollar is virtually at par and has been for several years I know it's not fair. However fair is not a concept businesses usually concern themselves with and the answer to your question or gripe about the different pricing is it's due to "whatever the market will bear".

[Nemspy]

Very interesting thread. I have often wondered why the difference.

In NZ when we access the HAL site the prices are quoted in US dollars and we convert ourselves. In Aust they are quoted in Au dollars and it differs a lot.

As an example , here is the page we in NZ get for a HAL cruise.

 

Are these the same prices that show up on the USA site . ?

 

 

This is the same price as I see in the USA; however, it might be an anomaly due to the fact that it begins in Australia and wouldn't be targeted in Americans in particular anyway.

[Debsta]

And now you can see that we have our tips automatically built in :D :p :p

(ahhh couldn't help myself LOL hahaha)