P&O UK cruises now in $AUD

[bazzaw]

Late last year, if you went to pocruises.com and looked at their upcoming cruises ( I had an interest in their World Cruises), all their prices were in Pounds Sterling. I have just noticed that now everything is in $AUD.

 

Barry

[MMDown Under]

Late last year, if you went to pocruises.com and looked at their upcoming cruises ( I had an interest in their World Cruises), all their prices were in Pounds Sterling. I have just noticed that now everything is in $AUD.

 

Barry

 

Mine comes up in pounds sterling.

 

Your computer cookies must show that you are an Australian.

[Billy and Charlie's Mum]

We just received our P & O UK magazine with a separate liftout for the world cruises. They were in AUD$....... pretty good prices too!

[thied]

When I looked on line all the prices are AUD at pocruises.com and all there on line magazines are in AUD.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

We just received our P & O UK magazine with a separate liftout for the world cruises. They were in AUD$....... pretty good prices too!

 

I got mine too....looks funny as the prices are in Au$ and the OBC is in £

 

[Billy and Charlie's Mum]

I got mine too....looks funny as the prices are in Au$ and the OBC is in £

 

 

It does too! Wierd!

[shieldsboy]

Unfortunately P & O UK (who are part of the Carnival Group - as are Princess, Holland america, Cunard etc) have adjusted their websites so that they identify which country you are from and present prices in your local currency.

 

This means they can present much higher prices to you than they may to an UK customer (for instance) and hide the UK prices from you.

 

Yesterday I provided some information on how they do this in another thread, but include it here as it may be of interest.

 

This development is regrettable but I'm sure the cruise lines will argue that it is to allow you to pay in the local currency - unfortunately too often that local price, after currency conversion, bears little relationship to the price offered overseas.

 

When a PC is connected to the Internet it is "recognised" by its IP number.

 

This number, in the format aaaa.bbbb.cccc.dddd (for example 172.15.68.23), is allocated by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) who is issued a range of numbers.

 

The ranges allocated determine the country of use, and so, when you connect to a website, the website can identify where you are located.

 

Unfortunately the shipping lines have now decided to use this information to determine which prices they will provide to you and "hide" the prices they are offering to citizens of other countries.

 

So, for example, if you connect to Princess.Com from Australia you will get Australian prices, whilst if you connect to Princess.com from America you will get the US $ prices - which often are significantly less.

 

As for your office PC - if you work for an international company it may be that your company has been allocated a range of IP numbers which identify the user as coming from the the country of the head office, which may be different from the country in which your office is located.

 

I hope this helps

 

Don

[bronte2]

Late last year, if you went to pocruises.com and looked at their upcoming cruises ( I had an interest in their World Cruises), all their prices were in Pounds Sterling. I have just noticed that now everything is in $AUD.

 

Barry

 

Barry,

 

I posted on another thread about a 'weird' thing that was occurring with the P&O UK site when I logged in from different PCs. Shieldsboy explained it to me as per his post on this thread! So thanks Shieldsboy - I knew someone on this site would have the answer!

 

What was happening was that when I logged in from home and checked out a leg of Arcadia's 2013 World Cruise, it was showing prices in AUD but all categories as 'sold out':eek:.

 

When I logged in at work, prices were in GBP and available!:confused:

The portunas magazine supplement showed around $13000 odd for a balcony. The P&O UK website was quoting GBP6000 for the same thing - around $9000 odd in AUD.

 

I rang both my TA and P&O and they quoted $12000 but still a significant amount more than UK customers paying.

 

So it makes you wonder what's going on when the AU site is showing 'SOLD OUT' whereas P&O and my TA tell me it's not and why is there such a HUGE price difference?

 

I realise that cruise lines vary charges for residents of different countries but a $3000 difference for the same sector:(.

[bazzaw]

I don't know about the "sold out" situation - but I do know that the exchange rate that the Carnival/P&O office here in Australia uses is nothing like the current exchange rate - nor has it been for over 12 months.

 

Before our cruise on Oriana, I received an email from P&O UK offering to sell some additional services. One of these was an Internet package for 35UKP. Problem was the only way to pre-purchase this was to telephone a British phone number. I emailed them back and said I was in Australia - so could I make the purchase via the Internet. 2 days later, I received an email from the Australian office , basically saying we can do that for you - please send $100 :eek: I emailed them and said the current exchange for 35UKP was around $65. I received back a terse single line email which said "WE CAN ONLY DO WHAT IS IN OUR SYSTEM".

 

I waited until I boarded the ship to purchase the Internet package - the cost was charged to my CC and I eventually paid that through my bank at the current exchange rate.

 

I can completely understand that the great majority of Australians wish to purchase things here in Australia in their own currency. It is inconceivable that Mazdas would be sold here in Japanese Yen, Nokia phones in Euro, American Levis (which are probably made in China) in US dollars. Most cruises are sold through Australian travel agents - so majority of Aussies want to pay for these in Australian dollars. So, for all of these things, an exchange rate needs to be struck - BUT the exchange rate varies from day-to-day. Also these prices/fares need to be printed in glossy advertising brochures - which all take some time to print, meanwhile whatever exchange rate was used is now out of date . So the Companies have to take a longer term historical view of the value of the Australian Dollar. It has been strong for a year or two - BUT it has not always been that way and has mostly been weak against things like the UKP and the USD.

 

Our problem does not really lie with these Companies (all Foreign owned) - the problem lies with our historically weak Ozzie $. Perhaps it will turn around in time - the 2:1 exchange rate that you have been quoted (above) is not as good as the current rate of 1.5:1 , but is a lot better than the 3:1 that I was quoted a year ago for my small purchase and a lot better than the rates that I have received in a number of visits to the UK over the past 15 years.

 

Barry

[Aus Traveller]

Barry, I agree with you totally on your comments on the AUD and the reason for pricing. I have been making this point on a couple of threads.:)

 

However, I think the ships could adjust some of the on-board prices that were set a couple of years ago when the exchange rate was vastly different to what it is today.

[Sutho]

The brochures have always been in Australian dollars and the website has been showing Australian dollars on and off for some time now. There is a computer system that recognises where you are in the world and adjusts the website accordingly.

 

Personally P&O UK are my favourite line and I prefer them over Princess as the itineraries are much more diverse and varied.

 

I would jump at the chance to do a World Cruise of sector with Princess if they sent one of the Grand class or Coral class around.