So what kind of perks does your TA give you?

[Char]

For this Monday's cruise we received $400 off pp, free insurance and two nights free hotel (on future trip). We were very pleased.

When did you book your cruise? I got in just under the wire (right before the new policy started) for a couple of future cruises :D

[ocngypz]

It is very simple ladies and gentlemen, if the fare you pay is NOT in Celebrity's reservation system which only agents have access to, or in Celebrity's groups reservation system, your agent is discounting the cruise and runs the chance of being of cutoff by RCCL/Celebrity.

 

Bottles of champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, etc. are paid for with group amenity points.. not out of the agent's pocket. You won't know you have been booked ino an existing group because it has been set up strictly as a promotional ad hoc group, not an affinity group.

 

Coupon books come from Celebrity. Free bus... that's from Celebrity too ,99% of the time.

 

The free insurance, I've seen it.. it's not worth the paper it is printed on and an agency who offers such is not protecting their client.

 

As an FYI, none of the online booking engines the public can use has the lowest rates available for any cruiseline!!

[zamgwar]

Every other year, we cruise with more or less the same large gang of nuts, on a February break. There are at the VERY least 25 of us. This year there are 39. While our TA has given our group some nice perks (Cabin credit, photos, etc) the best thing she has done is given us great service, and great, great, pricing, saving our group (and in some cases individual families) literally thousands.Granted our Feb cruise for 2006 was booked before the Celebrity no discount Policy.

 

While gifts are nice, service is better. Getting a group of 39 different people all happily accomodated is very hard. So far this is the third large tour we've done through this TA. Sure we check other ones each time we head out, but so far we've all been in agreement, that unless someone else comes in with something extraordinary, we're sticking with the same TA.

 

And if some line (*hint*) in the future doesn't want to group price us, we'll take our 30-40 grand for a group our size, to whatever line our TA says will, becuase we trust she knows what we want.

 

In these days of online services, there can really be only two types of TA's, great ones, and out of business ones. We've got (so far) a great one.

 

I don't need a bottle of wine in the room, as much as I need a great TA.

 

John

Office of Fine Service

The Zamgwar Institute

[horselady295]

We just booked our first cruise with one of the online discounters... We booked two staterooms and received a gift for each booking. The first gift was a beautiful pashmina wrap and the second gift was a DVD/MP3 player. We were surprised when they arrived.

[flashdog_1]

Those two of you who have received wonderful rates from wonderful travel agents are allowed to put your email address in your signature, but I have not seen that done as yet. No more sharing?

 

Question: Does a key account agency with Celebrity automatically offer you the lowest possible rate? I haven't witnessed this yet.

[ocngypz]

Those two of you who have received wonderful rates from wonderful travel agents are allowed to put your email address in your signature, but I have not seen that done as yet. No more sharing?

 

Question: Does a key account agency with Celebrity automatically offer you the lowest possible rate? I haven't witnessed this yet.

 

 

Yes, they can, depending on the strength of their rep and what is being promoted.

[babylene]

I am quite confused. I thought that now we are offered the same rates regardless of which TA we use. Are the prices uniform or are they not? Please clear this up!!!!!! Thanks and have a happy and a healthy New Year.

[donnaw]

Many if not all of us appear to know exactly what we want and expect when we go to book even though as C2C put it, an occasional surprise deal is nice!

 

 

We vaired between two ta's for years. The first became sahm/ta working through an agency that did not come out well in the Celebrity re-arrangement so we finally gave up on her when she kept trying to get us to switch lines.

 

The second, at a major well known agency, had a very nice thank you card waiting for us for our open booking, when we returned on 1/22 from Grand Princess. DH called and talked to her on 2/10 with the Galaxy booking and had a question on cabins (outside vs. deluxe outside). This was to be my surprise V'day gift. He called several more times over the next few days and she never returned his call. He ended up going (late on 2/14) to an online with some nice little perks. Additionally, we will definitely transfer the open Princess booking when we are ready to place it.

 

We have found a new TA who may be workable. She did give us a nice discount on the MSC when we booked the X and MSC together and was very prompt about answering questions on the MSC cruise. We will know more after we sail but hope that this one will actually work out well.

 

I think we all realize that changes in the airline and cruise industry have made TA's jobs much more difficult over the years. We tend to be of that group that makes a TA's life easy with cruise and cabin picked out before we make the call. It is rare that we have any questions and handle our own air and hotel. In our case, we do not expect the more elaborate perks that we received before these changes were made. What we do expect is service and thank you for your business!

[brv2]

My mom booked two sky suites on the 12-17-05 sailing of the Galaxy out of Galveston and each suite received $50 on-board credit and a bottle of champagne.

 

BRV2

[stoshman]

On a recent 12-day Celebrity cruise, he reimbursed us for our travel insurance: $300!

 

And that was *after* we had negotiated the best deal with the cruise line and turned it over to him.