Rising Fares!

[Chairsin]

Me too! This is quite surprising considering the On Board Open Booking deposit is good for four years.

[sfvoyage]

I just reviewed the T&Cs on seabourn.com, and apparently this 24-month limit only applies to the 14-day free cruise. There exists no wordings on any time limit for using the 7-day free cruise or for accruing more redeemable sailed days to go from a 7-day to a 14-day free cruise. Can anyone confirm this?

[secoma4]

That's probably because the 7 day free cruise accrues at 140 days. So you can continue to accrue to 250 days to be eligible for the 14 days. If the 7 day entitlement elapsed you would have to accrue the next 110 days in 2 years.

If you choose to take the 7 day cruise (which can be part of a longer cruise) then you lose the 14 day option at 250 days. Effectively, to get your next 7 days you need to do 280 days.

[sfvoyage]

That's probably because the 7 day free cruise accrues at 140 days. So you can continue to accrue to 250 days to be eligible for the 14 days. If the 7 day entitlement elapsed you would have to accrue the next 110 days in 2 years...

 

There are no wordings in Seabourn's T&Cs to support your last sentence (which I bolded). Where do you see that one only has 2 years to accrue the next 110 days? That'll entail a lot of cruising in a short period of time and seems neither reasonable nor customer-friendly a policy for Seabourn to have.

Edited August 31, 2015 by sfvoyage

[secoma4]

You get to that position through logic. The question was why doesn't the free 7 day cruise (after 140 days) "expire" like the free 14 day cruise, which is available after 250 days.

This means that whenever you get to 140 days you are entitled to a "free" 7 day cruise. And if a 2 year expiry rule was applied you would have to do the next 110 days in that 2 years. But there is no expiry rule for the 7 day entitlement - until you hit 250 days.

It's not unreasonable. Get to 150 days and you can, if you choose, take the "free" 7 days. Seabourn is happy for you to keep aiming for the 250 day milestone without a sunset on the 7 days you have earned. And you can use it anytime up to your 250 milestone.

That's what we did. But to get the next "free" 7 days we have to do another 140 days. That is a total of 280 to get 14 days, compared with 250 if you dont use the first 7.

If you got to 140 and could see yourself doing 110 days in the "near" future then holding off for the 250 day milestone may make sense. But if you are playing the odds etc, taking the 7 days at 140 seems to make sense.

Hope this helps.

[SKP946]

A few years ago I am sure that it was 14 days complimentary after 140, then Seabourn changed the rules.

I didn't take the risk of Seabourn changing the rules again, so I took the 7 day cruise within 6 months of qualifying, rather than waiting for the 250/14 :)

[Emperor Norton]

Don't forget Seabourn now has only three ships afloat.

They sail full at whatever price these days and you do get what you pay for when you look at the competition.

Prices have been low for the last few years and now we see an increase.

Seabourn will need to keep prices high to keep the quality high.

 

You must decide at what point you bail out of the luxury market,like anything in life you either pay up or shut up and bow out gracefully.

 

This.

 

They've lost a good bit of capacity while demand has been rising. In theory prices could drop after the introduction of the new ship(s).

[zelker]

As long as we're talking pricing, does Seabourn ever have a Labor Day weekend sale?

[sfvoyage]

There are no wordings in Seabourn's T&Cs to support your last sentence (which I bolded). Where do you see that one only has 2 years to accrue the next 110 days? That'll entail a lot of cruising in a short period of time and seems neither reasonable nor customer-friendly a policy for Seabourn to have.

 

To answer my own question as well as put a halt to misinformation and conjecture, I emailed Seabourn Club today and just received the following reply, which confirms what I had thought:

 

"If you do not utilize the 7-day MCA you can choose to wait until you have reached 250-Redeemable Days and receive a complimentary 14-day cruise. There is no time limit to earn the additional 110-redeemable days for the 14-day complimentary cruise."

Edited September 1, 2015 by sfvoyage

[2SailingNomads]

Supply: capacity has fallen by over 600 w/ the sale of the little sisters.

Demand: constant or improved due to the world economies - stock markets in August 2015 exempted.

 

So, if you are price driven, after the Encore comes on-line capacity will be back to, and a little over, what was lost w/ the sale of the 3 ships.

 

When the 2nd new LARGE ship - why didn't they build 2 300 pax ships? - comes on-line, I'd expect more sales / discounting / reduced prices. I'm not waiting personally, who knows what will happen in 3 years. There are too many days at sea between now and then that I can enjoy.

 

But I agree that you do need to book ASAP - one cruise we booked 20 months in advance we could not get any of our preferred suites. :mad:

[apuleius]

The prices for Med 2017 cruises just out and they have risen dramatically - the starting price for a week with a V1 veranda is £3700. We took the same cruise this year and the starting price was £2900 - it did drop to £2400 though which was what we paid for a 7 day cruise in 2014 and 2013.

[Welshie Love]

We are also on the Transatlantic March 2016 cruise and we booked 1 1/2 years in advance to get the suite we wanted.

[Roxburgh]

We are also on the Transatlantic March 2016 cruise and we booked 1 1/2 years in advance to get the suite we wanted.

 

There is now a roll call open for it thanks to JeniDallas.