Price drop ?

[princesslondon]

New to RCCL, we have a cruise booked for 5/29 and since I've booked the price has dropped as few times and I've saved around $150. My question is since they seem to have rooms left, do I have a good chance of getting an even better deal by cancelling and re-booking after my PIF date which is 3/15? I know there is no way to know for sure, I just don't know the trends with Royal.

[Clarea]

New to RCCL, we have a cruise booked for 5/29 and since I've booked the price has dropped as few times and I've saved around $150. My question is since they seem to have rooms left, do I have a good chance of getting an even better deal by cancelling and re-booking after my PIF date which is 3/15? I know there is no way to know for sure, I just don't know the trends with Royal.

Unfortunately, unpredictable.

 

Cancelling after final payment date will incur penalties.

 

If you cancel before final and then rebook after can possibly save money, but it's a crap shoot.

Edited February 15, 2016 by clarea

[Biker19]

As Clint Eastwood said: Do you feel lucky? Well, do you?

 

There are some cases of price drops after final but are getting more rare. It all depends on the existing price point and cabins left. If there are still over 40 cabins left in a category just before final, there might be further drops. Having paid close attention to prices recently, it seems Royal is droping prices a bit further out to fill cabins and there might not be many after final. All of this of course applies to NA bookings - the rest of the world has different rules and trends.

[franl24fan]

You would have to cancel prior to final payment. And you may not have a good selection of cabins when you rebook, they are usually empty because experienced cruisers know which ones are not desirable. It primarily depends on if you booked under a promotion such as the BOGO. If you cancel and rebook that promo may not be on (although BOGO has been renewed constantly since 2014). Only way to know is to go online, delete any cookies (or use another computer) and do a mock booking. Although RCI info technology is awful, it does usually recognize if you already have a reservation and will not give you the same pricing as if you used a different computer. Had that happen to me. Without deleting the cookies, the price quoted was higher than my current price. When I used a friends computer, it reflected a slightly lower price, not worth the hassle to change.

 

In the past year or so prices have usually not been lowered even if cabins are empty. Same as they don't waive the solo supplement even if the ship is sailing half empty on a 4 day cruise to Nassau on an older ship. Makes no sense, but then one thing consistent about RCI is that there is no logic to their pricing or marketing :-)

 

IMHO your best bet is to book early, watch third party sites for price changes (or sign up for a tracking service), you or your agent call in to get the new price (which they don't have to do since pricing is always quoted as being for new bookings), then after final payment don't look at pricing again :-). You may receive an upgrade offer, although sometimes what they consider an upgrade is actually a worst cabin than what I have.

 

I'm sure others on here will have other comments.