Shouldn't companies have to honor their advertised prices???

[RDC1]

I guess I think a call at 9am on Tuesday to discuss a Princess error warrants a returned call before 5pm on Wednesday - but, honestly, that just adds insult to injury. I see this as poor corporate processes followed by poor customer service, regardless of the outcome.

 

My main issue here was with some of the name calling on this post directed at the OP - basically saying she was trying to steal from Princess! I'm more than happy when people post a balanced response (like you have), whether they agree or not, but there's no excuse for being aggressive or rude. :cool::p:rolleyes::D:confused::)

 

Keep in mind that she was talking with customer service, and she wanted a return call from "senior management", not just escalation, but senior management. That takes a bit of time to pass notification and for that person to make the call. If she wanted normal escalation she probably would have been passed to the depart that handles abnormal situation (reconciliation department I think Princess calls it). It is not like senior management is waiting to make calls after escalation from the folks that normally handle such things.

[mum and son]

It is not that she booked it ... it is in fact not right to try and make a big enough stink so a mistake will be honored. We have all made mistakes. Im sure that someone with the cruise line is now in hot water. Proof reading is not as simple as it is being made out to be.

 

I sort of agree :). But she was told by posters here that she was in the wrong for even trying to make the booking, and that she should be embarrassed. I don't understand that attitude. Princess made the mistake, yes a mistake. Why would someone blame the OP? I just don't get it... and I can't see that she made a stink about it either. Her behaviour seemed quite reasonable... she initiated communication with Princess, and followed up when she didn't receive any response. I would have requested a call from someone more senior as well.

 

And, as most people always say on this board, if you don't like the answer you get from Princess customer service keep calling, and escalating, until you get the "right" answer! :p

 

And I can't believe that a large corporation that constantly manages inventory and pricing doesn't have a system in place that would alert them to an anomaly (like a 90% pricing discrepancy or something). I've used plenty of basic reservation/pricing systems that do that. They can't just have one person sitting at a desk inputting prices who then click a button and BAM it's live online, can they?

 

And if someone at the cruise line is in hot water because of the mistake (which was still a mistake whether the OP had booked the deal or not) then I hope that person is someone up the chain who didn't put the appropriate systems in place in the first place! The person who typed in the wrong price is not to blame either.

[mum and son]

Keep in mind that she was talking with customer service, and she wanted a return call from "senior management", not just escalation, but senior management. That takes a bit of time to pass notification and for that person to make the call. If she wanted normal escalation she probably would have been passed to the depart that handles abnormal situation (reconciliation department I think Princess calls it). It is not like senior management is waiting to make calls after escalation from the folks that normally handle such things.

 

Point taken :). I, personally, would not have understood the difference between escalation and senior management, as I don't know the internal workings of the organisation, but I would expect somebody to call me back swiftly... even if they were just calling to let me know that senior management had been notified and will make contact with me within a certain timeframe. It's just good customer service. I still stand firm that Princess could have handled their mistake a lot better.

Edited June 3, 2016 by mum and son

[nanabananna]

Lucky me this has not happened.

 

Why not forgive and forget?? It will only give you wrinkles stressing over their mistake, but it has been corrected.

 

Try not to let this one bad, very bad mishap ruin any future cruises with Princess. I bet there are other disappointed fellow cruisers too.

 

Good Luck with any decision you make...but don't let it ruin other future Princess cruises .;)

[RDC1]

I sort of agree :). But she was told by posters here that she was in the wrong for even trying to make the booking, and that she should be embarrassed. I don't understand that attitude. Princess made the mistake, yes a mistake. Why would someone blame the OP? I just don't get it... and I can't see that she made a stink about it either. Her behaviour seemed quite reasonable... she initiated communication with Princess, and followed up when she didn't receive any response. I would have requested a call from someone more senior as well.

 

And, as most people always say on this board, if you don't like the answer you get from Princess customer service keep calling, and escalating, until you get the "right" answer! :p

 

And I can't believe that a large corporation that constantly manages inventory and pricing doesn't have a system in place that would alert them to an anomaly (like a 90% pricing discrepancy or something). I've used plenty of basic reservation/pricing systems that do that. They can't just have one person sitting at a desk inputting prices who then click a button and BAM it's live online, can they?

 

And if someone at the cruise line is in hot water because of the mistake (which was still a mistake whether the OP had booked the deal or not) then I hope that person is someone up the chain who didn't put the appropriate systems in place in the first place! The person who typed in the wrong price is not to blame either.

 

A company like princess would have a rather complex system that generates pricing information according to algorithms that take into account a number of factors. Such systems would have mechanisms for preventing erroneous information from getting out. However, even with mechanisms that might prevent 99.999% of errors from getting out look at how many different fares exist in a cruise line the size of Princess.

 

Considering that such a system would depend upon some parameters that are entered such as boundary conditions, base line pricing, manual overrides, etc. Sooner or later an error will occur. You can consider that the system works pretty well or you would have hundreds of streams talking about errors, not just one or two.

 

The system Princess has would be similar to one used by the airlines with dynamic pricing. Usually when something goes wrong like this it is either a problem with something that overrides the normal calculation like a sale input factor or it could just be a software bug generated by just the right or wrong set of factors in a calculation.

 

Bottom line is it just happened to have occurred during a major holiday weekend when the departments would either be shutdown and short staffed. Would also not be unusual for someone from senior management to not be available the first day after a long holiday.

Edited June 3, 2016 by RDC1

[Diana68]

Keep in mind that she was talking with customer service, and she wanted a return call from "senior management", not just escalation, but senior management. That takes a bit of time to pass notification and for that person to make the call. If she wanted normal escalation she probably would have been passed to the depart that handles abnormal situation (reconciliation department I think Princess calls it). It is not like senior management is waiting to make calls after escalation from the folks that normally handle such things.

I never asked to speak to upper management, I didn't even ask to talk to anyone else. I just asked if they knew why I had been sent a second confirmation. They put me on hold to try to get an answer. When they returned, they told me that I would get the call back. I raised no stink, just said ok...even the second day that I called. When senior management called me back, I simply said that I didn't think I would take that offer, and she told me to think about it until Friday.

 

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[IsanTom]

Your an experienced cruiser, so I would have to say no!

[RDC1]

I never asked to speak to upper management, I didn't even ask to talk to anyone else. I just asked if they knew why I had been sent a second confirmation. They put me on hold to try to get an answer. When they returned, they told me that I would get the call back. I raised no stink, just said ok...even the second day that I called. When senior management called me back, I simply said that I didn't think I would take that offer, and she told me to think about it until Friday.

 

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Ok, I misread your initial post. My comment was aimed at the individual that was indicating that the notification from Princess and the time for the callback was very poor customer service. I was pointing out that the incident occured during a holiday weekend. The notification invoice was sent out on a holiday and the call back from upper management did take place one day after your initial call. That is not a horrid response.

 

The point you just made that it was Princess Customer service that indicated that Upper Management would contact you, would seem to indicate that this was considered by them to be an unusual event outside of their normal operational procedures. Having worked in areas similar to this prior to having retired I would expect that the pricing error was unusual enough that their procedures did not have a back stop to prevent the second invoice from going out when the error was caught and the price changed. Would be interesting to find out if they are planning to add one.

Edited June 3, 2016 by RDC1

[Aussieflyer]

I think part of the problem is the lack of customer service from Princess, even taking into account it was a long weekend. To call at 9 am Tuesday and not have a response until 5pm Wednesday is frankly, very poor, given that the company knew what the call was about.

Although a totally different situation, the same lack of customer service was noted by a cruiser on the Aust-NZ board. He became ill and had to leave the ship at a port in NZ. Princess were extremely tardy in making any contact, even though his wife and MIL were continuing on the cruise. You may like to have a look.

Perhaps it is indicative of the level of service the company provides.

[RJAM3]

when I came up to these same situations the attitude was be fair with everyone and then go beyond fair to be kind. After this point there was no longer any point in making the call. the caller will keep going round and round the rebbit hole with no resolve to come of it. at that point you realize the customer is not always right and you walk away from it. This is the end. cant make you happy you will need to do as you wish but my time and energy are gone. A new day is about to dawn I will not make this a part of it.

[cruisequeen4ever]

I think it's awesome customer service when a company honors an error in price. I got my car for thousands under value due to it being accidentally priced as the lower model. It builds brand loyalty to honor errors like that. I hope Princess ends up coming through for you. I know they don't have to, but it would be nice if they did.

 

 

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[PescadoAmarillo]

So low prices aren't always a mistake and I would hope that Princess would make good on the fares that were in effect when you placed your deposit.

I used to have a saying to allay DH's concerns about cruise prices: "They're giving them away". It was a figure of speech, meant to convey the fact that we were getting what I thought was a good fare, and, without going into details with him, knew that he'd think the same. Then Princess really did give away cruises for awhile, and I had to stop using that expression. The rush of excitement and then immediate let down when he believed that Princess was again offering cruises for free proved too much for him to bear.

 

(I have never quite understood why Princess did that. But it just goes to show that stranger things do happen).

[joetop2467]

I totally disagree with you about knowing it was a mistake because I booked it and it never occurred to me it was a mistake. My thought was why didn't anyone want to go on this cruise. Were the ports unsafe because of terrorism? Even though we booked it at the "sale" price I was still wondering if I really wanted to go on it. I talked to everyone of my five kids about whether we should go or not. I wasn't looking forward to a 26 to 36 hour plane ride. So quit thinking you know more than the people who booked this cruise and their motivation for doing so. You have no idea what other people are thinking.

[caribill]

From 2013 on the Costa web site:

 

72 Days World & Exotic - $649 ($9 per day)

Costa Cruise Lines • Costa Deliziosa

 

40 Days World & Exotic - $5609 (140 per day)

Costa Cruise Lines • Costa Deliziosa

[Skai]

This is an interesting thread as it relates to contract law offer/acceptance etc.

 

So, I did a search and found this old related thread from Oct. '07...The OT comments (and scoffing responses) about the predicted coming recession were quite interesting as well.

[mum and son]

So, I did a search and found this old related thread from Oct. '07...The OT comments (and scoffing responses) about the predicted coming recession were quite interesting as well.

 

Thanks for posting that link. It was a really interesting step back in time.

[emmak8]

2007 or 2016 : What is clear is there is a problem with customer service at Princess.