Where do you search for deals?

[firegal2539]

No airline, Southwest, JetBlue, American, United, Delta, all of them have stopped paying commissions to cruise lines and travel agents/agencies. Most TAs lose money booking air because of their time used to book and no commission. My best friend is a TA and I love her. Please remember that unlike directly booking with a cruise line, a TA takes time off, Saturday and Sunday and holidays. I found a sale that was only 48 hours, ending on Sunday at midnight and I couldn't get ahold of my TA so I booked it myself and then transferred the booking to the TA. I spend a lot of time checking all cruise line websites, sign up for deals from all cruise lines and online travel agencies before I call my TA to book. It is a lot of work but worth it when you get that great deal.

 

My TA watches new sales to see if prices have decreased, cruise lines don't do that.

 

It is also what you are looking for, I want great ports and good prices, it depends on what is important to you.

Candie

 

 

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[GottaKnowWhen]

thank you :) I just wish there was some kind of site that had a good grid for all the months/cruises/cabins that would make it so much easier to see the deals and differences quickly. I was hoping there was such a thing lol. But I guess if they can't (or don't want) to advertise their best prices online, that wouldn't be accurate anyway. We have one site in Canada that is a great grid for doing this, but the US deals are never there. I'm assuming they price directly what the cruise line would price.

 

I believe that cruise lines use some variation on "dynamic pricing." Sorta kinda like uber. If the demand is higher, the price goes up. If the demand is lower, the price goes down (but maybe a perk is taken away). When you look at a given cabin in a given category on a given ship and do a dummy booking, you have shown the cruise line's computer that that given type of cabin is in demand and when you log back in 10 minutes later the price may be higher. The preceeding is pretty much pure speculation and an exaggeration of the likely process, but my general point is that cabin pricing may be a very fluid constantly changing process. It would take considerable effort to establish and maintain the sort of matrix/table you are looking for.

 

There was a very active contributor to the Celebrity forum on CC who developed and published a complex spreadsheet to help in deciding whether it was better to take Package A at price $A with perks package A, or to go with B, B$, package B, or C, at price C$, perks package C, or to just buy the basic cabin and get the perks separately, or some mix, all depending of course on whether you even wanted the drinks package or the unlimited or maybe a restricted internet package, etc. And that was for decisions among offers within one cruise line, looking only at the "official" offers and not any of the travel agencies. The truly obsessive could truly drive themselves batty trying to find the very best deal. If/when you find an interesting cruise that you think you would enjoy and that you think you could afford, then book it and go sailing into the sunset. Leave the what ifs and maybes and couldas and shouldas at home and enjoy.

[janetz]

I always book through an agent. I get the best price and I don't waste my time. Always do a little research first. It's not always about the money. It's about the experience.

 

 

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Edited January 14, 2017 by janetz

[janetz]

i am an avid trip deal shopper and only book when the price is right. I have just started cruising ( mostly do all inclusive resort packages), and I can't seem to find a site that has good pricing grids by week/type of cabin/ lowest overall/ports.... It seems to take a lot of clicks to get anywhere, so I'm just wondering what regular cruisers use? The deals I have found I would have missed if I hadn't searched for hours lol.

 

Go to the top of the page to "Find a Cruise" and go from there. ;)

[iancal]

We use base fare as a comparison point. The reason being that the cruise line may bundle in a drinks package that has a list price of $300. each but this may not be the value to us. We might place a value, to us of $10. or $300. So we subtract our 'assigned' value of the bundled option to arrive a a base fare. We ignore the silly items (to us) like a bottle of water, priority boarding claims, etc

 

We have only experienced one very good bundled offer. It happened to be a well priced, last minute RCI Med cruise that had a rebate on air and had a very well price one way fare home. None of the other bundling, free this or that, has ever turned out to be such a great offer to us. About the only bundled item we like is the inclusion of on board gratuities.

 

We always start with a target price for a balcony gty. We have several preferred cruise lines but we don't think the sun rises and sets on any one of them. Bottom line...we big time cherry pick whenever possible. Plus, we are not overly swayed by inaccurate or misleading news reports when considering certain overseas destinations. Often this works to our advantage because of the reduced demand.

Edited January 14, 2017 by iancal

[Lookingforfacts]

Hotels are normally priced per room, double occupancy. Cruise lines typically price pre/post hotel rooms per passenger. What initially looks like a decent hotel rate becomes a very high rate after you double it.

[Hlitner]

No airline, Southwest, JetBlue, American, United, Delta, all of them have stopped paying commissions to cruise lines and travel agents/agencies. Most TAs lose money booking air because of their time used to book and no commission. My best friend is a TA and I love her. Please remember that unlike directly booking with a cruise line, a TA takes time off, Saturday and Sunday and holidays. I found a sale that was only 48 hours, ending on Sunday at midnight and I couldn't get ahold of my TA so I booked it myself and then transferred the booking to the TA. I spend a lot of time checking all cruise line websites, sign up for deals from all cruise lines and online travel agencies before I call my TA to book. It is a lot of work but worth it when you get that great deal.

 

My TA watches new sales to see if prices have decreased, cruise lines don't do that.

 

It is also what you are looking for, I want great ports and good prices, it depends on what is important to you.

Candie

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

There are many cruise agencies that operate extended hours...7 days a week! 3 of our 4 favored agencies are open every day and evenings. Only 1 of our agencies closes on weekends...but even that agency tells customers to simply book with their online booking engine...and they will add on promotions on Monday.

 

Hank

[iancal]

Same here. More than once we have taken advantage of offers/re-fares/cabin upgrades on a weekend that we gone on Monday.

 

Last time we called our on line agency on a weekend I was very surprised to find myself speaking the company VP. Did not realize until the end of the call when I wanted to note his name. He said they were short staffed due to illness and he was pinch hitting to cover the lines. Got our deal done, and our on line TA followed up later the next week when she returned.

 

This is one of the reasons we no longer deal with a B&M agency. We live in Canada. We usually book cruises with on US based TA however have booked with TA's in Australia, UK, and South Africa. No different than dealing with an agent down the street, other than the time zones.

 

We look for responsiveness, availability, and pricing. Strictly business, we are not looking for a new best friend or someone to pass the time of day with.

Edited January 14, 2017 by iancal

[MicCanberra]

Hotels are normally priced per room, double occupancy. Cruise lines typically price pre/post hotel rooms per passenger. What initially looks like a decent hotel rate becomes a very high rate after you double it.

 

Correct, this often happens with tour companies as well, although I put it down as paying the hotels full rate rather than what the hotel would cost if booking direct..

[iancal]

You need to select the cruise line hotels carefully. Sometimes they are in business areas, well away from the tourist sites. Especially on Fri-Sunday.

[Size12Stilettos]

I don't do Travel Agents. I believe peer-to-peer sharing is truly more advantageous. I am a member of a WhatsApp tree where hundreds of people share airline deals with each other... and that's all. Is there a WhatsApp group or Facebook Group or another type of group that monitors Cruise deals?