select fare price dropped

[Selbourne]

It is no use booking very early Select fares then checking Select fares months away from your cruise as invariably they always increase in price. The big savings can be made when Saver fares are released and prices do fall a considerable amount and great savings can be made. If you are not bothered about position of stateroom or dining, end of the day its the same food whether you have first, second or freedom dining. Finally don't always check prices just with P&O as lower prices than P&O can be seen online with cruise TA specialists.

 

But that's not comparing like with like. There are many of us who would only ever book Select as we want specific cabins (for reasons stated earlier) and dining arrangements. Whilst the food may be the same, if we prefer Freedom dining on our own and like to eat at varying times, but get allocated first sitting on a table with guests we don't gel with (it has happened) then the combination of that with a potentially poorly located cabin would be money wasted for me. If financially you have no choice, then at least it's an option. But if you are not prepared to risk it then it's only relevant to compare select prices at varying times, which is what I have done.

 

As for cruise TA specialists, logic says that you should be able to get deals, but I get emails and offers from all the big ones and every offer I have seen so far, which they imply are unique to them, have always been P&O offers. P&O are just rubbish at promoting them. I called P&O to book 2 cruises with what I understood from their website to be quite good OBC offers. I ended up with around twice the OBC that I thought I would get for both cruises, which was a nice surprise as I was going to book anyway! I suspect a TA would have knowledge of this and promote it better, implying (though not saying) that the offer is unique to them.

 

I would dearly love it if people could post hard and fast evidence, stating the TA, to prove my theory wrong but, for reasons I fail to understand, forum rules prevent this. I could understand it if this was a P&O owned forum, but it is independent and this would, in my opinion, be the most useful thing that anyone could post!

[Selbourne]

There is no way that I will let any cruise line select a cabin for me, unless it is just for a short 7 night cruise.

Our next cruise is for 24 nights - if on the first night we can hear noise from the public areas, or early next morning we hear the loungers being moved overhead, I can tell you that SHMBO will ensure that the 24 days will seem like 48! Just not worth the risk, however much it might cost!

 

I'm even worse than you. I wouldn't chance it even for a 1 night cruise :)

[terrierjohn]

It is no use booking very early Select fares then checking Select fares months away from your cruise as invariably they always increase in price. The big savings can be made when Saver fares are released and prices do fall a considerable amount and great savings can be made. If you are not bothered about position of stateroom or dining, end of the day its the same food whether you have first, second or freedom dining. Finally don't always check prices just with P&O as lower prices than P&O can be seen online with cruise TA specialists.

Selbourne has already commented on the apples and pears of Select vs Saver, but I would also comment that it has now become difficult if not impossible to obtain anything higher than a 5% discount from a TA against the on line P&O price. However I do agree that you see lots of prices quoted in papers which then end up nothing more than a ploy to get you to ring them.

[Mysticalmother]

Interesting thread....

As I mentioned earlier I have booked a med cruise for August 2018, 19 nights on Oriana. For my grade of Balcony cabin, for the two of us I am paying a total of just over £7000 (Ouch....we are saving hard!) We chose the OBC. On the current OBC offer price, I think we are actually about £50 overall down at the moment...not very happy about that , but that was the choice we made. I wont lose any sleep over £50, especially as we only paid a 5% deposit, as opposed to 15% asked for now....now that is a difference of around £900..!

 

The equivalent cruise in 2017 (but departing 2 weeks later) is currently on Early saver fare offer. If we were to book that now, for the same cabin grade, it would cost us £8598, with no OBC, around £1500 more. To book select fare, with a very similar amount of OBC is currently £9598......£2500more. There are not that many balcony cabins left and I suspect balcony cabins will not go to saver fare..any left will be filled by upgrades. I know I am not actually comparing the same cruise, but the 2017 is still 7 months away.

 

I will keep an eye on the price of the cruise I am booked on, out of curiosity...and should the price really drop, we might find it worth while to cancel, lose our deposit and rebook.

 

As I started with....interesting thread!

[Cappers]

Well,,squash my butternuts,,the Azura cruise I'm watching dropped £100 last night:D

[Southendweather]

M feeling was that with the £ $ situation caused by BREXIT prices would not come down, apart from a last minute deal a few weeks before leaving. In the past I have left it much later. My hunch was correct, on both the cruises I booked early on the prices have since gone up.

 

Unusual for me to gamble the correct way.

 

Keith (Southend)