Celebrity just tried to bump us

[WpgCruise]

Wow. Kindly enlighten us about the first offer you turned aside and the second deal that you took in a flash.

 

The first offer was a move from a 10 day Eastern Caribbean cruise in a balcony to a 14 day Eastern Caribbean, balcony. Problem was the move over offer was to a ship we were not keen on. We would have done it if they were prepared to throw in some more perks but they said no, so we passed, letting them know we were open to further discussion.

 

Second offer which we took was a 10 day Western Caribbean, but instead of a balcony we were offered a Penthouse Suite.

 

I think everybody's circumstances are different, but lesson learned for us was not to immediately get upset but instead see what can be negotiated. If we can work out something that works for both great, if not leave the door open and see what happens.

[drsel]

In my case, the entire ship was sold, so they bumped us off to another ship, sailing out 2 months later!

They offered 100 euros (per person) OBC as compensation plus an extra night in Venice for free.

I wonder if I can get a better deal if I negotiate!

Any ideas, advice or suggestions would be highly appreciated

[RDC1]

My wife got a call from Celebrity last night. We leave in two days for a 10 day Mediterranean cruise. They said that they were over booked for that cruise and they had to bump us (my words, not theirs) on a mandatory basis. We booked this cruise 6 months ago and paid over $6,000 in full several months ago.

 

My wife was devastated. We had been planning this cruise for more than a year to celebrate her 60th birthday and was the most ambitious cruise we had ever taken (6 so far). She could not speak any further to the very polite agent who called, she was shaking and crying. So I took the phone.

 

Their initial offer was full refund of our cruise and airfare (also booked through Celebrity) and a future credit for the same trip less income taxes (presumably such a big payout requires tax withholding).

 

I then asked why us. We had paid in full for a specific room and just got our luggage tags a few days ago. She couldn't tell me. I said we have a contract with Celebrity and this is a breach of contract. She alluded to the mandatory bumping being covered by their terms of service, ie anyone can be bumped in a similar situation. I said that when we booked in March I doubt if it was oversold so why not go to the people who had booked after the ship filled and created the oversold situation. She couldn't answer.

 

So I said forget the future credit as we will never use it given the present treatment by Celebrity and I wanted a $10,000 cash penalty paid. This is similar to what the airlines now do. They offer large cash payouts to buy out a seat in an overbooking situation after the fiasco of the poor guy being hauled off a plane recently.

 

She said she would speak to her management and put me on hold. She came back after about a minute and said due to the distraught situation with my wife, our early booking, etc, Celebrity would rescind the bumping. She offered another $200 in OBCs for our distress.

 

I would have told them to stick it but my wife wanted to still go on the cruise so we took the deal.

 

I find Celebrity's approach of mandatory bumping atrocious. We each have our own restrictions/conditions for making a change and accepting the bump: fixed vacation schedules, etc. In our case I didn't think I could book a replacement cruise through Celebrity this season. The opportunity to go on a Mediterranean cruise this year would be gone for good if I accepted Celebrity's credit offer. That is why I insisted on a cash payout in addition to a full refund.

 

I know it isn't like an overbooked airplane where the flight attendant can make an announcement to everyone saying we are offering X$ if you give up your seat and then increasing the offer until someone takes it. It will take more work, more calls to find passengers willing to give up their rooms voluntarily but this is a much bigger deal than a $300 air plane ticket, 50 times as much in our case. That surely justifies the extra calling.

 

And mandatory bumping almost certainly results in a customer lost forever which was our situation as soon as they told me it was mandatory.

 

So, any similar experiences or thoughts?

 

David

 

Princess handles overbookings by making move over offers (I received one about a week before my recent British Isles cruise). They make the offers to a large number of people, until they get enough to accept. The offer they made was, free cruise (up to 16 days in length), refund of paid fare on current cruise in the form of refundable OBC on the replacement cruise, up to $500 per person for non-refunable expenses, airline change fees, etc. Unlike Celebrities method of involuntarily bumping someone, Princess uses volunteers.

[WpgCruise]

In my case, the entire ship was sold, so they bumped us off to another ship, sailing out 2 months later!

They offered 100 euros (per person) OBC as compensation plus an extra night in Venice for free.

I wonder if I can get a better deal if I negotiate!

Any ideas, advice or suggestions would be highly appreciated

 

If I understand the circumstances, your cruise was cancelled as the ship was sold. As compensation, a comparable cruise was offered along with 100 euros OBC.

 

In this case the options would be to negotiate for a replacement cruise of perhaps a longer duration, a more preferable itinerary, a better stateroom on the replacement cruise.

 

As with any negotiation I'd keep in mind there has to be a "win" for the cruise line, so what would that be?

 

There will be a line in the sand for them, and if there is nothing for them in the negotiation they may well decide that refunding your fare and losing your business is the best option for them.

 

In any deal, it has to be a win/win for both parties, and quite often it helps to explain to the other party why what you are asking for, is a win for them.

[caribill]

 

The way Princess handles this is they put out move over calls / emails. Basically, whomever calls back first and is willing to give up their space is rewarded with another cruise with their payment for the cruise to be refunded as OBC on their next sailing. Oftentimes, it will also come with air change fees and an upgraded cabin for a different sailing. This is the proper way to handle overbookings, IMO.

 

I want to emphasize that accepting the offer is voluntary. Some people will take the offer ("bribe") because their plans are flexible and they do not mind in effect getting a free cruise in a better cabin at a later date.

 

If no one accepts the offer, then the value of the offer is raised until someone is willing to accept it. Best offer I read about was changing a 10 day cruise into two free cruises, both with a longer duration in a higher category cabin and with the original cruise cost as refundable OBC,

 

Sometimes they will make a move down offer. For example if you are in a balcony cabin they might offer to take the same cruise in an inside cabin. Usually at least half the cruise fare is offered back as refundable OBC. If the offer is accepted, the person gets to take the originally booked cruise so that other travel plans such as airline reservations do not have to be changed.

[tonygcharles]

Awful situation . Cruise company's are going the wY of airlines it seems . !?

We had booked to go Asia for my 60th next year .with Rccl . I discovered recent that the had reduced our cruise from 8days (6 stop)to 4 days with complete different itinerary (1 stop ) they tried telling me that's what I booked . After I challanged them. They amitted there was a change of itinerary. They Offered $200 obc to a future cruise .booked in the next 14 days . But my agent I booked with had to deal with it . They didn't contact me until the deadline after me chasing them to sort it . So they apologied to and gave us a further $200 obc and free WiFi on our next cruise

We have now booked a 2 week back to back of NYC to Canada then NYC to Bahamas .

All very frustrating

I would write to them and try to get more compensation. They won't want to lose you

Hope u have a great cruise.

 

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[gold1953]

Hence another reason to use a TA:cool:

 

and the reason I book direct. I can be bribed !! Also I have gotten last minute calls for amazing upgrades

[GStonelake]

and the reason I book direct. I can be bribed !! Also I have gotten last minute calls for amazing upgrades

 

 

 

As a retiree, we are flexible also. Feel so bad for those that are not and miss out on a much needed vacation due to overbooking.

 

 

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[shipshape sam]

I worked for a (river) cruise line for many years in both the moves and changes department (responsible for calling and moving overbooked passengers) and the revenue management department (responsible for laying out the overbooking process) and yes, nearly every cruise line does it. Cancellations are standard and expected so over bookings help to ensure that even with cancellations the ship sails as close to capacity as possible. Occasionally there will not be enough cancellations to cover the overbookings and then you may have to force someone off. There are a whole system of rules usually in place to try and prevent that from happening, with the amount of overbooking space allotted to a departure being reduced as you move closer to departure or if the cancellation rate is coming in less than predicted. We used to also have a timeline as to when we would contact overbooked pax to move, usually no more than 14 days from departure but it could be all the way up to two days prior. They wait that long as they are still waiting for those last minute cancellations to come in. The further out we had to contact pax meant that we had more time to look for people to volunteer to move by offering incentives. If there is no time for that or people are not accepting offers then you may have to do a forced move which is a last resort. There is huge money in this though as the cruise line has a profit plan for the year which is based on each departure reaching a certain occupancy level (it was 98% for the ships I managed). Once that level is achieved every passenger you book above that point is pure profit plus all the additional income received from them for onboard purchases, excursions, etc. So it is very important for the cruise lines to hit those high occupancy levels as it could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit per sailing.

 

Also note that sometimes overbookings can be caused by other reasons like a cabin going out of order due to a maintenance issue at the last minute, an inventory allotment error in the system, having to have unexpected officers or executives on board the ship at the last minute who require a cabin, etc.

 

 

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Would like very much if you could provide some insight, especially since you were a manager, as to how you handled move overs and specifically:

 

1) assuming it was purely an overbooked situation, how did you identify your target passengers to call?

2) how did you decide what to offer?

3) how did you handle objections?

4) did you provide guidance to your employees as to what to offer and how/when to escalate or sweeten the offer?

5) anything else that would enlighten us as to how we should maybe handle a move over call, knowing that our circumstance will be different. For example, are there any clarifying questions we should be asking and depending on the answers from cruise line, how we should respond.

 

I am still confused as to how you can sell a cabin more than once. That should be illegal! Assuming that though, you would think the second sale is the move over target.

 

I can only think that the pure overbooking issue arises with the cabin category guarantee promotions AND should come with a warning. Even then, when a customer books a guarantee cabin category, they should at least remove one from the available room count. But then that would not be overbooking.

 

I can see that there are issues at times with a cabin that does not allow them to have the booked passenger use the cabin, i.e. it is unusable for that sailing. But you would think the cruise line would call that passenger and tell them the reason and the options.

 

I would think too, based on ALL the profits cruise lines are making due to overbooking, it would be smart to offer a completely free next cruise in same category IF this does happen to a passenger compared to the many cabins that do end of being sold due to overbooking.

 

Finally, I would love to know what a cruise line corporate shirt thinks that losing a customer for this type of reason is good business sen$e. There are a number of reasons for losing customers, but I would think treating them poorly when the passenger has done NOTHING but try to utilize the companies product/service seem short sighted. I would also say too, that we all do tell our stories and a negative one goes beyond just the passenger effected.

 

I can tell you that I influence many people to use/not use products and services all the time as I am sure many others do too. I can only guess that business is too good right now for the cruise industry if you can just throw away customers as was suggested.

Edited September 16, 2017 by shipshape sam

[H2OH!]

Princess handles overbookings by making move over offers (I received one about a week before my recent British Isles cruise). They make the offers to a large number of people, until they get enough to accept. The offer they made was, free cruise (up to 16 days in length), refund of paid fare on current cruise in the form of refundable OBC on the replacement cruise, up to $500 per person for non-refunable expenses, airline change fees, etc. Unlike Celebrities method of involuntarily bumping someone, Princess uses volunteers.

 

If I am ever bumped by Celebrity, I will never sail them again (not kidding). Sounds like Princess has the right approach! Well done Princess, shame on you Celebrity...put your process improvement hat on and find a better...look at best practices like princess. Is a win-win for all involved.

 

 

so sorry to the OP for they way they were handled. :mad:

[hcat]

Not to mention the uncertainty created in future cruisers who read this thread...leaving 9/29 for a 10/1 cruise out of LA...We booked our air with SW over Jet Blue just in case they scr*w us. ( easier to cancel SW) Hard 2 imagine they'd bump anyone 2 days before Sailaway!

 

Our Jan cruise on Silhouette was supposedly overbooked all along. Thought once we make our final pay in Nov we'll be safe...but guess not!

 

Disappointed Celebrity Cruise rep has not joined in this conversation.

[Wiltonian]

 

Disappointed Celebrity Cruise rep has not joined in this conversation.

 

Probably because it's an indefensible policy. Perhaps we should ALL add a comment on every one of their postings on Celebrity's fb page, "Interesting, but how many fully booked and paid-up passengers have you compulsorily bumped off in 2017?"

[hcat]

We don't do fb but that's an idea...also if this thread stays on CC maybe it will be noticed

 

We won't be crushed if the Jan cruise is yanked because we had signals it is/ was overbooked and there is a large " mystery" group on board, supposedly. We .Love Silho, have a great AQ cabin, great price but we can't get excited til we are actually at the SAILAWAY....

 

Our upcoming Ca cruise has involved alot of pre planning and pent up enthusiam...That would really be major upset.....and the end of our relationship with X

[JTSpitfire]

HCAT---

 

Are you referring to the 14 January Silhouette sailing? If yes, can you offer any additional details? That sailing has a motorcycle group on board, but I'm not sure how large it is.

 

Thanks!

[Living4acruise2day]

In my case, the entire ship was sold, so they bumped us off to another ship, sailing out 2 months later!

They offered 100 euros (per person) OBC as compensation plus an extra night in Venice for free.

I wonder if I can get a better deal if I negotiate!

Any ideas, advice or suggestions would be highly appreciated

If you check your thread on "Ask a cruise Question", you did not tell the whole truth or story. I think you should stop asking everyone how you can get more money. THIS thread is written by someone honest and you hijacking it with lies is very uncouth.

[hcat]

HCAT---

 

Are you referring to the 14 January Silhouette sailing? If yes, can you offer any additional details? That sailing has a motorcycle group on board, but I'm not sure how large it is.

 

Thanks!

 

We are on the 26th..Silho...it also has a Motorcycle group, not that large...a charity group, large group from the Villages and others.

 

 

Our concerns began when a cruise sales rep told a roll call member there was a very large Greek group..we never could track it..Royal has a lg Greek group ( ethnic greek not fraternity greek) but no one could find any such group on our cruise...

 

 

Our sailing was frozen for new bookings for awhile due to overbooking, then restored but only

insides were available and Celeb assured everyone no one would be bumped..those with category guarantees now have rms..final payment is Nov...

[JTSpitfire]

Thank, HCAT.

[Gitte]

From which ship and sailing are you overbooked, There are a lot of ships fully booked for the Med cruises in September and October. Our friends still waiting for confirmation of their guarantee stateroom. We are worried now.

[Gitte]

:confused:

[Iamthesea]

If you check your thread on "Ask a cruise Question", you did not tell the whole truth or story. I think you should stop asking everyone how you can get more money. THIS thread is written by someone honest and you hijacking it with lies is very uncouth.

 

:confused: Confused on why you say that drsel lied and did not tell the whole truth? I looked at the "Ask a Cruise Question" and see where he mentioned his cancelled cruise on Costa. So it's not Celebrity, but did he lie and say it was? Perhaps I am missing something. :confused: However, I do agree that trying to get something more from Costa is tacky. Especially since his cruise was cancelled more than a year out...before final payment and many other arrangements (like air) could be made. :rolleyes:

[phoenix_dream]

If you check your thread on "Ask a cruise Question", you did not tell the whole truth or story. I think you should stop asking everyone how you can get more money. THIS thread is written by someone honest and you hijacking it with lies is very uncouth.

Not arguing your first point, but wondering how we know THIS thread was written by someone honest? Not saying they are honest or not, but do you know them? Do you know if this actually happened or if they are someone with some kind of grudge against Celebrity for an unknown reason (not saying they are, but I wouldn't know). Truthfully, posts on these boards have convinced me that if anything Celebrity tends to bend over backwards to attract first time cruisers (for example, most upgrade fairy visits you read about are first time cruisers) so it seems odd to me that they would pick a first time cruiser to bump.

 

If this truly did happen, it is awful and handled terribly and in that case I feel for the OP. I am against the overbooking anyway, and if by some chance it happens they should know where they stand by the time of final payment which is a couple months prior to sailing. To wait until two days before is totally unacceptable, with the one exception being if there were some big maintenance issue which happened last minute. That does not sound like the case this time. Even then, they should be making offers to people to cancel or transition to another cruise until enough people accept rather than bumping anyone. It is awful when airlines do it, but at least in those cases there is usually another flight very soon that in the vast majority of cases will get the passenger where they need and when they need to be there.

[ridgerunner51]

Two days notice

.Are they serious. Why did they want your cabin?

 

If it was a case of overbooking, they should give you or the next prospective victims an officer's cabin and double them up,.,Outrageous.....why not bump the recently booked or those with just a guarantee..whatever that means..but even that would be too cruel and way to short notice,..If it was overbooking, accepting more final payments than they have rooms to fill sounds very close to an ilegal practice...like selling 1000 tickets to a concert or game when you only have 500 seats,,...????

 

There have been several reports ofnoverbooking with last minute bumping quite recently on X...( use search) .We are on a known overbooked cruise for Jan on Silhouette,,,they keep assuring everyone we wont be bumped but no one trusts them and this shows why.

 

Hope OP has a nice cruise..hope others post on other soc media that Celeb follows...and would live to know what happened..

 

 

We no longer book cruises that involve and non refundable hitels air etc..not worth the potential aggravation

 

How do you know your cruise is overbooked?

[rwb]

Wow. Just wow.

 

We always choose one of two specific cabins on the pool deck and the "hump" (of Solstice-class ships). And we book many months in advance in order to get that particular cabin. I just paid in full for a 12-night holiday cruise in December that we booked a year ago. I am astounded to learn that someone else is able to book the exact same cabin. And that I could be bumped by someone who booked long after I did. Sounds like a great topic for the next stockholders meeting.

[WonderMan3]

Would like very much if you could provide some insight, especially since you were a manager, as to how you handled move overs and specifically:

 

1) assuming it was purely an overbooked situation, how did you identify your target passengers to call?

2) how did you decide what to offer?

3) how did you handle objections?

4) did you provide guidance to your employees as to what to offer and how/when to escalate or sweeten the offer?

5) anything else that would enlighten us as to how we should maybe handle a move over call, knowing that our circumstance will be different. For example, are there any clarifying questions we should be asking and depending on the answers from cruise line, how we should respond.

 

I am still confused as to how you can sell a cabin more than once. That should be illegal! Assuming that though, you would think the second sale is the move over target.

 

I can only think that the pure overbooking issue arises with the cabin category guarantee promotions AND should come with a warning. Even then, when a customer books a guarantee cabin category, they should at least remove one from the available room count. But then that would not be overbooking.

 

I can see that there are issues at times with a cabin that does not allow them to have the booked passenger use the cabin, i.e. it is unusable for that sailing. But you would think the cruise line would call that passenger and tell them the reason and the options.

 

I would think too, based on ALL the profits cruise lines are making due to overbooking, it would be smart to offer a completely free next cruise in same category IF this does happen to a passenger compared to the many cabins that do end of being sold due to overbooking.

 

Finally, I would love to know what a cruise line corporate shirt thinks that losing a customer for this type of reason is good business sen$e. There are a number of reasons for losing customers, but I would think treating them poorly when the passenger has done NOTHING but try to utilize the companies product/service seem short sighted. I would also say too, that we all do tell our stories and a negative one goes beyond just the passenger effected.

 

I can tell you that I influence many people to use/not use products and services all the time as I am sure many others do too. I can only guess that business is too good right now for the cruise industry if you can just throw away customers as was suggested.

 

 

 

Lots of questions here; will do my best to answer...

 

1. We would first run a list of all pax on the sailing. We would start with pax booked in the category that was overbooked. We would eliminate anyone traveling with pax in another cabin, save for less frequent instances where more than one cabin needed to be moved. (We generally staggered them, 21 days out, 14 days, 7 days, etc. with hopes that cancellations naturally reduce the overbookings as we got closer to departure). We would also eliminate anyone who had not booked airfare with us as their tickets would not be changeable without huge fees and it would be a big hassle for them. We would then eliminate any of our frequent travelers (traveled with us 3 times or more) as the company executives did not want us to disturb them. (This was a point of contention for us making the calls as it was much easier for us to get a frequent traveler to accept an offer as they knew and trusted us vs. someone who was traveling with us for the first time) We would also review comments in the records of remaining pax on our list to see if anyone had issues with their booking and had been complaining to customer service as we know they would likely not be open to offers. We also generally had to stay away from people flying from smaller airport home cities (like say Tampa or Orange County) and focus on major home cities (like MIA, LAX, NYC, etc.) This was because of air costs; when moving pax to another departure it was easier to find a choice of flights and fares from the bigger cities. This sometimes made it a very small pool of people to choose from. Also, we always identified the person who would be a forced move first thing and did not contact them as we never wanted to call someone twice. I would always try to base it on last person booked (they normally didn't have a cabin assignment) but sometimes I couldn't if they were a frequent traveler or were traveling with people in other cabins; those people could not be force moved.

 

2. When I was making calls to pax we had great leeway in the type of offers we could make. The company tightened the belt over time and made very strict rules on what could be offered based on how far from departure or how far someone would have to move to another sailing. It failed to take into account what the pool of available pax to contact was though; the more people you had to choose from the more likely you were to find someone to accept an offer so you could start lower. An easy move was offering a pax to move to a sailing within 3 days of their original. You could sometimes get away then with just giving them a free cabin upgrade. Or maybe just $150pp in future travel credit if in the same category or maybe a combination. Things got more complicated if you could only offer something several weeks away, or say late August/September departures where the later you move the less pleasant the weather becomes. Of course less desirable travel times were also cheaper so pax would get a refund of cost difference on top of any incentive we offered. The direction of travel was also another spoiler as some people only wanted to travel Amsterdam to Vienna not the reverse for example. Air costs had to be kept in mind so we had to send a list of pax with the new sail date we wanted to move them to over to our air department so they could review and advise costs. If it was too high (usually more than $500) then I had to skip those people. I would always start low with my offers with my initial calls. If I could sense that I had someone on the phone who would accept by giving them just $100 more or so then I would try that, otherwise I'd move on. Some savvy pax would try to get me to go much higher with the offer but I wasn't allowed. I would make note of their name and come back to them if I couldn't find anyone else. Most moves were voluntary. Forced moves were a last resort. If it came to that we always had a recommended sailing we wanted them to move to but the choice was theirs. They could always cancel with a full refund plus get a future travel credit on top of that. If they accepted the move the offers varied again based on how the customer accepted the change but were obviously much higher than a voluntary move, usually in the $1000pp future credit range. Eventually when the company reached a point where they did far fewer overbookings (more of the costs not being worth it rather than customer feedback) then any forced moves got a free cruise.

 

3. If it was voluntary and there was a large pool to choose from then you accept their no and move on. If I had fewer people to call then I might try to negotiate and up the offer a bit to see if they'd bite. People were generally pleasant and some excited to receive an offer. A few grumpy gusses would go off on a rant about why we were overbooking, etc. I always started the conversation by talking about the offer and get them interested before advising why we were offering or talking about moving dates. Always better to start with a positive than a negative. Forced moves were always an unhappy call of course. You had to unfortunately start with the bad news first but then quickly get to the incentives they would be getting to soften the blow. Most did not take it well. I had people scream at me or cry, many wanted to talk to a manager at a higher level (which usually did no good). A very few times we had to back down and find someone else when they called in a connection they had to an executive at the company. It was easier to get them to accept it if we had another sailing to move them to a few days later. Some of those calls wound up ending positively when they realized all the incentives they were getting for just traveling a couple days later. You could never predict people's reactions.

 

4. Like I mentioned above, when I started on the phones our offer guidelines were loose. To try and reign in costs official offer guidelines were later established. When I transitioned from moves and changes calls to revenue management now I was responsible for the number of overbookings added and deciding when they get removed and what the offer guidelines would be. We would modify offers based on feedback from the agents on the phones based on what was or was not working. We would push back on them when we saw them spending too much money as we were responsible for that budget. I would share my own best practices from my time on the phones with newer agents as they would come on to the team.

 

5. Basically if you are in a forced move situation then you want the cruiseline to not leave you disadvantaged. So any expenses that you may have incurred that are non-refundable like air tickets, travel insurance, tours, hotels, you need to make them aware of and make sure they compensate you for it. It never hurts to ask for something more too than what they are offering like maybe a higher cabin category, etc. Be honest about your situation though. If you truly cannot travel on any other date then make sure they know that this was a once in a lifetime cruise and try to get them to change their minds even if it means asking to speak to a supervisor. But if you can be flexible then go with it and take advantage of the offer. Always be firm but I would not recommend being rude and angry and yelling at the agent on the phone. They are just doing their job and putting them on the defensive will not help things.

 

 

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[cruisequeen4ever]

My oh my, OP; I'm so so glad you still get to go!! That was abysmal customer service; they should have made moveover offers like Princess Does, so someone who would actually want it could take advantage of it, leaving you who really want to go to enjoy your cruise. Since it's 2 days later, you must now be onboard; have a fabulous cruise!

 

 

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