Ever Transfer Booking From TA to Celebrity

[ldparker]

I know several of you frequently transfer a booking originally made directly with Celebrity back to your own TA. This is usually done if you book while onboard or book to take advantage of some other offer, and I know it can be done easily.

 

I know many of you will think I'm crazy but, has anyone ever gone the other way? I have a reservation booked with an online agency that offers some incentive, however, I would prefer to transfer the booking to Celebrity. I have booked cruises both ways in the past and have found that it is far easier to customize the cruise if I book directly with Celebrity.

 

When you book directly with Celebrity, you have the advantage of customizing your cruise on the Celebrity website. You can order spa treatments, reserve the speciality restaurant, link reservations with other passengers, etc. I know you can ask your TA to do all these things, however, I find it easier to make these arrangements myself on the Celebrity website. I also fine this flexibility outweighs the incentive offer by the TA.

 

Anyone ever transfer their booking from a private TA to Celebrity, and if so, how did you do it?

 

Thanks, David

[aloanldy]

I thought if you had your booking number you could add it to your celebrity page and do all of the things you are wishing to do. Am I wrong?

 

 

Good luck

[ldparker]

The reservation is shown on the website, however, you cannot customize. When you attempt to make arrangements, it simply tells you to contact your TA.

[ocngypz]

You will probably have to cancel and rebook.

[Schplinky]

You may be able to transfer, with a service charge. Thsi is true when you transfer from one TA to another. We are also reserved through an online TA and cannot manipulate our reservation on the X site, either. I will say that in our case, when we send them an email requesting this or that, it is done immediately and we have not had any mistakes.

[canderson]

When you book directly with Celebrity, you have the advantage of customizing your cruise on the Celebrity website. You can order spa treatments, reserve the speciality restaurant, link reservations with other passengers, etc. I know you can ask your TA to do all these things, however, I find it easier to make these arrangements myself on the Celebrity website. I also fine this flexibility outweighs the incentive offer by the TA.

It would be quite the trick. I haven't ever heard of an agency like the one you've used voluntarily giving up a commission, and that's really what's at stake here.

 

Note that you can ADD (online) a Celebrity booking number supplied by your TA to your MyCelebrity list of booked cruises. Note the bit on your initial page that says "Add an Offline Reservation". Plug in your information, and you can do most anything apart from the two items listed at the bottom of this msg.

 

As to your list:

 

Even when a booking was made with a TA, you'll be able to link up to 6 other booking numbers online as well (it's all the spaces the form has available!)

 

Ditto with the specialty restaurant. Even when using a TA, I've been able to call the Captain's Club number and ask for my advance reservation for specialty restaurant dining.

 

You can book the AquaSpa stuff online, even when using a TA.

 

 

The few things you can't do online at MyCelebrity if you have a TA booking:

 

Add/change transportation.

Review your payment summary

[Sky Sweet]

You can do that by booking a new reservation that has a different cabin number with Celebrity and then canceling the existing reservation that you have with your travel agent, but some TA's have their own cancellation fees. Another option would be to cancel your existing reservation first, and then book the same cabin with Celebrity as a new reservation, but that presents a few other potential problems. Since prices are constantly changing you would be canceling an existing reservation without knowing what the current price will be when you book the new one. It is also possible that someone else might book that cabin between when you cancel with your TA and rebook with Celebrity.

[ldparker]

Thanks for all your advice.

 

In the past, I have also had pretty good service from the online TA by simply emailing the request and it is taken care of immediately. Those changes, however, often do not showup on the X web site. I have never been disappointed with a missed request but it would be nice to confirn the change on the X site.

 

As far as adding travel partners on the X site, I see where you can enter their Booking No. but the system will not recognize the request. It simply instructs you to contact your own TA.

 

I certianly don't want to cancel and re-book, I got a very good price last year when I originally booked, and the cost has more than doubled.

 

Thanks again for all the great advice. I'll just stay with my current arrangement.

 

David

[Schplinky]

We asked icruise to link our reservations to our friends and they show up as linked on the Celebrity site now. If you have asked for this, you should be able to verify it on the X site. We were surprised by how immediately we were able to check on this after he did it.

[flashdog_1]

Other things you cannot do either on line or on the phone with Celebrity when you've transfered your booking to a travel agency is 1) correct any mis-spelling in name. 2) buy an upgrade when you see a cabin you want suddenly appearing on the celebrity website, 3) get the new luggage tags or any real proof that you purchased the upgrade. All those things happened to me on my cruise that leaves in 12 days. the TA did nothing about them, just passed them off as 1) an obvious typo, 2) couldn't find her for two days while I lost the opportunity to upgrade. When she did answer my call she had me wait listed for the higher cabin and thought that would be that. Nope, cabins became available that I wanted but she got no call or fax about them. I had to call her again asking her to contact celebrity to grab the sky suite since I could not make the change directly with Celebrity. My reservation stated, "waitlisted, no change can be made" even after I paid for the upgrade and my old cabin was shown as available. I think I'd have done better to have stayed with Celebrity.

 

I really don't know why I switched from Celebrity to a TA. maybe I thought I'd get something free, but all I got were headaches. I had more control when I did the booking directly with Celebrity. I had hoped that if I found a good TA I'd stick with her/him, but it hasn't happened yet.

 

The cruise before this one I also booked thru an on-line travel agent. We have yet to get the price corrected. I see credits and then charges from Celebrity on my credit card account even after final payment. It's "approximately" correct so I'm not going to worry myself to death over $5. I never received an answer from a single email, but he did call me once in a while. Do I need to say that I will not be using that TA again?