Deceitful, misleading 2020 prices from P&O?

[Pet]

Like others I fell into the 10% off at checkout trap, which in reality didn't exist and was just a dubious marketing ploy to suck people into thinking it was best to book quickly in order to get the required cabin and a good discounted price. I have written to P&O but, perhaps not surprisingly, have yet to receive a reply after nearly two weeks so not holding my breath.

 

A cynic might say this was P&Os way of compensating for the automatic removal of gratuities so much trumpeted by them just a week or so earlier. :mad:

[jeanlyon]

I really don't know what you mean. I looked at the price on the P&O site, when I booked I got 10% off? I don't see anything deceitful in that?

[daiB]

Yes Dai, that might explain what happened to us. My TA confirmed prices to me and then on the day I was giving him our deposits, he said that one of them had gone down by £100. Interesting. So my comment above is actually incorrect! One of them came down.

 

 

 

The price did not go down it was that on his website all the discounts had not been applied as they would be different depending on your loyalty level.

 

 

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[Harry Peterson]

I really don't know what you mean. I looked at the price on the P&O site, when I booked I got 10% off?

I know exactly what’s meant because it was exactly the same when I gave advance booking instructions to the TA.

 

There was a mismatch between the prices the TA was quoting and the price on the P&O website at that point. I assumed, incorrectly, that it was just an error by the TA and that it would be corrected on the final booking. It wasn’t, because P&O increased the prices before the date on which bookings opened.

 

You were perhaps lucky but it’s very clear that this trick has been used on many of their customers and Trading Standards may well be investigating.

[daiB]

Like others I fell into the 10% off at checkout trap, which in reality didn't exist and was just a dubious marketing ploy to suck people into thinking it was best to book quickly in order to get the required cabin and a good discounted price. I have written to P&O but, perhaps not surprisingly, have yet to receive a reply after nearly two weeks so not holding my breath.

 

 

 

A cynic might say this was P&Os way of compensating for the automatic removal of gratuities so much trumpeted by them just a week or so earlier. :mad:

 

 

 

I think you are way off the mark as the prices could not be the ones you actually paid as they do not know how much discount to give as it is related to your Peninsular level that is for P&O or TA.

 

Anyway I do not know why people book with P&O as you now always get a better deal through a TA.

 

 

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[jeanlyon]

Well said Dai. It wasn't until my TA put in my Peninsular reference that he got the price and the OBC etc.

[NoFlyGuy]

As I posted on a previous thread, I did two dummy bookings when registration opened and the price quoted at the end was 10% lower than the 'prices from' shown on the original 'more details' page. I also did dummy bookings with and without my Peninsular Club numbers and, as expected, the price varied by 5%

 

Did the same two dummy bookings today now it's a free for all - one has gone up slightly and the other is exactly the same as the first quote.

 

Can't see what the problem is.

[Rupert2251]

Ok let me put it this way...

On 3/9 the price screen price for my cruise was £5318. When I booked on 20/9 it was still £5318 they only gave me an additional 5% off that for past guest saying that 5% had already been included in the £5318. Today the price is still £5318....... Not gone up not gone down, how much would you expect to pay as a past guest??

[Harry Peterson]

Ok let me put it this way...

On 3/9 the price screen price for my cruise was £5318. When I booked on 20/9 it was still £5318 they only gave me an additional 5% off that for past guest saying that 5% had already been included in the £5318. Today the price is still £5318....... Not gone up not gone down, how much would you expect to pay as a past guest??

 

Same situation here, exactly. Some people seem to be struggling to accept that that's what's happened, though. P&O have been very deceitful about this, and more people have been affected by it than they realise.

[daiB]

Ok let me put it this way...

 

On 3/9 the price screen price for my cruise was £5318. When I booked on 20/9 it was still £5318 they only gave me an additional 5% off that for past guest saying that 5% had already been included in the £5318. Today the price is still £5318....... Not gone up not gone down, how much would you expect to pay as a past guest??

 

 

 

So you paid £5318 less 5% for past passenger. That would be correct. The fact that your cruise has not moved from that figure has nothing to do with his at all it just means the sales for the Cruise are what they expected

 

 

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Edited September 24, 2018 by daiB

[daiB]

Same situation here, exactly. Some people seem to be struggling to accept that that's what's happened, though. P&O have been very deceitful about this, and more people have been affected by it than they realise.

 

 

 

Rupert saw a price and paid the price less 5% I don’t see a problem. Until a booking is confirmed the company don’t know if they are selling to a new cruiser or a past cruiser and so give the price before the 5% comes off. Remember all passengers old and new were given 5% this time. That was the daft thing

 

 

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[gillybean1974]

I booked a cruise on Iona for July 2020. I received 5% of the select fare price that was shown on the booking screen. I contacted P&O as on their booking website it states the 10% discount should have been applied at checkout. The told me the same as everyone else, that 5% had already been applied.

 

If this was the way they wanted to run the promotion, they should have stated clearly that the prices had already been reduced by 5%, and not a 5% or 10% discount would be applied at checkout.

 

Its no different to going into a retail store advertising a % off sale and going to the checkout and being told the price is already reduced. Obviously that's against trading standards.

 

I don't think it was P&O's intention to deceive but they should have had their legal team word the promotion a little better. I'm still happy to have booked my cruise and with the price paid regardless

[Harry Peterson]

Rupert saw a price and paid the price less 5% I don’t see a problem. Until a booking is confirmed the company don’t know if they are selling to a new cruiser or a past cruiser and so give the price before the 5% comes off. Remember all passengers old and new were given 5% this time. That was the daft thing

 

 

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The point here, though, is that the prices originally released on 3 September (which were advertised as fixed up to the point at which bookings were possible if you pre-registered) were increased between that point and the point at which you could actually book.

 

Increases after that point are understandable, but prices advertised as being available for the launch day should not have been increased before then - and they only did that because they'd shown them as having a 10% discount available for past passengers, which they later realised should have been only 5%.

 

On 3 September my TA was using a pre-discount price list that was around 5% higher than the price list I could see on the P&O website for the same suite - but the price I could see showed that a 10% discount would be taken off at checkout.

[ohnonotmeagain]

If this bothers people so much,why not take it up with trading standards or some TV consumer programme?

You never know what could happen!

[Harry Peterson]

If this bothers people so much,why not take it up with trading standards or some TV consumer programme?

You never know what could happen!

 

I think you’ll find that’s exactly what’s going to happen if P&O don’t resolve this themselves. And you can add the Advertising Standards Authority to the list.

[bee-ess]

Yes this was confusing, we pre-registered with our TA for a balcony on Iona which on the P&O site dummy booking was shown as 1006pp and when I put in our loyalty number was reduced 5% to 953.

I then phoned the TA and was told that the top price was 1059 which is 953 when reduced by 10%. They said that P&O had reduced all the prices by 5% on their website as every one got that. The TA then reduced the price further.

 

All in all I think P&O would have better advertising the cruise at 1059 and taking off 10% or 5% as appropriate - I think many were probably expecting 10% on the advertised 1006 price as I was, but accepted it once it was explained.

[daiB]

Yes this was confusing, we pre-registered with our TA for a balcony on Iona which on the P&O site dummy booking was shown as 1006pp and when I put in our loyalty number was reduced 5% to 953.

I then phoned the TA and was told that the top price was 1059 which is 953 when reduced by 10%. They said that P&O had reduced all the prices by 5% on their website as every one got that. The TA then reduced the price further.

 

All in all I think P&O would have better advertising the cruise at 1059 and taking off 10% or 5% as appropriate - I think many were probably expecting 10% on the advertised 1006 price as I was, but accepted it once it was explained.

Which is what i said.

 

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[janny444]

Hi...I am totally confused with this thread....it is now being said.....if I have understood correctly... that the advertised price already included the 5% so that when you come to book as a past passenger would receive a further 5%. That wasn't the case for me ...I received the full 10%....I am not top tier...so have I received 15% discount!

Now what docco is saying that on the 3rd September the price was lower than at launch. How many of us actually checked for ourselves the prices on the 3rd September....I didn't....did anyone else check?

[majortom10]

Everybody seems to be getting confused because I think prior to brochure release date there were 2 sets of prices advertised one with 5% already discounted so you only got an extra 5% discount if you were a past passenger and a dearer advertisement where the full price was shown and both 5% discount and then 5% past passenger discount was taken off. Then the only variation in price is if you used a TA who might give you a further discount from their commission.

[Harry Peterson]

Hi...I am totally confused with this thread....it is now being said.....if I have understood correctly... that the advertised price already included the 5% so that when you come to book as a past passenger would receive a further 5%. That wasn't the case for me ...I received the full 10%....I am not top tier...so have I received 15% discount!

Now what docco is saying that on the 3rd September the price was lower than at launch. How many of us actually checked for ourselves the prices on the 3rd September....I didn't....did anyone else check?

 

You've hit the nail on the head there - I was using the prices on the P&O website when I pre-registered with the TA on that same day. They were already aware that there was a discrepancy between 'their' P&O prices and the P&O website prices, but we both assumed the lower prices would be the ones that would apply on launch day.

 

That's not what happened, because P&O increased the prices on their website shortly afterwards - but only those who took a careful note of the website prices on the morning of 3 September (and the wording used about discounts being applied at checkout) will be aware of the increase. Most, if not all, of those saying they received the full 10% discounts are unaware that the 10% discount they're getting isn't really 10% - it's 10% off prices that P&O sneakily increased after they were first announced on 3 September.

[daiB]

Everybody seems to be getting confused because I think prior to brochure release date there were 2 sets of prices advertised one with 5% already discounted so you only got an extra 5% discount if you were a past passenger and a dearer advertisement where the full price was shown and both 5% discount and then 5% past passenger discount was taken off. Then the only variation in price is if you used a TA who might give you a further discount from their commission.

 

 

 

Correct.

 

Only for some cruises it is 5% + 10% as some are Peninsula cruises with 10% of not 5%.

 

 

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[jeanlyon]

For all cruises it was 10% past passenger discount and 5% for new customers.

 

 

Rather than deceitful, I would imagine there could have been an IT cock-up which is normally the case.

 

 

However for my cruise, it worked out exactly as I saw.

[janny444]

Jean....just to clarify....the price you paid at launch worked out exactly the price as you saw it on 3rd September?

[bee-ess]

In my case I didn't register for Iona until 7th Sept and did not see any prices until then, The only prices I saw on both P&O and my TA had the 5% already taken off and I got a further 5% from P&O and a further discount from the TA.

[jeanlyon]

Jean....just to clarify....the price you paid at launch worked out exactly the price as you saw it on 3rd September?

 

Janny, I wouldn't like to swear on my life that was the case, but the price my TA gave me for both cruises seemed to be right. I'll never know now!! It's' still a great price.