First time using promo with some "included tours"

[GeezerCouple]

We'll be using some "included tours" as part of our cruise fare for the first time in a future cruise.

 

Does the software automatically select the "most expensive" of the regular (not specialty/excluded tours, IF we chose any of those) priced tours if we select more than the number included?

If not, how do we specify which are part of the package?

 

Thanks.

 

GC

[sitraveler]

Just reserve your most expensive  ($199 and under) tours using your allowance and then go back for the others.  No need to concern yourself with the programming.

[GeezerCouple]

1 hour ago, sitraveler said:

Just reserve your most expensive  ($199 and under) tours using your allowance and then go back for the others.  No need to concern yourself with the programming.

 

It's not the "programming" that we care about.

It's the output from the programming.

 

Your answer isn't helpful for those (e.g., "us") who aren't yet certain which excursions we'd want to take.

 

So back to my original question:

 

Does anyone know if the most expensive excursions are automatically selected as the "included" ones?

Or is it indeed like sittraveler states, that it would be  the first x excursions, even if we later select higher priced ones (such that we end up with more than the x that are included)?

 

Thanks!

GC

[Flatbush Flyer]

53 minutes ago, sitraveler said:

Just reserve your most expensive  ($199 and under) tours using your allowance and then go back for the others.  No need to concern yourself with the programming.

Not necessary.

The booking software is very intuitive!!!

 

Pick as many different tours (both allowable O Life freebies and OS/OE extra cost) as you want (even different between individuals in your cabin).

When you go to your cart to look things over, the most expensive of the allowable "O Life" tours will have $0.00 next to them up to your total allotted number of O Life tours. The remainder will show their prices, which can vary depending on whether you had selected the retail, "Passport" or "Your World" option button at the top. Note that each "option button" has the total cost to you listed next to it. And remember that you can pay a flat fee for the Passport which includes all the least expensive tours plus up to 40% off the OE/OS selections or you must have a minimum number of tours (including your freebies to get the 25% off Your World discount on anything beyond the freebies. Note that you can find the minimum number of tours required for "Your World" specific to your itinerary on the PDF of excursions that you should have received with your Oceania invoice (you can also get that PDF as early as 6 months prior to cruising by calling Oceania (though not all tours may be yet listed that far in advance).

 

In our experience (we most often mix ship and private tours), we've never found the Passport option to be worth the total cost.

 

As for O Life perk choice, we always take the SBC (when we book early- usually onboard before "shopping" TAs for transfer) since,  once we start perusing the tours and find the selected freebies to be a better value than $100 each average, you can call Oceania and have them switch your perk from SBC to excursions (I.e., 1 excursion = $100 or vice versa). And now that you can use O Life SBC to pre-buy tours before embarkation date, you can easily do the math as to which perk gives you more value. 

 

Finally, you can play with the variations on the O website tour software without "pulling the trigger" on purchase. And, if you get confused, you can always call Oceania and they will work it out with you (no need to go through your TA).

[Paulchili]

Easiest way to do it - if you have, for example, three O Life excursions, book three most expensive allowable tours and you will be charged $0. Next time you log in you can add any other excursions and pay for them.

[ORV]

The only issue I see being any need to overthink it would be if you're not sure what tours you're going to take as your free ones but do know that you want to take one of the cheaper ones. You might want to go ahead and lock that in where it don't get sold out before you decide on the others, but you want to pay for it. 

 

Then call O or your TA. 

 

Hope I've made that sufficiently muddy. 

[GeezerCouple]

13 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Not necessary.

The booking software is very intuitive!!!

 

Pick as many different tours (both allowable O Life freebies and OS/OE extra cost) as you want (even different between individuals in your cabin).

When you go to your cart to look things over, the most expensive of the allowable "O Life" tours will have $0.00 next to them up to your total allotted number of O Life tours. The remainder will show their prices, which can vary depending on whether you had selected the retail, "Passport" or "Your World" option button at the top. Note that each "option button" has the total cost to you listed next to it. And remember that you can pay a flat fee for the Passport which includes all the least expensive tours plus up to 40% off the OE/OS selections or you must have a minimum number of tours (including your freebies to get the 25% off Your World discount on anything beyond the freebies. Note that you can find the minimum number of tours required for "Your World" specific to your itinerary on the PDF of excursions that you should have received with your Oceania invoice (you can also get that PDF as early as 6 months prior to cruising by calling Oceania (though not all tours may be yet listed that far in advance).

 

In our experience (we most often mix ship and private tours), we've never found the Passport option to be worth the total cost.

 

As for O Life perk choice, we always take the SBC (when we book early- usually onboard before "shopping" TAs for transfer) since,  once we start perusing the tours and find the selected freebies to be a better value than $100 each average, you can call Oceania and have them switch your perk from SBC to excursions (I.e., 1 excursion = $100 or vice versa). And now that you can use O Life SBC to pre-buy tours before embarkation date, you can easily do the math as to which perk gives you more value. 

 

Finally, you can play with the variations on the O website tour software without "pulling the trigger" on purchase. And, if you get confused, you can always call Oceania and they will work it out with you (no need to go through your TA).

 

Terrific!

Thanks very much.  

 

I figured in this day and age, it was likely that it would be handled this way, but wasn't sure.

And I didn't have enough experience to know that it would also work just looking at the Cart.

 

We've very rarely done ship excursions, but for this particular cruise, it suddenly looked like it might make sense, especially with the lower (promo) price for some of them vs. the regular pricing.  We also usually do private tours, and sometimes with a group from the Roll Call.  It's a *very* port intensive itinerary, and there's no way we are going to arrange (or do) lengthy private tours every day.

 

I should have checked playing with the Cart pricing before asking.  This is our first such "promo" bunch of excursions.

 

Thanks again, and Happy Holidays!

GC

 

 

[GeezerCouple]

3 minutes ago, ORV said:

The only issue I see being any need to overthink it would be if you're not sure what tours you're going to take as your free ones but do know that you want to take one of the cheaper ones. You might want to go ahead and lock that in where it don't get sold out before you decide on the others, but you want to pay for it. 

 

Then call O or your TA. 

 

Hope I've made that sufficiently muddy. 

 

Thanks, and you've identified one of the concerns (actually, the main concern)... if a lower priced excursion might sell out if we "needed to wait" to decide/select all of the higher-priced promo excursions.

 

Thanks again, and Happy Holidays to all!

GC

[Flatbush Flyer]

5 minutes ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

Thanks, and you've identified one of the concerns (actually, the main concern)... if a lower priced excursion might sell out if we "needed to wait" to decide/select all of the higher-priced promo excursions.

 

Thanks again, and Happy Holidays to all!

GC

Remember that you can cancel/add tours once onboard and if the ship cancels one of your O Life tours, you'll get $100 in non-refundable SBC, which can be used for whatever, including different tours.

[GeezerCouple]

1 minute ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Remember that you can cancel/add tours once onboard and if the ship cancels one of your O Life tours, you'll get $100 in non-refundable SBC, which can be used for whatever, including different tours.

 

Thanks.  That's very good to know, about the non-refundable OBC if an excursion is cancelled.

 

GC

[Paulchili]

11 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Remember that you can cancel/add tours once onboard and if the ship cancels one of your O Life tours, you'll get $100 in non-refundable SBC, which can be used for whatever, including different tours.

Here is my question to you. As using OBC to prebook excursions is a new feature, what happens if you have OBC AND O Life. When you start booking excursions, which benefit is used first to pay for them - O Life benefit or OBC?

Previuosly that was not an issue as OBC could not be used for prebooking excursions and O Life was the only way to prepay for the number of excursions you were entitled to.

In other words - if I have 3 O Life excursions and $600 OBC and I book 3 excursions, will they be paid for by my OBC or O Life?

Edited December 22, 2018 by Paulchili

[LHT28]

45 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

Here is my question to you. As using OBC to prebook excursions is a new feature, what happens if you have OBC AND O Life. When you start booking excursions, which benefit is used first to pay for them - O Life benefit or OBC?

Previuosly that was not an issue as OBC could not be used for prebooking excursions and O Life was the only way to prepay for the number of excursions you were entitled to.

In other words - if I have 3 O Life excursions and $600 OBC and I book 3 excursions, will they be paid for by my OBC or O Life?

I  would guess  the free excursions would be first then the non ref OBC  is next  then ant other OBC  you have

similar to using non ref OBC  then refundable

BUT  I would get your TA  to check  😉

[Paulchili]

18 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

I  would guess  the free excursions would be first then the non ref OBC  is next  then ant other OBC  you have

similar to using non ref OBC  then refundable

BUT  I would get your TA  to check  😉

This being such a new issue, I can think of only one TA that would probably know the answer to this 

When the time comes in a few month I will try booking them and see what happens. Maybe in the mean time someone in same situation can post their experience.

[LHT28]

14 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

This being such a new issue, I can think of only one TA that would probably know the answer to this 

When the time comes in a few month I will try booking them and see what happens. Maybe in the mean time someone in same situation can post their experience.

I am sure they would find out for you anyway

[Flatbush Flyer]

2 hours ago, Paulchili said:

Here is my question to you. As using OBC to prebook excursions is a new feature, what happens if you have OBC AND O Life. When you start booking excursions, which benefit is used first to pay for them - O Life benefit or OBC?

Previuosly that was not an issue as OBC could not be used for prebooking excursions and O Life was the only way to prepay for the number of excursions you were entitled to.

In other words - if I have 3 O Life excursions and $600 OBC and I book 3 excursions, will they be paid for by my OBC or O Life?

For trips after May 1, the O Life SBC (if you selected that at booking rather than the tours perks) and (if I remember correctly since I did this a few weeks ago) the O Club loyalty SBC will show on your account page for that cruise. 

If yo selected tours instead of SBC for your O Life perk, you'll not see any indication of that until you get to the tours (cart). You'd only see the O Club loyalty $ (but no "in lieu" $250 for loyalty gratuities if your TA covers them).

 

In any case, if you selected tours as your perk (or later change tours to SBC, if the math works better that way), the cart will use the freebie tours first in reducing your cost and then start biting into your loyalty SBC. Note that TA SBC is nowhere in this equation and you can't not have your loyalty SBC not be subtracted. 

 

So, once you decide to prebuy tours, you have no choice with the order of payment going this way:

1. O Life tours or O Life SBC (interchangeable via phone call

2. O Club loyalty $

3. NO "in lieu" Oceania SBC $250 for TA gratuities OR and refundable TA SBC displayed or used in purchase!!!

3. your credit card billed for the balance due on total purchase after any "package" discount (e.g., Your World 25%) has been applied.

 

 

I hope this makes sense.

 

Edited December 22, 2018 by Flatbush Flyer

[LHT28]

8 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

For trips after May 1, the O Life SBC (if you selected that at booking rather than the tours perks) and (if I remember correctly since I did this a few weeks ago) the O Club loyalty SBC will show on your account page for that cruise. 

 

The  correct  date  is May 19/19   just so those with cruises  before that are not looking for  the OBC in "MY ACCOUNT" section

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/media/2018/OCEANIA+CRUISES+UNVEILS+NEW+GUEST+EXPERIENCE+ENHANCEMENTS+-+More+Convenient+Ways+to+Plan%2c+Save%2c+Spend%2c+and+Travel+are+part+of+OceaniaNEXT/

 

[Paulchili]

1 hour ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

So, once you decide to prebuy tours, you have no choice with the order of payment going this way:

1. O Life tours or O Life SBC (interchangeable via phone call

2. O Club loyalty $

3. NO "in lieu" Oceania SBC $250 for TA gratuities OR and refundable TA SBC displayed or used in purchase!!!

3. your credit card billed for the balance due on total purchase after any "package" discount (e.g., Your World 25%) has been applied.

 

 

I hope this makes sense.

 

If true, that would be good.

We can then still exchange prebooked & prepaid tours for #3 OBC (from TA) once onboard

[ORV]

Sounds about right.