Why book with a personal cruise consultant

[shanni-shanni]

Are there any advantages booking with a personal cruise consultant than a TA?

 

Tom

[Krazy Kruizers]

I can't think any as our TA gives us extra perks that a HAL PCC doesn't do.

[ChinaShrek]

They pester the heck out of you until you book a cruise!    My PCC will email weekly and leave phone messages until I either: 1) book a HAL cruise with her; or 2) book a HAL cruise with someone else.  About two weeks after I return from the cruise the "harassing" begins again.  Obviously, she works on commission but it does get annoying. 

[Vict0riann]

1 minute ago, ChinaShrek said:

They pester the heck out of you until you book a cruise!    My PCC will email weekly and leave phone messages until I either: 1) book a HAL cruise with her; or 2) book a HAL cruise with someone else.  About two weeks after I return from the cruise the "harassing" begins again.  Obviously, she works on commission but it does get annoying. 

Strange!  Our PCC never calls except to wish us Bon Voyage, or if I email her to call so I can book a cruise.

[DeeniEncinitas]

Our PCC is like family to us!!! She’s wonderful, and we get special things from her always on our cruise, like champagne, or OBC. Just received a Happy New Year email from her. She helps us when I ask for it as well as marking in her book when things will open up for cruises we’re interested in for future and calls us.

Everyone has different experience from great ones to not!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Denise😊

[ChinaShrek]

7 minutes ago, Vict0riann said:

Strange!  Our PCC never calls except to wish us Bon Voyage, or if I email her to call so I can book a cruise.

 

I wish I had your PCC.  Mine told me that they are required to contact clients until we book or if we tell them that we are no longer sailing HAL.

[VennDiagram]

7 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

 

I wish I had your PCC.  Mine told me that they are required to contact clients until we book or if we tell them that we are no longer sailing HAL.

 

That has never been the case for us.  Think about requesting a new PCC.

[shanni-shanni]

19 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

They pester the heck out of you until you book a cruise!    My PCC will email weekly and leave phone messages until I either: 1) book a HAL cruise with her; or 2) book a HAL cruise with someone else.  About two weeks after I return from the cruise the "harassing" begins again.  Obviously, she works on commission but it does get annoying. 

Same experience for me until I politely asked her to stop doing it.

Tom

[Rowsby]

I appreciate my PCC....I have found the very best prices are on those emails....

 

She has never called us....unless I have requested a return call...

 

I would ask her (your PCC)....to quit calling.....and switch PCC's if she doesn't get the message.....!!

 

 

[richwmn]

ChinaShrek & shanni-shanni, I'm sorry y'all have had bad experiences with PCCs. I have been using the PCC department for inital booking for over 10 years and have never had calls unless I requested them. I have had 3 different PCCs over that time. From everything I have been told, they don't work on commission. The do have goals on number of completed cruises booked, and if your initial booking is with a PCC and then you transfer it they still get the credit they need.

I find working with the PCC I have very easy. She knows my preferences and we get a good reservation to start. She is also very willing to help on price adjustments. When it comes time to transfer, that goes easily as well. Doing it this way seems to be the best of both worlds.

 

Edited January 1, 2019 by richwmn

[oceanmom]

Completely concur with richwmn's comment.

[Cruising-along]

25 minutes ago, oceanmom said:

Completely concur with richwmn's comment.

Ditto.  We do the same as Rich and have had the same great experience.

[GateGuardian]

Not sure if it's the type of room I booked, but booking through my PCC, I've been 2 of 2 getting free upgrades from Oceanview to Spa Balcony two days before embarkation.

[kazu]

9 hours ago, richwmn said:

ChinaShrek & shanni-shanni, I'm sorry y'all have had bad experiences with PCCs. I have been using the PCC department for inital booking for over 10 years and have never had calls unless I requested them. I have had 3 different PCCs over that time. From everything I have been told, they don't work on commission. The do have goals on number of completed cruises booked, and if your initial booking is with a PCC and then you transfer it they still get the credit they need.

I find working with the PCC I have very easy. She knows my preferences and we get a good reservation to start. She is also very willing to help on price adjustments. When it comes time to transfer, that goes easily as well. Doing it this way seems to be the best of both worlds.

 

 

 

Well said.  Completely agree as that has been our experience as well 😉 

[OVgirl]

If you are logged into your account on their website, you can uncheck your communication preference. ie. no phone calls.

[ChinaShrek]

10 minutes ago, OVgirl said:

If you are logged into your account on their website, you can uncheck your communication preference. ie. no phone calls.

 

Great!  I just changed my preference but I doubt my PCC will read or adhere to them.

[OVgirl]

37 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

 

Great!  I just changed my preference but I doubt my PCC will read or adhere to them.

 

I hope it works for you. We never get any phone calls from our PCC unless we initiate it.

[ChinaShrek]

I wanted to circle back to this thread because my PCC has taken another job with HAL, and I do not have a PCC at the moment. However, I just booked a cruise with HAL through their reservations line and had a wonderful experience.  First, I emailed a TA requesting a rate quote on a particular cruise.  I am eligible for the casino rate and I wanted to know if it could be combined with the Early Booking Bonus.  The TA emailed me back and told me what the casino rate was ($2600).  I then asked again about the current HAL promotion.  I was told that this rate did not include any promotions and that the deposit was non-refundable.  He also said there was only one Casino rate.  That didn't sound right, so I then called HAL and asked my same questions.  I found out many interesting things about the Casino rate.  There is both a fully refundable Casino rate (which can be combined with the current promotion) and a Casino rate with non-refundable deposit (which cannot be combined with the current promotion).  I'm not sure if booking with a PCC is necessary but calling HAL was definitely worthwhile.  This TA has booked thousands of HAL Cruises but did not know much about the Casino rate or didn't want to call HAL and ask the right questions. I may transfer the cruise to him for some OBC but I like being able to call HAL with questions.

[oceanmom]

My PCC also transferred to another office at HAL. (I still haven't gotten a formal notice about the change in PCC nor have I heard anything from the new PCC.) So I called the reservation line to make a reservation and it was a total disaster. She didn't know how to do FCDs, I wanted to give my husband's mariner number but she said she didn't need it, so he did not get the FCD OBC, she spent a lot of time mumbling "I don't think I should have done that". When I got the emailed confirmation, I found I was charged for transfers which I specifically declined, along with three other problems. When I called to cancel the reservation, I got a top notch agent. Luckily, this agent asked if I would participate in a survey so she got a top score from me. The first agent never offered the survey--but I have her name written down....

[Randyk47]

On 12/31/2018 at 5:00 PM, shanni-shanni said:

Are there any advantages booking with a personal cruise consultant than a TA?

 

Tom

 

None for us.   

[*Miss G*]

My former PCC was awesome but he abruptly departed the company for reasons unknown. I have a replacement PCC who I am having some adjustment issues with.  Kind of like going from a Neptune Suite to an Inside, complete with sound of deflating balloon.  Time will tell if it’s just a blip or if I’m about to request a new one.

[*Miss G*]

Oh sorry.  I forgot to answer the original question.  The advantages I found with a PCC over a TA were:

 

• I was immediately assigned a good room location with every guarantee booking so I always knew what I was getting.  No surprises!
• I received advice and recommendations without me having to prompt for them.
• I started receiving upsells!  This was huge.
• I was told of upcoming price reductions.
• I received a call before every sailing to ensure there were no concerns and to wish me a Bon Voyage 
• My emails were responded to.  If he was unavailable then he had the person who was covering for him contact me or respond to my inquiry.  Even on evenings and weekends.

[AV8rix]

I've had the same wonderful PCC for 9 years now.  My experience with him has been similar to * Miss G*'s with respect to awesome results from guarantee bookings, upsells, responsiveness, etc, etc.  Don't know what I'd do without him.

[Sharon in AZ]

We have had the same PCC for at least 10 years and have gotten great service.  She calls a few times after our cruise if we have done a future cruise booking but no pressure to really book a specific cruise.  She knows what we like and offers cabins in the category we like and the area of the ship.  We don't get any special gift from her but we always have our OBC from booking.  She checks each offer we have gotten and helps me figure out which one is best.  I do miss our former local TA from years gone by, who I could go see in person and get cruise brochures (that had deck plans for the ships) and get the HAL blue document folder (I have a few old ones somewhere) which had all the documents in it.  I understand only world cruises get those now.  Anyway, I know times change and am very happy with our PCC.

[Hlitner]

We might have the best PCC in the world, but would have no clue as we never use her.  Bottom line is that we can save about 10% with most of our bookings (after netting out OBCs and other amenities) by using any of several decent cruise agencies.  Since we take longer cruises our savings are often in excess of $1000.  Our PCC once suggested we book through her and then transfer the booking to one of our cruise agents, but we cannot see a reason to deal with a two step process.  Now, we generally book online (with one of our favorite cruise agencies) which takes us about 2 minutes and we toast our PCC with some of the money we save :).

 

Hank