Buying OBC? Am I missing something?

[DT1304]

Just curious. I see lots of posts about buying OBC.

 

Is that not just prepaying into your on board account or is there some kind of benefit? Could you not just preload money onto your credit card that you use to link to your account?

 

 

[MicCanberra]

Yes it is pre paying, and there are many reasons why it can be an advantage. Some may do it for better budgeting on a holiday, some may do it so there isn't as large a bill on the Credit card (especially when do more travel than just the cruise).  Some like to lock in a currency conversion rate (when buying USD OBC) or like to take advantage of a better one than the daily rate.

We do it for laundering some cash through the Casino as well, we can turn OBC into entertainment and sometimes even into cash (unfortunately it can be a bad conversion method).

Some like to buy Casino credits as well for the same reasons.

[GCHAN]

I am buying some when I am happy with the currency rate. It is a way of locking in the rate at the time.

[Fletch1]

I have bought some OBC with Princess in previous years as it was beneficial when travelling on a ship in US currency. 

 

Princess use to change their exchange rate once every 12 months I think it was (don't know if that is still the case now), regardless of what happened day to day with the exchange rate. So when the current day rate changed, it can be beneficial to buy it at Princess' advertised rate that stayed the same. 

[MicCanberra]

Yes, I remember buying at $0.90 USD when the daily rate was around $0.77. Basically making $500 USD cost around $556 AUD instead of $650 AUD.

[Brisbane41]

For me I always pre load on board credit with Princess. It means walking off the ship at the end of the cruise without the credit card being billed and it prevents the cruise line from doing a pre-authorisation debit on your credit card on a daily basis which does nothing except strangle the limit and reduced the funds you have available for spending. It is more convenient to purchase in advance the credit opposed to purchasing drinks packages, massage packages, food and shopping in my opinion. I allocate as much money in advance that I think I am likely to spend on the cruise.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, MicCanberra said:

Yes, I remember buying at $0.90 USD when the daily rate was around $0.77. Basically making $500 USD cost around $556 AUD instead of $650 AUD.

I did that too. 😊

 

I think Princess is still setting exchange rates twice a year and whatever the rate was at the time you booked stays until embarkation.  Of course it's irrelevant on AUD cruises, and the latest USD onboard cost cruise I've just booked has a rate very close to the current exchange so no benefit there unless the AUD crashes even more.

[MicCanberra]

Yes, it is very disappointing that they have dropped the rate to what is almost the current rate

[jcruizer]

But it is good to have no bill at the end of a cruise especially as we do a land trips at the beginning or end of a cruise....