Booking excursions

[amajaa]

If you book your excusions on your booking online before you sail will it come off your onboard credit or do you have to pay as you book?  We have a fair amount of onboard credit to use so was going to book as soon as we board but can see some trips are selling out.  Any advise appreciated.

 

Also I can see a little note when I look at the excusions saying if can find the same trip elsewhere for a lower price they will refund 110% of the price. I haven’t found a cheaper trip but was just wondering if anyone has ever done this?

[joybook]

I can't answer the second part of your post but in relation to booking excursions, I recently booked excursions for an upcoming cruise and yes it was costed against my OBC and as I didn't have enough OBC I had to pay the difference.

[paul929207]

You must pay for the excursion when you book it. If you have OBC, that will go to make the payment. If you don't have enough OBC WHEN BOOKING the excursion, you will need to give a credit card for the payment.

[amajaa]

Okay thanks sounds good. Lots of lines don’t let you use your OBC if you book beforehand. So will get looking and booking. 

[Marvie227]

As to your question about price matching excursions, I have done this for our upcoming Alaska cruise. It wasn't difficult and I received OBC.

[AF-1]

Here is an example for using OBC for excursions.  In Feb we had $800 of credit. We booked four excursions;  on the day the excursion took place; our OBC would be debited.  Same with gratuities.  Each day our gratuities would be debited from our obc account. 

[amajaa]

I’ve just tried booking an excusion, unfortunately because the OBC is against my husband’s name it took the value off the OBC but said I had to pay for mine.  How do I get round that do you think?

[AF-1]

Book both excursions under your husbands account.  Canx your

[amajaa]

7 minutes ago, AF-1 said:

Book both excursions under your husbands account.  Canx your

 

Tried signing in as him and still took the OBC for him and asked me to pay by credit card or Paypal. Guess we will have to wait until we get onboard and hope any tours we want are not sold out. 

Edited April 10, 2019 by amajaa

[AF-1]

Try cancelling your husbands excursion; then go back in and rebook two excursions under his name 

[amajaa]

Just now, AF-1 said:

Try cancelling your husbands excursion; then go back in and rebook two excursions under his name 

 

Not sure if it will let me do that as you have to give the name of the people on the excusion, especially as the stop in question is St Petersburg. Don’t really want to upset Mr Putin & Co.

[voljeep]

12 minutes ago, amajaa said:

 

Not sure if it will let me do that as you have to give the name of the people on the excusion, especially as the stop in question is St Petersburg. Don’t really want to upset Mr Putin & Co.

call Princess or your TA - this question comes up frequently in these forums with unbalanced OBC's and excursions

[amajaa]

Called TA earlier they said put them in your wish list and they will phone Princess. Will post the outcome.

[amajaa]

Well it appears if we both want to book excusions beforehand and pay with our OBC we can’t but we can when onboard in case anyone else is in the same situation. 

[NavyVeteran]

2 hours ago, amajaa said:

Well it appears if we both want to book excusions beforehand and pay with our OBC we can’t but we can when onboard in case anyone else is in the same situation. 

You cannot book an excursion for one passenger online using the other passengers OBC.

 

However, a Princess telephone representative can change the Billing Contact for an excursion to be the other passenger. I have several excursions booked with my name listed as Billing Contact and DW's name listed as Guests. It is actually very easy for them to do - IF YOU GET AN AGENT WHO KNOWS WHAT HE OR SHE IS DONING.

 

I have done this several times. I am a veteran; DW is not. My Carnival stock is held in an IRA so she is not a joint owner. Therefore I have $500 more OBC than she does on a two-week cruise.

 

I normally purchase online all of my excursions with my OBC and those of DW's excursions using her OBC before I call. I then put the remainder of her excursions (to be paid using my OBC) into my shopping cart but do not pay for them. I then call Princess. Some Princess agents are able to look at my shopping cart and transfer the Billing Contact; others don't know how. Those agents can look to see which excursions I am booked on that she is not and book those.

 

Sometimes when I call, I get an agent who knows how to handle this. Sometimes, not. The last time I called, the agent had no idea what I was talking about. She then called someone in Customer Relations who charged my credit card WITHOUT MY PERSMISSION for DW's excursions. I then insisted that she connect me directly with the person in Customer Relations instead of trying to explain (incorrectly) what I wanted. After being connected with Customer Relations, I had to explain exactly what I wanted - the Customer Relations person didn't know she could do this. I then gave her the booking number on another cruise where this had already been done - with cruises with different names listed under Billing Contact and under Guests. After looking at the record for the other cruise, she was then able to make the change and book the excursions without charging my credit card. The only problem is that it took me over an hour on the phone (including time on hold) to get this done.

 

When I've done this, I've found three kinds of Princess agents:

1. Some agents understand immediately. They've done this before, and they do it very quickly and easily.
2. Some agents don't know this can be done or how to do it. However, they are able to learn. When I explain exactly what they need to do (and possibly give them a booking number for another cruise where it has been done), then they figure it out.
3. Some agents are completely hopeless. They don't have a clue. Even after I explain it in detail, they still say they can't do it. The only option with these agents is either to ask for a supervisor or to hang up and call back.

Don't wait until you are onboard. The excursion may sell out. Even if it doesn't sell out, there's still a good change that the price will increase.

 

[JF - retired RRT]

9 hours ago, amajaa said:

I’ve just tried booking an excursion, unfortunately because the OBC is against my husband’s name it took the value off the OBC but said I had to pay for mine.  How do I get round that do you think?

Call Princess and the rep. will rearrange the OBC.

[turquoisesea]

We just did this for our Alaska cruise.  My daughter and I wanted the price of each excursion charged to our own accounts. So, we each went into our own Princess account, selected the same excursion and added it to our carts. When you get to the end the default payment is your OBC. You have to uncheck it if you want to save the OBC for use during the cruise. Any balance must be paid at the time you select your excursion(s). If you put excursions on your Wish List it tells you it is only for 24 hours. Unfortunately it was far less than that 24 hours and I had to enter them again. 

[PoohUnderstands]

13 hours ago, amajaa said:

I’ve just tried booking an excusion, unfortunately because the OBC is against my husband’s name it took the value off the OBC but said I had to pay for mine.  How do I get round that do you think?

I always have $250 less OBC than my DH as he is a veteran.  So for example if I have $200 and he has $450, then when you book tours your own separate OBC is applied to cost.  So at some point, my DH's tour is still free and I have to pay towards mine.  Just the way it works.  Now what usually happens is the little if any left of my DH's goes towards our onboard account when we actually take the trip as both names are tagged to the same credit card.

 

Pooh

[amajaa]

Update on this topic.

 

i decided to phone Princess direct as Travel Agent didn’t come up trumps, partly because they have sent me numerous e-mails recently saying book your excursions now.

 

i phoned the Carnival number in Southampton as it is a normal landline number and not the 0344 number the website gives out ( we pay for 0344 numbers but not normal geographic dialling codes). Pressed the 3 option for Princess and got through straight away to a very nice lady who said of course we can do that, I can do it now. So she booked the two excursions for the two of us and took off my husband’s OBC. Sorted. 

[LessWorkMoreTravel]

To answer your second question, I successfully received OBC for a price match earlier this week.  However, I think it doesn't show up until I'm on-board.

[gwhitti]

On 4/10/2019 at 9:57 PM, turquoisesea said:

We just did this for our Alaska cruise.  My daughter and I wanted the price of each excursion charged to our own accounts. So, we each went into our own Princess account, selected the same excursion and added it to our carts. When you get to the end the default payment is your OBC. You have to uncheck it if you want to save the OBC for use during the cruise. Any balance must be paid at the time you select your excursion(s). If you put excursions on your Wish List it tells you it is only for 24 hours. Unfortunately it was far less than that 24 hours and I had to enter them again. 

If you don’t want to use your OBC, before you sail, for Excursions can you opt to pay for Excursions by CC and save the OBC for on board?

[BoopTennis]

Yes

[land lover]

5 hours ago, LessWorkMoreTravel said:

To answer your second question, I successfully received OBC for a price match earlier this week.  However, I think it doesn't show up until I'm on-board.

Which makes since you need to take the excursion before they will give you credit...actually it will show up as credit before the excursion, but if you cancel it will go away as well. 

 

Have taken advantage of the price G on 2 different cruises, received credit on my OBA. IT is difficult to compare apples to apples but I have probably gained 200 bucks because of my effort, Alaska excursions are the easiest to compare....but to find almost "identical" excursions that have available space on a port day can be a challenge. 

Edited April 19, 2019 by land lover