CAN I PRERESRVE SHORE EXCURSION WITHOUT PREPAYING?

[tabprincess]

I tried to pre-reserve a shore excursion for my October cruise on the Crown, but it won't let me do it unless I pay for it.  I thought you could reserve now and pay later.  Am I wrong on that?  I want to be sure I use my OBC for the excursion and not a credit card.

[PhoenixCruiser]

No

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[brisalta]

I would recommend as soon as you embark go see if the Excursion counter is open and if it is book there so you can use your OBC.

[tabprincess]

2 minutes ago, brisalta said:

I would recommend as soon as you embark go see if the Excursion counter is open and if it is book there so you can use your OBC.

OK. Thanks!

[casofilia]

Situation changed over 12 months ago.  BUT you can "Reserve" with any OBC you might have.

[Ron the Rev]

No problem purchasing tours with existing OBC

[paul929207]

The problem will be if some OBC is not showing on your account prior to the cruise. It cannot be used to pre-book an excursion. One example is the Loyalty OBC, that shows up a couple of days before boarding at best.

[Coral]

I wish it was how it used to be. There are some things that made Princess a little different than other lines. 

[casofilia]

@Coral

 

I wish it was how it used to be. There are some things that made Princess a little different than other lines. 

 

Don't we all!!!   But I can see the problems it would cause especially if people cancelled the cruise and didn't cancel the shorex and/or turned up on the cruise and didn't cancel the shorex.

[Coral]

2 minutes ago, casofilia said:

@Coral

 

I wish it was how it used to be. There are some things that made Princess a little different than other lines. 

 

Don't we all!!!   But I can see the problems it would cause especially if people cancelled the cruise and didn't cancel the shorex and/or turned up on the cruise and didn't cancel the shorex.

When people cancel the cruise, shore excursions cancelled out. They don't pay the vendors until after the shore excursion - so there really is no need to pay them in advance. Princess is just greedy on this one. Especially how they raise the price once the cruise gets closer.

 

On itineraries that Princess does routinely - Princess knows approx how many they sell each week. It isn't rocket science. 

[Ken the cruiser]

15 hours ago, tabprincess said:

I tried to pre-reserve a shore excursion for my October cruise on the Crown, but it won't let me do it unless I pay for it.  I thought you could reserve now and pay later.  Am I wrong on that?  I want to be sure I use my OBC for the excursion and not a credit card.

One way, if you were hoping to use your TA's OBC, is to prebook your excursion using a credit card. Then once onboard and your TA's OBC is in your account, go to the excursion desk and ask if you can cancel your prepaid excursion, then immediately rebook it. This way the refund posted to your account will be refundable and the rebooked excursion will first use any nonrefundable OBC in your account.

 

The only downfall is if you have over $25 in your account when the cruise ends, you won't be able to get it in cash, but rather it will be sent to you in a check 6-8 weeks later. But chances if you are like us, you'll probably spend it on the cruise paying for gratuities, laundry and/or specialty restaurants.

[NavyVeteran]

2 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

One way, if you were hoping to use your TA's OBC, is to prebook your excursion using a credit card. Then once onboard and your TA's OBC is in your account, go to the excursion desk and ask if you can cancel your prepaid excursion, then immediately rebook it. This way the refund posted to your account will be refundable and the rebooked excursion will first use any nonrefundable OBC in your account.

 

The only downfall is if you have over $25 in your account when the cruise ends, you won't be able to get it in cash, but rather it will be sent to you in a check 6-8 weeks later. But chances if you are like us, you'll probably spend it on the cruise paying for gratuities, laundry and/or specialty restaurants.

I've never had to do this. I pre-book shore excursions using a combination of OBC and credit card. My onboard folio then shows all of the excursions as charges and the prepayment is refundable OBC. Therefore I can use my nonrefundable OBC (even if it was not available when I pre-booked) first and receive a refund for my refundable OBC.

 

My brother on the same cruise had it handled differently. He did not have any OBC, so he pre-booked using credit card only. In his case neither the charges nor the payment showed on his folio (so it would not use any OBC he got later). He then cancelled one pre-booked excursion. After that cancellation, it did not just show the refund for that one excursion on his folio. It showed all of his remaining excursions as charges and his prepayment as refundable OBC.

 

Warning: This was the accounting procedure on a couple of cruises, but Princess can change their accounting procedure at any time.

[Ken the cruiser]

23 minutes ago, NavyVeteran said:

My brother on the same cruise had it handled differently. He did not have any OBC, so he pre-booked using credit card only. In his case neither the charges nor the payment showed on his folio (so it would not use any OBC he got later). He then cancelled one pre-booked excursion. After that cancellation, it did not just show the refund for that one excursion on his folio. It showed all of his remaining excursions as charges and his prepayment as refundable OBC.

 

Warning: This was the accounting procedure on a couple of cruises, but Princess can change their accounting procedure at any time.

I was going on the assumption the OP was going to have OBC from their TA posted to their account once they boarded which they subsequently wanted to use to pay for the prebooked excursions, as you used to be able to do a few years back.

 

At least by securing the desired excursions using a CC, they would then have the option of using their TA's OBC to subsequently pay for the "rebooked" excursions onboard and get the money back from the CC charge in the form of refundable OBC. In your brother's case, he didn't have any OBC to launder where as the OP does, unless I totally misunderstood the OP's issue which is also a possibility.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Ken the cruiser

[Coral]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

One way, if you were hoping to use your TA's OBC, is to prebook your excursion using a credit card. Then once onboard and your TA's OBC is in your account, go to the excursion desk and ask if you can cancel your prepaid excursion, then immediately rebook it. This way the refund posted to your account will be refundable and the rebooked excursion will first use any nonrefundable OBC in your account.

 

The only downfall is if you have over $25 in your account when the cruise ends, you won't be able to get it in cash, but rather it will be sent to you in a check 6-8 weeks later. But chances if you are like us, you'll probably spend it on the cruise paying for gratuities, laundry and/or specialty restaurants.

The other downfall is that on the past few cruises I have dealt with, some shore excursions have gone up quite a bit. One went up $50 more. So if you rebook it on the ship - it will most likely be at the more expensive rate.

[Ken the cruiser]

19 minutes ago, Coral said:

The other downfall is that on the past few cruises I have dealt with, some shore excursions have gone up quite a bit. One went up $50 more. So if you rebook it on the ship - it will most likely be at the more expensive rate.

We saw this on our last cruise as well. We had pre-booked our excursions over a year out and the average price had gone up an average of $30.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Ken the cruiser

[suzyed]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

One way, if you were hoping to use your TA's OBC, is to prebook your excursion using a credit card. Then once onboard and your TA's OBC is in your account, go to the excursion desk and ask if you can cancel your prepaid excursion, then immediately rebook it. This way the refund posted to your account will be refundable and the rebooked excursion will first use any nonrefundable OBC in your account.

 

The only downfall is if you have over $25 in your account when the cruise ends, you won't be able to get it in cash, but rather it will be sent to you in a check 6-8 weeks later. But chances if you are like us, you'll probably spend it on the cruise paying for gratuities, laundry and/or specialty restaurants.

The problem is that they use the obc first and then let you use a cc if there is a balance due after the obc.  The crazy thing is, they don't even really take the obc when you prebook, it all done and paid for once you get on the ship.  I found this out when I cancelled a shore excursion before we sailed and that is what they told me. Even the charges on my cc, they wanted to give me obc for rather than credit my charge card account.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by suzyed

[npcl]

5 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

One way, if you were hoping to use your TA's OBC, is to prebook your excursion using a credit card. Then once onboard and your TA's OBC is in your account, go to the excursion desk and ask if you can cancel your prepaid excursion, then immediately rebook it. This way the refund posted to your account will be refundable and the rebooked excursion will first use any nonrefundable OBC in your account.

 

The only downfall is if you have over $25 in your account when the cruise ends, you won't be able to get it in cash, but rather it will be sent to you in a check 6-8 weeks later. But chances if you are like us, you'll probably spend it on the cruise paying for gratuities, laundry and/or specialty restaurants.

A TA's OBC is also usually refundable. Only those paid by Princess are usually not refundable.   So it most cases not necessary to do what you suggest.  

[Ken the cruiser]

42 minutes ago, npcl said:

A TA's OBC is also usually refundable. Only those paid by Princess are usually not refundable.   So it most cases not necessary to do what you suggest.  

That's not always the case when it comes to a TA's OBC. It all depends on the source(s) of the OBC the TA is offering. But more to my original point, how would you suggest the OP reserve the excursions prior to the cruise and then subsequently pay for them with their TA's OBC without first prebooking them using a CC?

[Lucky TGO]

14 hours ago, Coral said:

I wish it was how it used to be. There are some things that made Princess a little different than other lines. 

I totally agree with you. 👍

Tony

[geoherb]

I had to prepay for the difference in price between the excursion I booked a few weeks before my cruise and the amount of OBC I had available. The amount I paid through a credit card showed up as refundable on my account. I was taking back-to-back cruises and had plenty of OBC to pay for the excursion and gratuities, but Princess only considered the amount of OBC I had for my first cruise--the one with the excursion--instead of looking at my total OBC. It's fine with me, since I'll eventually get a check in the next couple of weeks for the refundable OBC I did not spend.

[ontheweb]

16 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

One way, if you were hoping to use your TA's OBC, is to prebook your excursion using a credit card. Then once onboard and your TA's OBC is in your account, go to the excursion desk and ask if you can cancel your prepaid excursion, then immediately rebook it. This way the refund posted to your account will be refundable and the rebooked excursion will first use any nonrefundable OBC in your account.

 

The only downfall is if you have over $25 in your account when the cruise ends, you won't be able to get it in cash, but rather it will be sent to you in a check 6-8 weeks later. But chances if you are like us, you'll probably spend it on the cruise paying for gratuities, laundry and/or specialty restaurants.

Isn't there one other possible problem---when you cancel and try to rebook, you might find out that there is now a wait list?

[Coral]

15 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Isn't there one other possible problem---when you cancel and try to rebook, you might find out that there is now a wait list?

Yes but you should be able to tell beforehand.

[npcl]

14 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

That's not always the case when it comes to a TA's OBC. It all depends on the source(s) of the OBC the TA is offering. But more to my original point, how would you suggest the OP reserve the excursions prior to the cruise and then subsequently pay for them with their TA's OBC without first prebooking them using a CC?

the point I was making is that if your TAs OBC was refundable, as most of it it, if it is paid for by the TA such as the big box one, and not part of a Princess offering (most of which is accessable) then it makes no sense to cancel to get refundable obc only to use refundable obc. of course anytime you cannot prepay with obc you have to use a CC.

 

Just pointing that a lot of TA obc is already refundable compared to the blanket statement in the posting I responded saying that if one wanted to pay for an excursion with their ta obc...