Cruise price went down. Can't get onboard credit once cruise is paid for

[AAAAmerican]

On 11/16/2019 at 10:00 AM, Shaded Lady said:

So I have a question- I just did a mock booking for my  cruise... I have a pretty specialized cabin- an aft wrap- and nothing shows up as available. The closest comparable cabin (aft view) is quite a bit cheaper than mine.  I know that Carnival doesn't always list their full inventory on the website so my question is.... how likely is it that I'd find one of the aft-wrap cabins available if I called Carnival or my PVP?

 

FYI I don't really use my PVP anymore because, besides being with Carnival for a long time, I found her pretty useless in the past to help with any questions or issues, so I decided to just book it on the website. In other words, I can't count on her to answer this question with any degree of certainty, so I decided to ask you all instead!

 

I'm pretty happy with the rate I got, so I'm not too concerned if I never get a price drop... I just don't want to leave any money on the table, if you get my drift!

Dear Shaded Lady,

 

Dealing is always best with a Professional. EG Dealing with an M.D. usually has better results than with a R.N. , similar using a ASTA member Travel Agent prodided so much more for youall.

[TOMTOMRN331]

I was reading the low price guarantee and it states must be claimed within 48 hours? Is this true? I paid off our cruise in September and did a mock booking tonight and it is about $100 cheaper for the same room category. Thoughts? 

[rukkian]

On 11/16/2019 at 10:55 AM, Organized Chaos said:

 

If the closest comparable cabin isn't a category match, it won't work. They have to be the exact same category. If you don't trust your PVP to give you the right answer, then it really wouldn't hurt to talk to one of the regular customer service reps. They aren't always the most reliable either, but in your case, you might be better off.

 

Have you tried other decks to see if your category is available somewhere else? I use the cruisedeckplans website a lot for that (CC will block it if I try to link to it). You can look at a particular category and see all of the decks those cabins are on. Even if it's sold out on your deck, it might be available on another.

 

There's been a lot of talk about how we, as customers, don't see all of the available cabins on the website at any given time. Maybe that's how it actually is, but in my experience, there's other factors at play. Many have said the website will only show us 10 cabins, but there's been times when I've seen more. Also, every time I've been on the phone with our PVP, or even a customer service rep., looking at cabins, I've pretty much seen what they saw. The big difference is, when we do a booking on Carnival's website, it isolates cabins that fit our chosen criteria, like cabin capacity. When we were looking to book our cruise next month, there were limited cabins left and we were trying to pick the best out of the bunch. I called our PVP to get his input on which one he thought was better. Yes, he was able to see more available cabins on his screen, but in the process of talking about them, what we discovered was that he was seeing all of the available cabins, including ones that didn't fit our search criteria. For example, he thought he found us a better one that didn't show up for us, but it turned out to be a 2-person cabin and there's three of us. The website had filtered that one our for us. So I'm just wondering if the thought that they see more than we do comes from fact that what they're seeing isn't filtered according to our search criteria.

I can tell from experience, that on the TA site for carnival, searches are much easier, showing all possible rate codes and all room types on one screen, but from what I have seen there are not more rooms shown overall for a given type, it just shows more, much easier than the consumer site.  This shows you are probably correct in many instances, since the consumer side typically filters out to try and make it easier and give users a quicker option to just get it booked.

[jennas_mum]

4 hours ago, TOMTOMRN331 said:

I was reading the low price guarantee and it states must be claimed within 48 hours? Is this true? I paid off our cruise in September and did a mock booking tonight and it is about $100 cheaper for the same room category. Thoughts? 

 

It depends on how you booked it and if you are past final payment.

 

Did you book early saver? Are you past final payment? 

 

 

[TOMTOMRN331]

5 minutes ago, jennas_mum said:

 

It depends on how you booked it and if you are past final payment.

 

Did you book early saver? Are you past final payment? 

 

 

Yes I am past my final payment which was 10-9. Cant tell if I booked early saver or not. 

[jennas_mum]

1 hour ago, TOMTOMRN331 said:

Yes I am past my final payment which was 10-9. Cant tell if I booked early saver or not. 

 

It doesn't hurt to call and ask. I would definitly give it a shot! 

 

[Organized Chaos]

I checked our cruises for possible price drops today and discovered that our cruise next year is now $380 more per person than what we paid. 😲 🤑 Guess we booked that at the right time.

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

On 11/8/2019 at 8:00 PM, DryCreek said:

I bet that I wouldn't be able to avail myself of this benefit since our cruise is booked through a TA (using credit card points).

Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.  It depends on the rate code the TA uses.  Even when they math the carnival.com price to the penny, the TA will often (maybe always?) use a different rate code than the GP code.  I've had both experiences (I asked at the time of booking, and was told the rate rules).  

 

The one time I booked with credit card points, I was able to get a price drop (actually got 4 price drops) for a total of a few hundred dollars.  All were after I paid in full.

 

First and third price drops I was told the refund must be in OBC.  The 2nd time I was told it had to be a credit card refund (which went through within a week).  The fourth one was really strange.  We had 2 cabins.  For one, it had to be OBC, but for the other it had to be credit card refund.  TA couldn't explain why, they said it was just the rules that the computer spit out when they did the price adjustment.

[Eli_6]

Is the price protection for all available rates or is it dependent on the one you book? (I.e. early saver excluded.)

Edited December 12, 2019 by Eli_6

[rukkian]

21 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

Is the price protection for all available rates or is it dependent on the one you book? (I.e. early saver excluded.)

Each rate code has different rules, but normally early saver is the only one that gets price protection after final payment, that is one the benefits for booking that rate and agreeing to the rules (no name changes, non-refundable deposits).