Coincidence? Best Sale Ever Price Increase

[RDJ]

I am booked using the sip and sail promotion already. But I don’t understand the concept of an ‘add on’. How do you obtain a newly offered perk without rebooking?

[CruiseVA]

https://book.princess.com/pdf/onesource/pc/sales_marketing/PC_Best_Sale_Ever_Retro_Guidelines_FINAL.pdf

 

[voljeep]

1 minute ago, RDJ said:

the concept of an ‘add on’

completely new to Princess … and as such, TA's, PVP's and customer reps …  cruise critic followers of Princess have a much better understanding than they do … as sad as that is ...

[RDJ]

Thanks, sounds like it doesn’t really makes sense to do as we already have the drink package and I don’t see the option to just add on gratuities and WiFi.

[cruzsnooze]

I checked my Canada New England 16 night cruise and my window suite cabin went up over $2200 PP is that insane? Plus it's not even on the best ever sale, no perks whats so ever.

[Ombud]

I had 45 minutes of a frustrating call. I wanted it under 'best price ever' fare but my PVP support person wanted me to choose 'BEST.SALE.EVER' fare which just happened to be $750 more. Yup. The gratuities are $261 and I prefer my wine. Not using up $490 on internet (I log on / download / log off / respond / log on to send / log off) which typically runs me 1-2 minutes each time. And I cannot imagine what $490 corkage fees would represent (it's just 18 days so I'll bring 3 bottles on and buy less than a glass a day)

 

45 minutes of tying up their time. I'm off today

 

And my PVP always comps me a dinner & excursion OBC. 

[CruiseVA]

3 minutes ago, Ombud said:

And my PVP always comps me a dinner & excursion OBC. 

My PVP comps me nothing! PM me your PVP!

[kywildcatfanone]

4 minutes ago, Ombud said:

I had 45 minutes of a frustrating call. I wanted it under 'best price ever' fare but my PVP support person wanted me to choose 'BEST.SALE.EVER' fare which just happened to be $750 more. Yup. The gratuities are $261 and I prefer my wine. Not using up $490 on internet (I log on / download / log off / respond / log on to send / log off) which typically runs me 1-2 minutes each time. And I cannot imagine what $490 corkage fees would represent (it's just 18 days so I'll bring 3 bottles on and buy less than a glass a day)

 

45 minutes of tying up their time. I'm off today

 

And my PVP always comps me a dinner & excursion OBC. 

Is this because you are booking an expensive cabin category?  My TA usually gives me $50 in OBC and $50 off the price, but I'm usually booking inexpensive inside cabins. 

[Ombud]

I'm a solo in balconies. Maybe she feels sorry that I'm assessed a solo penalty? I used to just get a coupon book (useless for solos) but this year I've been getting dinners & either $25 or $60 OBC. And that $25 was for the 1 cruise I didn't book thru her.

 

Chris, looking for your email. I've got it somewhere or will get back to that East Coast cruise ..... think it's there

[crystalspin]

My CVP commented that adding perks to standing reservations was all new, but she had no problem doing it. (I did specify the two different codes along with my four booking numbers in my email to her; I like to make her job as easy as possible).

 

I did it entirely by e-mail last night, allowing her to get to it when she had some time -- apparently the phone hadn't started ringing when she read my e-mail because she had it all done by the time I checked my mail today.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, Ombud said:

I had 45 minutes of a frustrating call. I wanted it under 'best price ever' fare but my PVP support person wanted me to choose 'BEST.SALE.EVER' fare which just happened to be $750 more. Yup. The gratuities are $261 and I prefer my wine. Not using up $490 on internet (I log on / download / log off / respond / log on to send / log off) which typically runs me 1-2 minutes each time. And I cannot imagine what $490 corkage fees would represent (it's just 18 days so I'll bring 3 bottles on and buy less than a glass a day)

 

45 minutes of tying up their time. I'm off today

 

And my PVP always comps me a dinner & excursion OBC. 

I guess you could say that Princess has added to the confusion and hub-bub by rolling out additional pricing plan display to what we have been used to seeing.  This whole topic came up when Princess first experimented earlier this year by posting up new sales promotions with Non-Refundable Deposits (NRD).  We were all up in arms over that one.  But of course it was not as big a change as thought because Princess always had NRD fares - we were just presented with the RD fares.  And the RD fares were still around.  In addition to that Princess has stripped-down basic fares with no benefits/goodies attached.  These fares also come in RD and NRD versions, typically.  

 

While TA's and Princess agents can see ALL the options, and some TA booking sites also show all the pricing plans, customers using the Princess website could only see one pricing plan - the one Princess chose to show us. 

 

The NRD "experiment" quickly died and Princess is back now to showing RD fare plan.  However, many folks suggested or thought it would be good if we could see more options on Princess.com.  I guess Princess has updated their system to show us TWO pricing plans now.  In their wisdom(?), they decided to show us the "stripped down" basic fare with no benefits as an alternate. 

 

So picking "BEST PRICE" option shows you the basic fares with no benefits nor sales options and you cannot do anything with these other than purchase things through Cruise Personalizer or on-baord. 

 

Picking "BEST VALUE" shows you what we have always been used to seeing - the latest current sale situation with any promo benefits included. 

 

Hope this helps.  You are not going to be able to add-on BEST2XX packages to a basic stripped down fare.  You can buy the PBP in the Personalizer at full price.

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by steelers36

[Steelers36]

Fares always go up a fair (get it?) bit whenever a promo start that includes the PBP.  Nothing is truly free.

 

[Ombud]

Agreed. I get a lot of OBC even with a basic fare. And I don't need / want PBP. Just give me the best refundable fare + shareholder OBC + loyalty OBC + FCC + elite benefits.  That's what she couldn't understand. If I wasn't paying corkage it might've made sense (free gratuities + PBP + Internet). Waiting to see if PVP can add with this fare or if this as good as it gets 🤑

[Steelers36]

5 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Agreed. I get a lot of OBC even with a basic fare. And I don't need / want PBP. Just give me the best refundable fare + shareholder OBC + loyalty OBC + FCC + elite benefits.  That's what she couldn't understand. If I wasn't paying corkage it might've made sense (free gratuities + PBP + Internet). Waiting to see if PVP can add with this fare or if this as good as it gets 🤑

Yeah, I usually bring my own wine on - especially for PE, FL cruise departures.  Last cruise I figured about $10/day for wine costs, including "corkage" (my waiter seemed to lose the slip, but he got some extra tip money).  That is $5/pp/day.  Internet is only worth about $3.20/pp/day for us as we will be sharing 4-device package with friends and we get 25% off.  We get 8 free beers by swapping our mini-bar alcohol.  Then we have the rest in free Perrier.  So, I am left wondering how do I spend almost $17/pp/day on more drinks.  Certainly doesn't happen normally for us, so I don't see it changing that much.  Last cruise (10-night in Nov), we each had our free drink from OCEAN Now, a free drink at CC Reception, and I paid for one other drink I think.  My guess is we might spend $200 together, so paying $500 for the Add-On means we have a lot to make up in extra drinking we don't normally do.  

 

Anyway, I really don't think you will get a "YES" to add-on BEST2xx to a basic no-frills fare.  But good luck and let us know.

[kywildcatfanone]

Just looking at these add on items, they seem to only be a good deal if you are a significant drinker and want the drink package.  I can swap my mini bar out for the coffee package, and buy the soda drink package for $12/day, and then get the wifi for a week at $50, that is a lot cheaper than $25/pp/pd for 7 days. 

 

But I see what they are doing here, trying to offer options, many of which will get them sales they wouldn't have made previously. 

[Coral]

11 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Just looking at these add on items, they seem to only be a good deal if you are a significant drinker and want the drink package.  I can swap my mini bar out for the coffee package, and buy the soda drink package for $12/day, and then get the wifi for a week at $50, that is a lot cheaper than $25/pp/pd for 7 days. 

 

But I see what they are doing here, trying to offer options, many of which will get them sales they wouldn't have made previously. 

I think it is a decent deal when you add the gratuities plus drink package (and I don't drink) and not wifi. I makes the drink package $15 which for me, could include fresh squeezed OJ, hot chocolate at dinner if it is cold, Mocktails and bottled water. I think it still includes fresh squeezed OJ.

[mk-ultra]

On 12/11/2019 at 9:08 AM, capriccio said:

If you have an existing booking you shouldn't re-fare!  Instead, just add the perks (wi-fi, beverage package, and.or gratuities) that weren't included in your original booking.  We have a booking under the cyber event sale and kept our perks and OBC.  I just added the beverage package and gratuities - which we would have paid for anyway - for $30 per day/per person.  So $15.50 for the beverage package was a no brainer for us.  These tables are from the longer thread (posts 112 and 115) here on cruise critic:

Adding just the "BEST3" perks worked out great for me.  ~$950 I would have spent otherwise.  Thanks for the tip!  I haven't seen any other cruise line allow something like just adding perks to an existing reservation.