Move over Offer?

[trrn2016]

20 hours ago, trrn2016 said:

We are leaving on a cruise next week with Balcony room. We received an email offering a move over offer to an interior room with 100% cruise fare refund as Refundable Onboard Credit.

Has anyone taken this offer or has any Information?  Can the refundable onboard credit be converted to cash? 

Thanks for any information.

Have not heard back from Princess so I assume the offer is gone. Oh well, still going on a wonderful cruise at the price I thought it was. Thanks for everyone's comments.

[Cruise Raider]

17 hours ago, Go-Bucks! said:

 

This happened to me a couple months ago...I always go through my TA, but she wasn't working that day and it was a last minute cruise and I wanted one of the last balcony cabins, so I booked directly on Princess's website. 2 days later I received my very first upsell offer!! $85/day to get an aft full suite on the Regal!! I jumped on it and had a great cruise. But I thought it was weird that the first time I booked directly with Princess that I got an upsell offer.

 

Indeed!!  As mentioned, the only two times I booked directly through Princess (in 28 cruises with them), I received upsell offers.  The. Only. Two. Times!  There's definitely something to that, I'm sure!  

[Cruiser_1977]

I just received a move over offer in my e-mail. Sent at 11:08pm ET last night. I have left a VM. I booked under Sip & Sail. Does anyone know if they will included the PBP on the new booking?

 

[Cruiser_1977]

Just spoke with Princess rep. I could pick any future 7 day Mexico cruise. I could choose a date or they would keep it in a folder for me for "later". I wanted to sail in the next three weeks due to work scheduling. That left the 18th and 25th. The cabins offered, deluxe balcony and balcony, were not in desirable locations to me. Some on the Marina deck were under the pool and/or Horizon Court. I'm just going to keep my sailing. She did say the Sip & Sail promo would have been moved over with my booking.

[voljeep]

wow, would have been hard to turn down that 'free cruise' and 100% refundable fare OBC 

 

 

[Vexorg]

This thread describes my recent experience with a move-over offer on a cruise we were supposed to be on at the beginning of December, but ended up switching to a cruise at the end of January.  The short version is that we went from an interior on a 5 night Cabo Getaway cruise to a balcony on a 7 night Mexican Riviera cruise with 100% of our cruise fare (minus taxes and fees) being applied to the new cruise as refundable OBC.  They also paid us $150 per person to cover airline change fees and partially cover a non-refundable hotel room (we ended up eating some costs on that but it's not too big an issue.)  We had to submit receipts for the airline change fees and hotel, and got mailed a check back for those costs about 5 weeks later.  We were told that the remainder of the refundable OBC will be mailed as a check 4-6 weeks after the cruise.  Any OBCs you had on the original cruise also carry over, and since we used FCDs to book the original one the OBCs for those actually went up from $15 (5 night sailing in an interior) to $50 (7 night sailing in a balcony).
 

As an added bonus, when we switched to the 7 night sailing, I told my parents about what happened and they booked the cruise that we moved to. 

 

A couple other details to note:  

• The offer we were given was to move to any 7 night cruise leaving from a US port.  We considered switching to a Caribbean cruise, but airfare was going to cost a lot more if we did that.
• My sister-in-law was sailing with us in a separate cabin, with her reservation booked at the same time.  Since her reservation was linked to ours they included her automatically in the process, and on the new sailing they put her cabin next to ours.
• When we called I had to leave a voicemail and it took about a day for them to call back.  We operated under the assumption that we would be going on the original sailing until we had our confirmation on the move over.

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Vexorg

[Steelers36]

On 12/28/2019 at 9:52 AM, polmcs said:

Looks like my big box TA has switched from a OBC to Storecards, so time to get a new TA and hopefully, they might be a bit more proactive with any upsell offers.

I prefer TA's that give a cash discount off the cruise.  With just two of us at home, don't have a lot of use for big box minimum quantities.  Good TA's that give generous cash discounts off the fare are out there.  

 

IDK whether Princess is now preferring to send offers to direct bookings.  Four years ago, my wife received an upsell offer for Inside to Caribe Balcony on Crown.  We have also received one move-over which was associated with our 9-week trip to Australia last year and it was just too disruptive considering the land-based plans, etc.  As far as I can tell, my agency is quite responsive and responsible in the back-office team at forwarding correspondence that might not come directly to us.  The upsell I mentioned was forwarded by the agency in 2015.  I forget how we came to receive the move-over email.

 

[Bethcb]

After almost 50 Princess cruises, we got our first Move Over offer from last October on a 7 day Mexico cruise. We went from an inside guarantee to a midship balcony and the cruise fare in refundable OBC. We've done this cruise many times and live in Southern California, so there was no airfare issue. Now we leave on our free cruise next Saturday. I'll probably take the refundable OBC out of the casino, rather than waiting for the check since we will be on an extended vacation at that time. 

[sttopmh]

So, is it mostly the inside cabins that get the Move Over offer? Anyone know?

Edited January 3, 2020 by sttopmh
missspelling

[geoherb]

18 minutes ago, sttopmh said:

So, is it mostly the inside cabins that get the Move Over offer? Anyone know?

 

It can be any level of cabin. On a couple of our cruises, people have taken move down offers--going from a balcony to an inside in exchange for their cruise fare in refundable onboard credit. 

[polmcs]

20 hours ago, steelers36 said:

I prefer TA's that give a cash discount off the cruise.  With just two of us at home, don't have a lot of use for big box minimum quantities.  Good TA's that give generous cash discounts off the fare are out there.  

 

IDK whether Princess is now preferring to send offers to direct bookings.  Four years ago, my wife received an upsell offer for Inside to Caribe Balcony on Crown.  We have also received one move-over which was associated with our 9-week trip to Australia last year and it was just too disruptive considering the land-based plans, etc.  As far as I can tell, my agency is quite responsive and responsible in the back-office team at forwarding correspondence that might not come directly to us.  The upsell I mentioned was forwarded by the agency in 2015.  I forget how we came to receive the move-over email.

 

I’m still looking for a new TA. I thought I had found a new TA that was offering an OBC that was higher than the big box TA storecard, but when the booking was transferred, the OBC was half of what I was expecting and a lot lower than the big box TA store card.

 

It looks like Princess significantly changed the taxes and fees calculation (by around $1000) vs what was showing on the Princess direct booking confirmation  and that lowered base fare below the threshold for the higher OBC from the TA.

 

If push comes to shove, I’ll just go with the big box TA and the storecard credit.

[Steelers36]

4 hours ago, polmcs said:

It looks like Princess significantly changed the taxes and fees calculation (by around $1000) vs what was showing on the Princess direct booking confirmation  and that lowered base fare below the threshold for the higher OBC from the TA.

Not sure exactly what you are referring to, nor the length of cruise you are considering.  A lot of people are not aware that the cruise fares you see posted on Princess consist of a commissionable fare portion and a non-commissionable fare portion.  For most cruises the latter is a flat amount (once a cruise is of sufficient length - forgetting exactly - the flat amount is less per day, but still a fixed amount).  On a shorter cruise, or when booking inexpensive cabin such as Inside versus Balcony or higher, then there is less of the total fare that is commissionable.  Discount agencies are calculating their discount on this portion. 

 

Possibly the agency to which you refer offers a smaller discount rate below a certain fare amount and a higher amount if spending more.  Quite possible, but doubtful that Princess will be arbitrarily changing taxes and fees calculation.

 

 

 

[polmcs]

15 hours ago, steelers36 said:

Not sure exactly what you are referring to, nor the length of cruise you are considering.  A lot of people are not aware that the cruise fares you see posted on Princess consist of a commissionable fare portion and a non-commissionable fare portion.  For most cruises the latter is a flat amount (once a cruise is of sufficient length - forgetting exactly - the flat amount is less per day, but still a fixed amount).  On a shorter cruise, or when booking inexpensive cabin such as Inside versus Balcony or higher, then there is less of the total fare that is commissionable.  Discount agencies are calculating their discount on this portion. 

 

Possibly the agency to which you refer offers a smaller discount rate below a certain fare amount and a higher amount if spending more.  Quite possible, but doubtful that Princess will be arbitrarily changing taxes and fees calculation.

 

 

 

This was a 2 week Alaskan cruise out of LA. The Princess direct confirmation showed a fare of just over $10K and taxes at $500. This would have qualified for the top OBC amount from the TA. When it was transferred over, the base dropped to $9.2K and the taxes/fees rose to $1.4K and this halved the amount of OBC.

 

The TA did explain about NCF etc after I queried the OBC, so I learned something new, but the calculated OBC is some 40% less than the value of the big box TA store card, so I’m leaning big box way.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, polmcs said:

This was a 2 week Alaskan cruise out of LA. The Princess direct confirmation showed a fare of just over $10K and taxes at $500. This would have qualified for the top OBC amount from the TA. When it was transferred over, the base dropped to $9.2K and the taxes/fees rose to $1.4K and this halved the amount of OBC.

 

The TA did explain about NCF etc after I queried the OBC, so I learned something new, but the calculated OBC is some 40% less than the value of the big box TA store card, so I’m leaning big box way.

Can't blame you at all for going for the best value.  Not sure how the TA came up with $800+ in more "taxes and fees".  The NCF for 14 nights is $350 pp, so $700 for two in cabin.  I think that TA is playing games.  TA's I have dealt with have same discount rate on Inside versus Balcony, Mini.

Edited January 4, 2020 by steelers36

[Stelladoro]

On 1/2/2020 at 1:27 PM, steelers36 said:

I prefer TA's that give a cash discount off the cruise.  With just two of us at home, don't have a lot of use for big box minimum quantities.  Good TA's that give generous cash discounts off the fare are out there.  

 

IDK whether Princess is now preferring to send offers to direct bookings.  Four years ago, my wife received an upsell offer for Inside to Caribe Balcony on Crown.  We have also received one move-over which was associated with our 9-week trip to Australia last year and it was just too disruptive considering the land-based plans, etc.  As far as I can tell, my agency is quite responsive and responsible in the back-office team at forwarding correspondence that might not come directly to us.  The upsell I mentioned was forwarded by the agency in 2015.  I forget how we came to receive the move-over email.

 

 

We had a move over offer 2 years ago on a 10 day Carribbean cruise. We accepted the offer and moved from a balcony to an inside on the Royal Princess. Entire fare (except taxes and fees) was refunded. We were pleased.

 

Steelers36, we're also from the GTA area. Our TA recently retired. I know we can't mention names here, but would you mind sharing your TA's name and address via email (msana4athotmaildotcom).  

Tks.  

[Steelers36]

18 minutes ago, Stelladoro said:

 

We had a move over offer 2 years ago on a 10 day Carribbean cruise. We accepted the offer and moved from a balcony to an inside on the Royal Princess. Entire fare (except taxes and fees) was refunded. We were pleased.

 

Steelers36, we're also from the GTA area. Our TA recently retired. I know we can't mention names here, but would you mind sharing your TA's name and address via email (msana4athotmaildotcom).  

Tks.  

As CC members, we are not supposed to ask or refer via the forum, although I could name a member or two who do it regularly.  😉

Edited January 4, 2020 by steelers36