Private sale

[DaveOKC]

13 hours ago, YXU AC*SE said:

 

Most orgs w/ a large customer base and a finite amount of marketing dollars (think re-price -- ie targeted discounts, or marketing collateral - direct mail, email etc)  construct SPIs -- sales propensity indices -- to rank their base and target their marketing and offer spend.  If your SPI score resembles someone who routinely books cruises at prevailing market rates with little to no incentive -- as much as you would love a deal, why would I as an company needlessly proactively market or discount a cruise that your previous behaviour (as calculated using SPI) says you're willing to book without? 

 

How this works in principle?   Typically, I am the cruise booker on my HAL account -- mainly b/c I know my Mariner number without looking it up.  We're both four stars.  Our last Nieuw Statendam TA (Oct 27th) I priced under my account and got an attractive price.   Priced it under partner's account, and received a substantial per person rate deduction, even though we have identical HAL sailing histories. (HAL says, "Oh look, you haven't booked a cruise in a while, what can we do to close the deal??") We each receive separate (almost never duplicate targeted direct mail / e-mails -- each with different offers and pricing) -- all based on that sale propensity index (or whatever targeting methodology they employ.)

 

Scott.   

   

Of course there could be other factors.  My DW gets a better deal than I do, since she is the gambler and often qualifies for casino rate (does not say this when you are booking - the cheaper fare just shows up.

[YXU AC*SE]

2 minutes ago, DaveOKC said:

Of course there could be other factors.  My DW gets a better deal than I do, since she is the gambler and often qualifies for casino rate (does not say this when you are booking - the cheaper fare just shows up.

 

True -- but it's a simply another form of targeting, right ?  ie  what is the target revenue yield per pax by category for a particular sailing (cabin + onboard + casino + shorex etc) -- and what incentive can we use to achieve that ?      Scott. 

[grest]

Several times when I have tried to book through HAL I end up with that pesky error message....then I get frustrated and go elsewhere...

 

[DaveOKC]

3 hours ago, grest said:

Several times when I have tried to book through HAL I end up with that pesky error message....then I get frustrated and go elsewhere...

 

I just use the website to check prices, not book.

[VermeulT]

On 1/5/2020 at 6:25 PM, YXU AC*SE said:

 

Most orgs w/ a large customer base and a finite amount of marketing dollars (think re-price -- ie targeted discounts, or marketing collateral - direct mail, email etc)  construct SPIs -- sales propensity indices -- to rank their base and target their marketing and offer spend.  If your SPI score resembles someone who routinely books cruises at prevailing market rates with little to no incentive -- as much as you would love a deal, why would I as an company needlessly proactively market or discount a cruise that your previous behaviour (as calculated using SPI) says you're willing to book without? 

 

How this works in principle?   Typically, I am the cruise booker on my HAL account -- mainly b/c I know my Mariner number without looking it up.  We're both four stars.  Our last Nieuw Statendam TA (Oct 27th) I priced under my account and got an attractive price.   Priced it under partner's account, and received a substantial per person rate deduction, even though we have identical HAL sailing histories. (HAL says, "Oh look, you haven't booked a cruise in a while, what can we do to close the deal??") We each receive separate (almost never duplicate targeted direct mail / e-mails -- each with different offers and pricing) -- all based on that sale propensity index (or whatever targeting methodology they employ.)

 

Scott.   

   

 

Scott - so what determines your SPI vs your partner?  if you have same sailing histories - what could determine that one of you should get a better deal?  That's the part I have trouble with.

[Boatdrill]

On 1/4/2020 at 2:03 PM, iancal said:

Our experience is that our on line TA is as knowledgeable, more efficient, and her agency has much better hours than any of the various cruise line CSR numbers that we have previously tried, including HAL, Princess, and Celebrity.    All that, plus some reasonably unbiased feedback on ships.    Who needs the agro of dealing with cruise line CSR's or worse cruise line web sites-especially the HAL or the Celebrity web sites.

 You do know that your TA calls that  same cruiseline CSR department if he/she needs help or clarification about fares and promotions on your booking, right ?  🙂

[YXU AC*SE]

13 hours ago, VermeulT said:

Scott - so what determines your SPI vs your partner?  if you have same sailing histories - what could determine that one of you should get a better deal?  That's the part I have trouble with.

 

Lots of factors -- basic sociodemographic profile, external cross-referenced sociodems and other purchased external data (think PSYTE profiling), previous tracked individual marketing interactions (CRM), onboard transaction history, booking history (ie who is the primary booker), booking channel history (ie PCC, direct online, TA); effective discount of previous booked cruises from brochure / MSRP, cross-referenced pan-Carnival history, etc etc. 

 

In the SPIs that I have been personally involved with both in the initial construction and 'scoring' of the base, we were managing about 200 different data points to yield targeting.  Now this is was a telecom environment, where you can imagine we have a lot of customer data.    

 

CCL's latest annual report hints at this -- 

We also created many innovations and made other investments along the way.

• Our state-of-the-art revenue management tool has been deployed across half the company to facilitate further yield growth.

(source:  https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/9296f17e-0bbc-4d59-850c-4d59b3fc8c57)

 

And remember the 'p' is for propensity ...   It's not an fully predictive science as there are of course all sorts of other factors at play ... 

 

Hope this elucidates.   🙂          Scott. 

  

[bluesplayer]

I tried to book a Private Sale cruise.  No luck!!  First finding out “only the bolded dates  are applicable”   in the brochure.  When I requested the bold dates..  prices were still higher.  I was told to call back the reservation department.   Odd as I was calling the reservation department!!

  Have better luck booking through the big box TA than directly with HA.

[GrammieK]

10 hours ago, bluesplayer said:

I tried to book a Private Sale cruise.  No luck!!  First finding out “only the bolded dates  are applicable”   in the brochure.  When I requested the bold dates..  prices were still higher.  I was told to call back the reservation department.   Odd as I was calling the reservation department!!

  Have better luck booking through the big box TA than directly with HA.

bluesplayer,

that is exactly what happened to me!  Big box TA here I come!

k

[DaveOKC]

10 hours ago, bluesplayer said:

I tried to book a Private Sale cruise.  No luck!!  First finding out “only the bolded dates  are applicable”   in the brochure.  When I requested the bold dates..  prices were still higher.  I was told to call back the reservation department.   Odd as I was calling the reservation department!!

  Have better luck booking through the big box TA than directly with HA.

The issue is often that the other person on your account (in my case my DW) may be the one the private sale is for.  Try logging in with their Mariner number and see if the fare changes - mine does considerably!

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by DaveOKC

[Mary229]

On 1/9/2020 at 10:34 AM, DaveOKC said:

The issue is often that the other person on your account (in my case my DW) may be the one the private sale is for.  Try logging in with their Mariner number and see if the fare changes - mine does considerably!

 

 

I tried that Dave, I even called HAL and they said I should be seeing the sale in either of our accounts.  3 devices tried, 3 clean browsers tried - nada.  My travel agent will try Monday and I may call for a price check this weekend.  I just wish HAL would fix their website - it is cumbersome even when working properly.

 

UPDATE:  After posting this I went back once again and the two sailings I was interested in were removed from the sale.  

Edited January 11, 2020 by Mary229
UPDATE