New policy ... using HAL OBC to pay for excursions before embarking?

[ontheweb]

There are things you cannot do by directly calling the cruise line when you book through a TA, but booking shore excursions is not one of them.

[TAD2005]

Looking at this from a HAL bean counter point of view.   Very popular, limited capacity tours (those that require a boat, helicopter, plane) are in high demand.   Within 3 days of the cruise, they will most certainly be totally sold out, with wait lists.  So, people who want that tour will spend their own money to buy it online, well before the cruise to assure a reserved space.   The less popular tours, or ones that use an almost unlimited supply of tour buses,  will still be available once onboard.    So, to maximize revenue, HAL restricts the use of free OBC to less popular tours, and the rare instance of a popular one that may still be available 72 hours before boarding.   

Naturally, this policy that HAL seems to want to stick with, is strictly a way to maximize revenue.  The other lines that allow online booking using OBC may have found a way to compensate for the lost revenue.  

I am not condoning HAL's policy, just a possible explanation why HAL seems to favor it.

[DaisyFire]

On 1/27/2020 at 4:32 PM, Caribbean Chris said:

Celebrity does it, very seamlessly in my experience, and not just close to departure.

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Edit to add: you can also use the OBC in advance for spa (I think, I never did it) and specialty restaurant reservations on Celebrity. Same thing about being able to cancel online before sailing and get your OBC returned to the total.

 

I love the ability to use OBC prior to departure for Celebrity cruises, especially how easy it is to change your mind and get the OBC re-credited - however, I have never been able to book spa services ahead on the website - with our without OBC.  In fact, I just went into a current reservations and it shows a blank list of spa services, so there is nothing to book. 

 

[Caribbean Chris]

8 minutes ago, DaisyFire said:

 

I love the ability to use OBC prior to departure for Celebrity cruises, especially how easy it is to change your mind and get the OBC re-credited - however, I have never been able to book spa services ahead on the website - with our without OBC.  In fact, I just went into a current reservations and it shows a blank list of spa services, so there is nothing to book. 

 

I think it’s a work in progress. I just checked my upcoming Celebrity bookings. One doesn’t have a spa services tab at all in the Cruise Planner. The other one does, but when you click the “book spa services now” it doesn’t work - you don’t get a menu, just a column on the right with a zero dollar amount for services purchased.
 

I recall that the Celebrity Edge sailing I was in had a very long and detailed list of spa options, but maybe it was on the website but not in the cruise planner, either. Can’t remember. There was a lot of advance heavy hype about the spa, along with everything else before the Edge came out.