Better rate found by calling?

[Jenn24101]

I am booked on the Carnival breeze in a couple of weeks and we had an ocean view but thought I’d look into upgrading to a standard balcony, based on the rates it seemed it would be a couple hundred dollars difference. When I called about it, I was able to go from the ocean view to an 8S spa balcony for $58, I think it was $959 pp. I did not see anywhere near close to this rate while doing a mock booking both logged in and out, right before or right after calling, and now I’m wondering if I’m missing how to really look for all of the deals available to me when I search on the website. 

 

We have another cruise booked on the Mardi Gras next year and I want to keep up on price adjustments, do I really have to keep calling and checking or am I missing some way I’m supposed to be looking for rates online? Is there a better site to use than just carnival? I used to use fare viewer but that seems to be no more. 

[teknoge3k]

6 hours ago, Jenn24101 said:

 

 

Totally irrelevant to what you're asking....  I have never seen someone on here from my county. I am in Franklin County also. 

[deadmoney]

I have found that my PVP at carnival always gets me the best deal.

Might be that my trips are done with a casino rate discount but i don't know for sure.

What I do know is that my PVP takes very good care of us.

[ontheweb]

Travel agents cannot post lower rates, but that does not mean that they never have lower rates. It just means that you have to call to find out their best rates.

 

An example--years ago we did an Alaskan cruise. We found 3 cruises that fit what and when we wanted to go. We looked at the website of a TA we usually used. The cruise we eventually took had the highest fare on his website, but the lowest fare when we ended up calling to get quotes. Some of this may have had to do with it was a Princess cruise, and Princess allows TAs to lower rates, or possibly he had taken multiple cabins in order to get a group rate.

 

 

[Jerseygirl1416]

That sounds like an upsell offer they email out sometimes. Maybe the agents can access those too?  I don’t think it’s a published rate if you didn’t see it online. They see the same rates we do.

[Drinal01]

The biggest variations I have seen (please remember don't have that much experience) is not in the actual rates which seem pretty standard between everyone but on the OBC or other perks (Like Costco).

 

Using Experian I got $100 OBC ...everyone else was none or $50.   Costco had $70 dollar Costco card plsu the 3% and 2% off.

 

Shop around for the best overall deal....   Your fare maybe flat (maybe) but other things may not be.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Drinal01

[crabbdock]

I was checking prices for my October cruise about 2 weeks ago. I did a mock booking and it showed my cruise had gone done a whole $10 pp. Well $20 bucks is $20 bucks, so I sent in the early saver price protection form, and it got denied. I called Carnival and talked to a random PVP because I don't have one.  She looked up prices and informed me she saw a price drop of $80 pp. I asked her if she was sure, was that with me keeping my cabin, she assured me it was. Sure enough I got the email and it was confirmed, I saved $160 on my rate and still in my cabin. I have checked the price every day since then, and it is still showing the same price it did when I thought I was going to save $20. This made me remember the last time I found a price drop, the exact same thing happened, but not quite as big of a difference. I called thinking I was going to save $20 and ended up saving $60. I chalked that one up to me making a mistake, but now, I do believe I will just start calling every time I see the price go down at all. Since booking I have saved $240 pp on this cruise..

[shof515]

5 minutes ago, crabbdock said:

I was checking prices for my October cruise about 2 weeks ago. I did a mock booking and it showed my cruise had gone done a whole $10 pp. Well $20 bucks is $20 bucks, so I sent in the early saver price protection form, and it got denied. I called Carnival and talked to a random PVP because I don't have one.  She looked up prices and informed me she saw a price drop of $80 pp. I asked her if she was sure, was that with me keeping my cabin, she assured me it was. Sure enough I got the email and it was confirmed, I saved $160 on my rate and still in my cabin. I have checked the price every day since then, and it is still showing the same price it did when I thought I was going to save $20. This made me remember the last time I found a price drop, the exact same thing happened, but not quite as big of a difference. I called thinking I was going to save $20 and ended up saving $60. I chalked that one up to me making a mistake, but now, I do believe I will just start calling every time I see the price go down at all. Since booking I have saved $240 pp on this cruise..

 

most likely when you called, the PVP saw that you can get a past guest/VIFP rate for your cruise. I noticed the same thing for my cruise in May. For some odd reason, these types of rates is sometimes not on the website due to how horrible carnival website is.

[BRWolf]

When we started checking out cruises on Carnival, a PVP contacted us.  We responded.  We didn't get a better rate, but we got what we consider to be a better room. It wasn't available to us on the website, but the PVP got it for us.  

[jimbo5544]

There are different rates? Early saver, Easy saver, flex, etc.  And rates can change due to supply and demand.  But calling is not a factor to do that, 

Edited February 21, 2020 by jimbo5544

[evandbob]

You never know.....I called the Diamond desk on Friday Feb 7 for a Conquest week long Feb 8 cruise.  The Diamond desk told me the only categories open were guarantee OV and balconies.

 

Now I already saw insides available online, so I thanked the Diamond Desk, booked a guaranteed inside solo for myself for $1250 on the Carnival website, which included port charges, Taxes and gratuities.

 

About 4 hours later, I found out I was assigned balcony cabin # 6228.  A bit too forward for my choosing, and over the theater, but since I don't get back to the cabin until after midnight, noise from any shows wasn't a factor.

Edited February 21, 2020 by evandbob