Price has dropped - should/can we rebook? Australian/NZ website

[lissie]

We have a couple of cruises booked for next year - see signature.  I booked back in April and have quite a lot of OBC $930 for the first one and $365 for the second.  They are through an agent. 

 

I'm seeing  the  cruises are now on website at  around  US$1800 cheaper 

 

I'm wondering if its worth  ringing up and seeing if they can get me the lower price? I assume we'd  lose the OBC , but I'm wondering if we'd lose the cabin we choose too (inside delux on deck 1 - there aren't that many of them). 

 

Note I can't call the agent for at least another as Auckland is in lockdown 

[bluemarble]

@lissie, I'll preface my comments with the caveat that some of what I have to say is based on my experience with US bookings. I have checked the terms and conditions listed on the Australia/NZ website as much as possible though.

 

First of all, since you have booked with a travel agent, I'm pretty sure you will have to work with that travel agent to make any changes to your bookings. That's how it works in the US and as I expected, the Australia/NZ "Booking and passage conditions" document does state the following.

 

"If You decide to make Your Cunard booking through a registered travel agent, any amendments or enquiries on the booking will need to be made by Your travel agent."

 

I can't say if Cunard is allowing any exceptions to this policy because of current lockdown situations.

 

That said, it ought to be possible to work with your travel agent (when available) to rebook your voyages at the new lower fares. Once again as I expected, the terms and conditions for the promotion going on now in Australia/NZ do state "Valid for new bookings". Don't be deterred by that though. Based on how it works in the US, what that means in practice is your travel agent would need to cancel your existing bookings and create new bookings for you under the terms of the current promotion.

 

Fortunately it looks like the booking conditions for Australia/NZ work as they do in the US in that you don't lose your deposit when you cancel an existing booking this far from departure. That is assuming the terms for your existing bookings did not specify that the deposits were non-refundable.

 

This rebooking process does mean you will indeed lose whatever perks (such as OBC) were offered on your existing bookings. You will instead get whatever perks are being offered now for new bookings.

 

There will be a brief window between the time an existing booking is canceled and a new booking is created where your selected cabin will be available for someone else to grab. If your travel agent can minimize the time between the cancellation and rebooking of each voyage, that will help reduce that window of vulnerability. I've rebooked back-to-back bookings in the same cabin on a few occasions here in the US and have been able to keep the same cabin on each of my new bookings. I don't think that can be guaranteed though.

 

Hope this helps some with your current situation.

[lissie]

Thank you John - that is very helpful