Early Saver or Summer Sale

[ashkir]

Considering booking a journeys cruise that is about 18 months away. Early Saver with the price protection guarantee is $2800 for our Balcony Cabin. However, the Summer Sale brought it down to $2300. 15 day journey. 

 

Do Journeys or Carnival Prices really go down much more? I'm concerned if I book the Early Saver, then try to price match the Summer Sale, the deal will be over because Carnival is a bit slow in responding to requests. 

[nwcruiselover]

One issue is that once you do a price match to a non-early saver rate, you’re done.  No more price matches.  That’s something to consider with the cruise being 18 months away.  If you book the $2800 Early Saver and then price match to the $2300 Summer Sale, that’s it.  Your price would be locked in at $2300.  It used to be “once early saver, always early saver,” but not anymore.

[sarmat1]

5 hours ago, nwcruiselover said:

If you book the $2800 Early Saver and then price match to the $2300 Summer Sale, that’s it.  Your price would be locked in at $2300.

We've never had any issue repricing non-ES fares.  In fact, we rarely book ES to start.  If reductions come along, we just call to reprice to the better deal.  I've never heard of any Carnival price being "locked".

[nwcruiselover]

14 minutes ago, sarmat1 said:

We've never had any issue repricing non-ES fares.  In fact, we rarely book ES to start.  If reductions come along, we just call to reprice to the better deal.  I've never heard of any Carnival price being "locked".

If you book a non-ES , you can reprice to ES anytime.  That’s no problem.  And after you have ES, you can reprice to any other ES fare that comes available up to 2 days prior to sailing.  The problem that has come up recently is when people want to reprice ES to a non-ES fare (such as resident’s rate) they are allowed to do that, but then they are no longer ES and can’t reprice anymore after final payment.  That started happening this spring when lots of resident’s rates came out.

Edited June 18, 2022 by nwcruiselover

[sarmat1]

10 minutes ago, nwcruiselover said:

The problem that has come up recently is when people want to reprice ES to a non-ES fare (such as resident’s rate) they are allowed to do that, but then they are no longer ES and can’t reprice anymore after final payment.  That started happening this spring when lots of resident’s rates came out.

That's interesting.  I thought the reason Carnival was "once ES always ES" was for cancellation penalty purposes.  The reason we initially book non-ES is so we can change/cancel penalty free, particularly if we book far out.  If they're now allowing ES to reprice to a non-ES rate and then dropping the ES, can somebody then subsequently cancel/change subject to non-ES rules i.e. no penalties? 

Edited June 18, 2022 by sarmat1

[ashkir]

The option I was going to book was a total of $5003. It is now at $5903 with the summer sale being "over" but this includes price protection.

 

I was comfortable with the 5k price tag. But, not the 6k price tag. 

 

After booking how often did your guys' cruise go down enough that it actually allowed you to price guarantee it? 

 

I find that Carnival's "good deals" tend to disappear if you book a lot, I noticed for example my last cruise prices just kept going up and up for me logged in with my VFIP but if I used an incognito window it was cheaper! Does carnival "Scam" you out of this because you paid the higher price at all like some services do, and "hide" price lowers?