Difference Between Online Prices vs. Pricing Over the Phone

[rbxlady]

I had to call NCL to add a soda package for my kids (not available online for some reason), and while I had the guy on the phone, I decided to ask what the cost would be to upgrade to a certain suite in the Haven. We have upgrade bids in, but I just wanted to see what they said and compare that to my upgrade bid on this particular cabin.

 

Prior to calling, I had priced it out in an incognito window, and this particular suite came up around $9,300 after taxes, gratuities, etc. On the phone, the NCL rep said it would be nearly $10,500.

 

Does anyone know why there would be such a big difference between the two?

[njhorseman]

5 minutes ago, rbxlady said:

Does anyone know why there would be such a big difference between the two?

It means either you or the phone rep were wrong about the price, which should be identical whether obtained from ncl.com or a telephone quote from an NCL rep.

[scooter6139]

Did you or the phone rep include fees and such?

[rbxlady]

24 minutes ago, scooter6139 said:

Did you or the phone rep include fees and such?

I know I certainly did, and my number came up lower (base fare without fees and whatnot is less than $8K online, and that was for four passengers).

 

I’ve priced it out several times online, so based on njhorseman’s assessment above and common sense, I wonder if the NCL rep chose the wrong suite when he gave me the price. I guess I was wondering if there was something obvious I was missing. It only concerns me because if prices do come down at the last minute, and I decide I want to upgrade directly rather than hope my upgrade bid comes through, I will get a different number when I call.

[rbxlady]

Just wanted to say thanks to both of you for replying and not making me feel like an idiot! It seems like an obvious error on someone’s part, but I figured it was possible there might be something else going on, which is why I asked.

[FLAHAM]

Soda package is easily purchased upon embarkation.  Usually sold at a table clearly marked in the hallway near the Atrium.

[victory2020]

Maybe he added insurance automatically? My agent always does it & I always buy my own

[billctx]

I added the soda package for my kids and the price I was quoted on the phone was higher than the cost to book it online.  Maybe there is a surcharge to talk to a live person since I assume they are paid a commission for sales?  Not sure why else it would be different.

[njhorseman]

3 minutes ago, billctx said:

I added the soda package for my kids and the price I was quoted on the phone was higher than the cost to book it online.  Maybe there is a surcharge to talk to a live person since I assume they are paid a commission for sales?  Not sure why else it would be different.

No, there's no surcharge to book on line. 

I suspect the difference in price is the 20% gratuity ...the phone agent included that in the price quote while the price you saw on line didn't include it.

[billctx]

8 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

No, there's no surcharge to book on line. 

I suspect the difference in price is the 20% gratuity ...the phone agent included that in the price quote while the price you saw on line didn't include it.

No, the online price included the 20% gratuity.

[complawyer]

maybe the guy on the telephone wanted to up the price because of a commission!

[njhorseman]

3 hours ago, billctx said:

No, the online price included the 20% gratuity.

The 20% gratuity isn't added in until you go to your cart to check out . Also I believe NCL just raised the price of the soda package from $7.95 per day to $9.95 per day, plus the 20% gratuity.

[Sailing12Away]

I always keep price checking our cruises to see if/when it's 'worth it' to just outright upgrade our room rather than rely on and hope for the upgrade bid to come through. On our last trip, the price I saw from my own sleuthing would have us pay about $2400 to move from an MA to an SD (our bid at the time was 2K total, hence why we were just going to outright upgrade since the difference was minimal), my PCC quoted me only $1400 for the same move. I confirmed that was total and not per person, she said yes, and I said 'do it'. Not sure how or why, but she was able to get us a better price than what I saw on my own. We ultimately ended up in an S1 after our upgrade bids went through too, but it was definitely a nice surprise when she found that 'deal'.

 

Then for our upcoming trip to Canada, online it looked like my parents could move from an M4 to a family suite for only a $500 difference from what they've paid so far - but when I called the PCC the price was much higher, not what I saw and certainly not lower like in our experience.

 

The difference... my parents have the NCL insurance on their reservation and we didn't on ours. When your cabin cost goes up, your insurance cost goes up with it. So for them, it wasn't worth it (yet) to upgrade and we're keeping our fingers crossed on their bid. For us with no insurance, last trip my PCC got us a better price than what was advertised.

[rbxlady]

9 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

I always keep price checking our cruises to see if/when it's 'worth it' to just outright upgrade our room rather than rely on and hope for the upgrade bid to come through. On our last trip, the price I saw from my own sleuthing would have us pay about $2400 to move from an MA to an SD (our bid at the time was 2K total, hence why we were just going to outright upgrade since the difference was minimal), my PCC quoted me only $1400 for the same move. I confirmed that was total and not per person, she said yes, and I said 'do it'. Not sure how or why, but she was able to get us a better price than what I saw on my own. We ultimately ended up in an S1 after our upgrade bids went through too, but it was definitely a nice surprise when she found that 'deal'.

 

Then for our upcoming trip to Canada, online it looked like my parents could move from an M4 to a family suite for only a $500 difference from what they've paid so far - but when I called the PCC the price was much higher, not what I saw and certainly not lower like in our experience.

 

The difference... my parents have the NCL insurance on their reservation and we didn't on ours. When your cabin cost goes up, your insurance cost goes up with it. So for them, it wasn't worth it (yet) to upgrade and we're keeping our fingers crossed on their bid. For us with no insurance, last trip my PCC got us a better price than what was advertised.

That's basically what we're doing, pricing it out vs our upgrade bid (which is "fair" on the little scale), and if the difference is minimal or it comes up less, we'll just book it outright. We do have insurance on our current booking, and I know mock booking it online did not include that, but maybe insurance is that much on a Haven suite, who knows, and the NCL rep was including it since I had included it on my original booking.

 

Definitely a good idea that a couple of you have brought up, so I need to make sure I take that into consideration. Thank you to you and everyone else who has responded!

 

Edited to add that I booked this cruise in March, and when the Memorial Day sale came out, the price dropped a few hundred dollars. I called, and NCL rep adjusted the price because we were before final payment, but she also added a promotion where if I paid another $250 down, they'd match it. All in all, I saved almost $900, so sometimes calling is worthwhile, which is why I wanted to ask while I was on the phone about the soda package.

Edited July 13, 2022 by rbxlady
noted above

[rbxlady]

10 hours ago, njhorseman said:

The 20% gratuity isn't added in until you go to your cart to check out . Also I believe NCL just raised the price of the soda package from $7.95 per day to $9.95 per day, plus the 20% gratuity.

For a 7-day cruise, it was $66.78 each, which is $7.95/day + 20%. Maybe I caught it right before the increase? This was yesterday (July 12th).

[rbxlady]

15 hours ago, FLAHAM said:

Soda package is easily purchased upon embarkation.  Usually sold at a table clearly marked in the hallway near the Atrium.

 

Definitely good to have this info out there, so thank you!

 

I figured buying it on day 1 would be possible, but (1) I didn't know if the price would be higher once you're on board (like excursions can be), (2) I like to pre-pay as much as possible for reasons, and (3) pre-paying it means one less thing to have to do upon embarkation.

 

Someone mentioned below that the soda package price is going up, too, so if that's the case, we got it before the increase. Because we are cruising in October, it is reasonable to expect that it would cost $9.95/day, so a little more than $30 more for two kids after gratuities are added in.

[rbxlady]

14 hours ago, billctx said:

No, the online price included the 20% gratuity.

Same for me, everything was included on the price I saw online. It might've been insurance, but if it was, he didn't say so. We have insurance on our current booking, so maybe he just assumed I wanted that included. To be fair, I didn't ask for a breakdown when I probably should have.