Can you refare a cabin category if it is not currently available on the Princess website?

[Ken the cruiser]

We booked a Vista Suite (S6) on a cruise about six months ago and is currently not listed as available on the Princess website, giving the impression it’s currently sold out. However, a higher level Premier Suite (S5) is available and is now listed at over $500 cheaper per person than what we booked our S6 cabin for.

 

Has anyone ever had any luck at refaring an existing booking, if the current price (in the Princess database) is cheaper, even though your cabin’s category was not listed as available on the website? 

FWIW the cruise is not until Feb 2024.

 

Here’s an example where the Vista Suite category is sold out:

 

 

 

 

[Thrak]

8 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

However, a higher level Premier Suite (S5) is available and is now listed at over $500 cheaper per person than what we booked our S6 cabin for.

 

Why not just make a new booking for the higher level suite at the lower price and then cancel your existing booking?

[PacnGoNow]

5 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

We booked a Vista Suite (S6) on a cruise about six months ago and is currently not listed as available on the Princess website, giving the impression it’s currently sold out. However, a higher level Premier Suite (S5) is available and is now listed at over $500 cheaper per person than what we booked our S6 cabin for.

 

Has anyone ever had any luck at refaring an existing booking, if the current price (in the Princess database) is cheaper, even though your cabin’s category was not listed as available on the website? 

FWIW the cruise is not until Feb 2024.

 

Here’s an example where the Vista Suite category is sold out:

 

 

 

 

You should be able to book a S5 category if it’s open.  If your deposit is refundable then you won’t lose anything.  Except any promos with the old fare, if any.

 

You will get whatever the new promo or fare offers.

[Ken the cruiser]

15 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

Why not just make a new booking for the higher level suite at the lower price and then cancel your existing booking?

Good question. We’re booked on a 30-day B2B cruise in an aft-facing VS, where the first leg includes 4 days cruising around the Antarctica Peninsula, and have no desire to switch to a forward-facing Premier Suite and deal with the wind in that chilly environment. 😁

[Thrak]

1 minute ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Good question.

 

Good answer.

[cr8tiv1]

You could play Russian roulette, but I wouldn't.  No, you can't re-fare a non-existing category.  There is no comparison in the inventory system.

 

You could cancel, book the S5 suite, and HOPE that your S6 Vista Suite reappears with a new fare.  Then cancel the S5 and rebook the S6.  I don't think you can hold on to 2 bookings with one name.  There might be a waitlist for the Vista Suite that might generate and auto fill.  Too risky for me.

Edited January 21, 2023 by cr8tiv1

[wallyj]

Hi @Ken the cruiser, my understanding is you think your S6 is probably cheaper because the higher category S5 is currently pricing at $500 less than you booked your S6. Since you are not interested in ‘upgrading’ to S5, there is no pricing available to refare your current S6, so no, princess can not refare as there is no price.

Edited January 21, 2023 by wallyj

[Ken the cruiser]

Thanks everyone. I was just curious. I guessI’ll just continue performing fake bookings everyday until a VS pops up on the available list. 😁

[cr8tiv1]

56 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks everyone. I was just curious. I guessI’ll just continue performing fake bookings everyday until a VS pops up on the available list. 😁

 

Thanks to you, I looked up a future (way future) cruise.  Then spent the past 45 minutes composing an email to my TA because of discrepancies I found with old invoice and new invoice.  Now the fun begins to solve this mystery.  I keep everything.  

[Ken the cruiser]

4 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

Thanks to you, I looked up a future (way future) cruise.  Then spent the past 45 minutes composing an email to my TA because of discrepancies I found with old invoice and new invoice.  Now the fun begins to solve this mystery.  I keep everything.  

Glad I could help even though I have no idea what I did! 😂

 

For me, as we have a bunch of future cruises booked, it has become an almost daily adventure to keep up with the various “games” the cruise lines play to increase their individual bottom lines. But it also helps being fully retired to have the time to do it, a great TA to help us when we need her, as well as having a bunch of very seasoned Cruise Critic members as a viable asset to tap into to help uncover some of those hidden strategies. 😁

[nini]

7 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Good question. We’re booked on a 30-day B2B cruise in an aft-facing VS, where the first leg includes 4 days cruising around the Antarctica Peninsula, and have no desire to switch to a forward-facing Premier Suite and deal with the wind in that chilly environment. 😁

 

Have you been in an aft VS before? Do you love it? I have booked one for next year and it is a surprise for DH. When we go our cabin, he will just think that we are going to our "usual" aft cabin.

[caribill]

7 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks everyone. I was just curious. I guessI’ll just continue performing fake bookings everyday until a VS pops up on the available list. 😁

 

The higher level is on sale because there is less demand for it.

 

If a cabin in your category opens up, there is no guarantee it would be at a lower price than what you paid since demand is high for your category. Thus any refare available might be to a higher fare.

[Ken the cruiser]

8 hours ago, nini said:

 

Have you been in an aft VS before? Do you love it? I have booked one for next year and it is a surprise for DH. When we go our cabin, he will just think that we are going to our "usual" aft cabin.

Yes, we've been in an aft-facing VS on the Island and the Caribbean Princess ships, both of which went through the Panama Canal as part of our itinerary and really enjoyed them both. However, if I had to pick an aft-facing VS on any Princess ship, the ones on the Grand-class ships win every time with their huge fully covered balconies! 😉

[Ken the cruiser]

7 hours ago, caribill said:

 

The higher level is on sale because there is less demand for it.

 

If a cabin in your category opens up, there is no guarantee it would be at a lower price than what you paid since demand is high for your category. Thus any refare available might be to a higher fare.

That makes sense. The only reason I still have "refaring" hopes is that on the first leg where we actually go to Antarctica, the VS category had been sold out for months and then all of the sudden one opened up (and is still open BTW) which was listed at around $900 pp cheaper than what we booked it for (to include the new Plus perks) and the next level S5 forward-facing cabins, which there have always been plenty to choose from, were still $230 pp more than the one new S6 VS category posting. 

 

Anyway, for a cruiseaholic it doesn't take much to keep us entertained while we wait to go on our next cruise, which for us is on the NCL Dawn in 5 days and a wakeup! 😃

 

 

[caribill]

51 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

That makes sense. The only reason I still have "refaring" hopes is that on the first leg where we actually go to Antarctica, the VS category had been sold out for months and then all of the sudden one opened up (and is still open BTW) which was listed at around $900 pp cheaper than what we booked it for (to include the new Plus perks) and the next level S5 forward-facing cabins, which there have always been plenty to choose from, were still $230 pp more than the one new S6 VS category posting. 

 

 

Advantages of booking a B2B as a single booking:

o Might have lower pricing.

o Definitely have the same cabin for both segments

 

Disadvantages of booking a B2B as a single booking:

o Lower pricing for an individual segment may not apply to the single booking

o Wanting to change EZAir for either start or end of cruise requires changing for both with no guarantee that the one you did not want to change will still be available or at the original price.

 

Must also consider how OBC applies to how a B2B is booked. Sometimes there is more OBC when booked as two cruises and sometimes there is more OBC when booked as a single voyage.

 

When a B2B can be booked as a single voyage or as two voyages, Princess allocates cabins for each way a segment can be booked.

 

Example:

Consider four segments A,B, C and D and you want to book just B and C. The segments you want might are bookable as:

o B & C as separate bookings

o B & C  as a single booking

(And what you would not want):

o A&B as a single booking

o C&D as a single booking

 

Princess will allocate cabins for each way they can be booked.

 

So:

o B & C as separate bookings  -- these cabins not available for single booking

o B & C  as a single booking -- these cabins not available for separate bookings

o A&B as a single booking -- B cabins not available to you since you do not want A

o C&D as a single booking - C cabins not available to you since you do not want D

 

So, for example, if there are 30 cabins in a category and they are split three ways for booking, (assuming they are split evenly) only 10 cabins would be available for B&C as a single booking. These 10 could be sold out while a number of cabins are still available if booked separately.

 

[Ken the cruiser]

9 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

Advantages of booking a B2B as a single booking:

o Might have lower pricing.

o Definitely have the same cabin for both segments

 

Disadvantages of booking a B2B as a single booking:

o Lower pricing for an individual segment may not apply to the single booking

o Wanting to change EZAir for either start or end of cruise requires changing for both with no guarantee that the one you did not want to change will still be available or at the original price.

 

Must also consider how OBC applies to how a B2B is booked. Sometimes there is more OBC when booked as two cruises and sometimes there is more OBC when booked as a single voyage.

 

When a B2B can be booked as a single voyage or as two voyages, Princess allocates cabins for each way a segment can be booked.

 

Example:

Consider four segments A,B, C and D and you want to book just B and C. The segments you want might are bookable as:

o B & C as separate bookings

o B & C  as a single booking

(And what you would not want):

o A&B as a single booking

o C&D as a single booking

 

Princess will allocate cabins for each way they can be booked.

 

So:

o B & C as separate bookings  -- these cabins not available for single booking

o B & C  as a single booking -- these cabins not available for separate bookings

o A&B as a single booking -- B cabins not available to you since you do not want A

o C&D as a single booking - C cabins not available to you since you do not want D

 

So, for example, if there are 30 cabins in a category and they are split three ways for booking, (assuming they are split evenly) only 10 cabins would be available for B&C as a single booking. These 10 could be sold out while a number of cabins are still available if booked separately.

 

I have to say, you definitely need to do the math when booking B?B cruises, depending on the itinerary offerings. I remember when we booked our 21-day "single itinerary" Med cruise on the Regal for this past July. The 3 individual 7-day legs were actually spread across 11 separate itinerary offerings, to include lengths of 7, 14 and 21 days. When we booked our 21-day itinerary, we were only allowed to choose from those cabins offered on that specific 21-day itinerary, even though there better located cabins we would have rather booked with the same cabin numbers on each of the 7-day legs. However, since we were cruising with family and wanted cabins next to each other, we chose the (cheaper) 21-day itinerary, even though we would have received more OBC if you would have chosen a different combination.

 

[caribill]

47 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

 The 3 individual 7-day legs were actually spread across 11 separate itinerary offerings, to include lengths of 7, 14 and 21 days. When we booked our 21-day itinerary, we were only allowed to choose from those cabins offered on that specific 21-day itinerary, even though there better located cabins we would have rather booked with the same cabin numbers on each of the 7-day legs.

 

 

If you have a truly great Travel Agent, they can work with Princess to change the cabins you want to the method of booking you want.

[Ken the cruiser]

37 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

If you have a truly great Travel Agent, they can work with Princess to change the cabins you want to the method of booking you want.

Unfortunately, the Princess POC she contacted said no. But it really wasn't that big of a deal as the CC mini-suites we booked turned out to be in pretty good location after all, as most of them are. BTW all 3 legs were part of the Real Love Boat cruise and our cabin was in a position where we could watch some of the promenade scenes being taped. 😃

[Coral]

11 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

 BTW all 3 legs were part of the Real Love Boat cruise and our cabin was in a position where we could watch some of the promenade scenes being taped. 😃

You consider watching the show being taped a good thing 🥶 It was torture to watch the edited version, I would have hated to watch the real thing!

[Ken the cruiser]

14 minutes ago, Coral said:

You consider watching the show being taped a good thing 🥶 It was torture to watch the edited version, I would have hated to watch the real thing!

Actually, we watched the first season in its entirety on Paramount+ commercial-free and we really enjoyed it, especially the last 4-5 episodes. But at the same time, it also reminded us of that awesome cruise, so there was that. 😉

[nini]

4 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Yes, we've been in an aft-facing VS on the Island and the Caribbean Princess ships, both of which went through the Panama Canal as part of our itinerary and really enjoyed them both. However, if I had to pick an aft-facing VS on any Princess ship, the ones on the Grand-class ships win every time with their huge fully covered balconies! 😉

Yes, we will be on the Caribbean Princess and I love the full covers. There is something to be said about the Grand Class.