Military and shareholders OBC no longer combinable soon.

[startedwithamouse]

 

This isn't on the Princess website, it's an internal memo.

[nasa1974]

So I just requested my SOBC for my 5 day and 7 day cruises on the Sun in October 2024. I got the standard auto reply.

 

Thank you for submitting your request for Carnival Corporation Shareholder Benefits.  Due to current high volumes, please allow up to 21 days for processing.  You will receive a confirmation once the benefit has been applied to your booking.  

 

Sincerely,

Princess Cruises

 

I still have my MOBC & SOBC for my 3 day and 7 day Westcoast cruises in October and my 7 day in April 2024. I'm traveling solo. I guess I'll find out in a few days what happens.

[Happiest when cruising]

6 hours ago, vjmatty said:

I’m hoping that the amount of work involved with going through every booking that’s already been made and deducting one of the OBC’s would be too much to make it worth it, especially now that the military OBC is now nonrefundable. $100 in crap that you’re forced to buy in order to use up the credit probably only costs them $25 or less. 

I would guess it’s electronic and easy for them to do. 
As far as the OBC, we use it towards gratuities and sometimes Wi-Fi, since the drink plans are of no use to us. 

[Guest ldtr]

24 minutes ago, Happiest when cruising said:

I would guess it’s electronic and easy for them to do. 
As far as the OBC, we use it towards gratuities and sometimes Wi-Fi, since the drink plans are of no use to us. 

Approving them takes time since they need to look at all of the various types of proof that might be submitted.

 

Taking off shareholder OBC from bookings that also have Veterans could be done with a very simple programming effort. One could generate a list of all such bookings with a pretty simple database query.

[Happiest when cruising]

20 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Approving them takes time since they need to look at all of the various types of proof that might be submitted.

 

Taking off shareholder OBC from bookings that also have Veterans could be done with a very simple programming effort. One could generate a list of all such bookings with a pretty simple database query.

I agree. It’s going to be interesting if OBC starts getting automatically removed. Some people add up their OBC well before they cruise, and make decisions about the Premium/Plus booking plans based on that. 
Time will tell…and of course a formal announcement from Princess wouldn’t hurt, either. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Happiest when cruising

[Guest ldtr]

2 minutes ago, Happiest when cruising said:

I agree. It’s going to be interesting if OBC starts getting automatically removed. Some people add up their OBC well before they cruise, and make decisions about the Premium/Plus booking plans based on that. 
Time will tell…and of course a formal announcement from Princess wouldn’t hurt, either. 

I think that the odds are Princess will grandfather in the already approved OBC and enforce during the approval process for the shareholder obc.

 

They will already get some negative reaction to the change. More if they remove already approved obc. Grandfathering allows them to implement their long term change with less negative reaction and really at not that much cost.

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, nasa1974 said:

So I just requested my SOBC for my 5 day and 7 day cruises on the Sun in October 2024. I got the standard auto reply.

 

Thank you for submitting your request for Carnival Corporation Shareholder Benefits.  Due to current high volumes, please allow up to 21 days for processing.  You will receive a confirmation once the benefit has been applied to your booking.  

 

Sincerely,

Princess Cruises

 

I still have my MOBC & SOBC for my 3 day and 7 day Westcoast cruises in October and my 7 day in April 2024. I'm traveling solo. I guess I'll find out in a few days what happens.

You probably already know this, but we don't wait to get notified. I usually start checking my Personalizer every day after submitting the SHB form and the SOBC usually shows up within 2-4 days under the Payment section of the booking. 

[vjmatty]

4 hours ago, logan25 said:

Hate to tell you, but it could be as simple as a computer program element not allowing both to reside on the same booking.

I can see that working for future bookings but those already in place would be more complicated. How would they decide which to delete?

[vjmatty]

1 hour ago, Happiest when cruising said:

I would guess it’s electronic and easy for them to do. 
As far as the OBC, we use it towards gratuities and sometimes Wi-Fi, since the drink plans are of no use to us. 

Which costs them even less since gratuities are for the crew and Wi-Fi is paid for already. 

[vjmatty]

21 minutes ago, ldtr said:

I think that the odds are Princess will grandfather in the already approved OBC and enforce during the approval process for the shareholder obc.

 

They will already get some negative reaction to the change. More if they remove already approved obc. Grandfathering allows them to implement their long term change with less negative reaction and really at not that much cost.

I agree…. the negative PR from the pettiness of not grandfathering existing cruises would outweigh the benefits to Princess. Denying the SOBC isn’t necessarily more money in Princess’s pocket. It will likely just be less empty spending to use up non refundable OBC. It’s not like Princess has to write checks for unused SOBC. But then again I’ve seen pettier things. 

[Guest ldtr]

34 minutes ago, vjmatty said:

I agree…. the negative PR from the pettiness of not grandfathering existing cruises would outweigh the benefits to Princess. Denying the SOBC isn’t necessarily more money in Princess’s pocket. It will likely just be less empty spending to use up non refundable OBC. It’s not like Princess has to write checks for unused SOBC. But then again I’ve seen pettier things. 

Cost them opportunity cost (the potential revenue on whatever is purchased with it compared to someone actually paying for it) plus the actual expense to them for what ever it is spent on.

 

On an excursion it probably cost them 60 percent, on gratuities 100 percent since that money all goes to the crew. Specialty dining or drinks much less.

[voljeep]

49 minutes ago, vjmatty said:

. the negative PR from the pettiness of not grandfathering existing cruises would outweigh the benefits to Princess.

I believe Princess is well beyond whatever 'publicity' they receive when changing 'policies'

 

They do it, accept it, and move on - and ships are sailing, and prices are high(er)

[WmFCoyote]

We submitted a request to SBPCL on Friday to have my wife's shareholders benefits added to our 17 November 2024 Panama Canal cruise. I already have military OBC so we were waiting to see what happens.

This morning, I checked the booking and low and behold, we now have Shareholders OBC for her and Military OBC for me.

Hope this clears things up a bit

[JF - retired RRT]

On 6/17/2023 at 11:52 AM, cr8tiv1 said:

 

This seems to be a standard with Princess.  Implement then fix, modify, change, alter, step back, hindsight...It happens way too often (starting with Medallion or before).  If "we" can see the problems, why can't the highly paid see them too?

Peter Principle

[voljeep]

8 minutes ago, JF - retired RRT said:

Peter Principle

has the 'highly paid' ever been on a Princess cruise?

ever been a factor in what they are trying to fix/implement?

CC is a great 'free' beta group

[Steelers36]

18 hours ago, ldtr said:

The loyalty obc was not an Elite benefit. It was a separate program.

True enough and it gets some confused because one would have to be at the Elite level in order to get the other program benefits.

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, logan25 said:

Hate to tell you, but it could be as simple as a computer program element not allowing both to reside on the same booking.

 

2 hours ago, ldtr said:

Approving them takes time since they need to look at all of the various types of proof that might be submitted.

 

Taking off shareholder OBC from bookings that also have Veterans could be done with a very simple programming effort. One could generate a list of all such bookings with a pretty simple database query.

When it comes to IT programming, nothing is simple at Princess.

 

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

I believe Princess is well beyond whatever 'publicity' they receive when changing 'policies'

 

They do it, accept it, and move on - and ships are sailing, and prices are high(er)

Whenever a company makes a change like this they not only look at the numbers (how many use it, the cost, the savings from the change) but also an estimate of how many existing customers they are likely to lose. It should all be modeled it. Then after the change the compare the results to what their model projected.

[Guest ldtr]

3 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

 

When it comes to IT programming, nothing is simple at Princess.

 

I am not a programmer but even I could write that DB query.

[Steelers36]

Here's my assessment after reading the memo and the posts.

 

The effective date is when things change.  Existing bookings will not be affected.  However, if you re-fare after June 29, be prepared to lose the double-dipping, so I would factor that into the financial analysis.  New bookings after the effective date are impacted.  Also, anyone with an existing booking who doesn't apply for benefits before the change date will be affected.

 

The big impact is the MOBC, and it should be being applied automatically to any new booking once setup - unlike SOBC where we have to apply every booking.

 

I realize it has not been made clear, but it does seem that Person A can claim and get MOBC and Person B can claim and get SOBC.  However, anyone reporting that their applications are working now, don't indicate the future since we are still prior to the change date of June 29. 

 

I imagine we will see some sort of PCL announcement, but they won't be trumpeting from the roof tops when it is bad news.

[voljeep]

5 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Whenever a company makes a change like this they not only look at the numbers (how many use it, the cost, the savings from the change) but also an estimate of how many existing customers they are likely to lose. It should all be modeled it. Then after the change the compare the results to what their model projected.

Princess wants new customers who spend money onboard without any loyalty perks.  Existing customers, meh, not so much - Princess already has their money.  But Princess does need to be somewhat careful about longer cruises that doesn't attract families.

[rj59]

Good timing, since I was torn between cheap N/S Alaska cruises on either Princess or NCL. I was going to go with Princess due to the dual military/shareholder benefits, but NCL is cheaper to begin with and now offers 10% off the base fare for military. The same calculus now goes in play with HAL, who offer a straight $100 military benefit, combinable with shareholder benefits. In the past the military benefit was usually refunded, which was in effect a fare decrease, but now that's no longer possible either, so in effect for me either benefit is just covering most gratuities. It's a blow to my Princess loyalty, since I just went on two HAL cruises because they offered both military and shareholder credits, and I'll probably choose more NCL for Europe and Mexico because they offer 10% military discounts for their already low sailaway fares (like $600 solo for a 10-night Ireland trip last month). I'll also simply sail less, especially since I'm not really enjoying the Royal-class ships at fuller capacity now and I'm getting bored with the MDR and buffet menus, even desserts, and even the Alfredo's pizza on my last cruise didn't seem particularly wonderful. I can see the point of all the cutbacks and price increases, to cut down debt and their stated intention to make cruising as costly as land travel, but my future travel to Europe will be on land, as will most winter warm getaways, whereas in the past it's mostly been Mexican cruises. 

[Ken the cruiser]

25 minutes ago, rj59 said:

Good timing, since I was torn between cheap N/S Alaska cruises on either Princess or NCL. I was going to go with Princess due to the dual military/shareholder benefits, but NCL is cheaper to begin with and now offers 10% off the base fare for military. The same calculus now goes in play with HAL, who offer a straight $100 military benefit, combinable with shareholder benefits. In the past the military benefit was usually refunded, which was in effect a fare decrease, but now that's no longer possible either, so in effect for me either benefit is just covering most gratuities. It's a blow to my Princess loyalty, since I just went on two HAL cruises because they offered both military and shareholder credits, and I'll probably choose more NCL for Europe and Mexico because they offer 10% military discounts for their already low sailaway fares (like $600 solo for a 10-night Ireland trip last month). I'll also simply sail less, especially since I'm not really enjoying the Royal-class ships at fuller capacity now and I'm getting bored with the MDR and buffet menus, even desserts, and even the Alfredo's pizza on my last cruise didn't seem particularly wonderful. I can see the point of all the cutbacks and price increases, to cut down debt and their stated intention to make cruising as costly as land travel, but my future travel to Europe will be on land, as will most winter warm getaways, whereas in the past it's mostly been Mexican cruises. 

I agree with you, diversity when it comes to cruising is definitely a big plus in our cruising strategy, and the 10% discount NCL just implemented last November is definitely a nice perk! Glad to see HAL finally started offering a military perk, as they never did when we used to cruise with them up until 2019 when they started getting just too "relaxed" for us. Celebrity also offers a military discount between $50 to $100 off your cruise fare, depending on the length of the cruise.

[rosevew]

Princess currently offer 10% off if you have a Blue light or Defence Discount card in the UK. That came in earlier this year and runs until the end of the year. Same as Fred Olsen and Royal Caribbean

[Italy52]

1 hour ago, rj59 said:

Good timing, since I was torn between cheap N/S Alaska cruises on either Princess or NCL. I was going to go with Princess due to the dual military/shareholder benefits, but NCL is cheaper to begin with and now offers 10% off the base fare for military. The same calculus now goes in play with HAL, who offer a straight $100 military benefit, combinable with shareholder benefits. In the past the military benefit was usually refunded, which was in effect a fare decrease, but now that's no longer possible either, so in effect for me either benefit is just covering most gratuities. It's a blow to my Princess loyalty, since I just went on two HAL cruises because they offered both military and shareholder credits, and I'll probably choose more NCL for Europe and Mexico because they offer 10% military discounts for their already low sailaway fares (like $600 solo for a 10-night Ireland trip last month). I'll also simply sail less, especially since I'm not really enjoying the Royal-class ships at fuller capacity now and I'm getting bored with the MDR and buffet menus, even desserts, and even the Alfredo's pizza on my last cruise didn't seem particularly wonderful. I can see the point of all the cutbacks and price increases, to cut down debt and their stated intention to make cruising as costly as land travel, but my future travel to Europe will be on land, as will most winter warm getaways, whereas in the past it's mostly been Mexican cruises. 

Could you please expand what are the requirements for HAL military and NCL military --- can veterans use this benefit?