Will prices decrease after final payment?

[Georgia_Peaches]

My rule...never check prices after I've made final payment.  OTOH, if I'm booking after the final payment deadline, then it's anyone's guess.  How many rooms are left and how close to sailing are you?  One can often find some last minute deals on various TA sites including this one but the inventory may be lacking or guarantee categories only.

[canderson]

1 hour ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

My rule...never check prices after I've made final payment. 

So you wouldn't feel bad to later find your fare had dropped by $500, and that you'd left that money on the table?  To each his/her own, I guess.

 

 

[RichYak]

24 minutes ago, canderson said:

So you wouldn't feel bad to later find your fare had dropped by $500, and that you'd left that money on the table?  To each his/her own, I guess.

But after final payment date, there's no way to recoup that $500. Why should she feel bad?

[canderson]

5 minutes ago, RichYak said:

But after final payment date, there's no way to recoup that $500. Why should she feel bad?

Because there is.  Read post #22, and follow the Celebrity link I left there.

 

$500 in OBC can cover a lot of 'fixed' expenses, like gratuities (which will be running us $540 per cabin on our next cruise), and if nothing else, can be spent on whatever fun and frivolous thing the recipient can think up.  Shorex paid for by credit card can be cancelled and paid for with OBC.  A little imagination goes a long way!

 

[canderson]

By the way -- If you're using a TA and they're not helping you with this kind of thing, it's time to find another TA.

[RichYak]

28 minutes ago, canderson said:

Because there is.  Read post #22, and follow the Celebrity link I left there.

Ok, shoot me for assuming that @Georgia_Peaches was referring to a cruise booked more than 48 hours ago.

[Georgia_Peaches]

1 hour ago, canderson said:

So you wouldn't feel bad to later find your fare had dropped by $500, and that you'd left that money on the table?  To each his/her own, I guess.

 

 

No, I wouldn’t feel bad because I wouldn’t know. What’s the point of checking prices after final payment is made?  

Edited August 14 by Georgia_Peaches

[Georgia_Peaches]

36 minutes ago, canderson said:

Because there is.  Read post #22, and follow the Celebrity link I left there.

 

$500 in OBC can cover a lot of 'fixed' expenses, like gratuities (which will be running us $540 per cabin on our next cruise), and if nothing else, can be spent on whatever fun and frivolous thing the recipient can think up.  Shorex paid for by credit card can be cancelled and paid for with OBC.  A little imagination goes a long way!

 

Hmmm. Interesting. You’ve given me something to think about. Thanks!  
 

ps…I responded to your other post before reading this one 😊. 

[RichYak]

4 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

No, I wouldn’t feel bad because I wouldn’t know. What’s the point of checking prices after final payment is made?  

There isn't one, unless you booked less than 48 hours prior or are interested in upgrading.

[Georgia_Peaches]

Just now, RichYak said:

There isn't one, unless you booked less than 48 hours prior or are interested in upgrading.

I wish I could be that spur of the moment!  lol. Most of our cruises are booked at least 6 months out and many people would consider that to be ‘last minute’. 

[RichYak]

5 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

I wish I could be that spur of the moment!  lol. Most of our cruises are booked at least 6 months out and many people would consider that to be ‘last minute’. 

Same here. The post-final-payment-date section of Celebrity's best price guarantee that @canderson linked to never applies to us--and likely most cruisers.

[zitsky]

My TA tells me not to reprice because I’ll lose all my OBC.  Does that sound right?

[RichYak]

20 minutes ago, zitsky said:

My TA tells me not to reprice because I’ll lose all my OBC.  Does that sound right?

Maybe your TA is telling you not to reprice because they’ll lose some commission. Does that sound right to you? It’s up to you to do the math.  

[canderson]

16 minutes ago, RichYak said:

Maybe your TA is telling you not to reprice because they’ll lose some commission. Does that sound right to you? It’s up to you to do the math.  

Could also be a real loss of OBC if the cruise was booked far enough back to have included that as part of the AI or other promotion.

[canderson]

1 hour ago, RichYak said:

Same here. The post-final-payment-date section of Celebrity's best price guarantee that @canderson linked to never applies to us--and likely most cruisers.

Not if the reservation is booked ahead and held through final payment, no.  There's a very short window of opportunity where the math may work out very nicely, or may not.  Give the timing, the nature of the original booking (especially deposit) some thought, and I'll bet you come up with a few new ideas.  There's always a small risk involved with regard to taking the original cruise or having to move to another based upon availability and any unseen but existing wait lists, but on the whole, we've been pretty happy with the results when we've seen the right inventory available at the right time.  Certainly doesn't happen for every X cruise, but there do seem to be some very strong trends.  Enough said.

[cruisestitch]

4 hours ago, zitsky said:

My TA tells me not to reprice because I’ll lose all my OBC.  Does that sound right?

Yes

[Georgia_Peaches]

9 hours ago, zitsky said:

My TA tells me not to reprice because I’ll lose all my OBC.  Does that sound right?

My understanding is that repricing is the same as rebooking and therefore, you get whatever is offered at the time of repricing and in many cases one of the changes is in the amount of obc offered. 

[FeliciaB]

19 hours ago, canderson said:

The only time I'd agree with this would be if for some reason my original fare/booking didn't allow for any adjustment, making the point moot.  And yes, it's necessary for there to be a cabin available with a published fare on the X site in order to request the adjustment, but you never know when this might happen.  Even if you've not seen anything comparable available for many months, there are often cancellations right before final payment. 

 

Although there has always been one equivalent cabin available on our Nov '24 TA for some reason (and to our surprise, there still is), a second popped up at 91 days out.  With the price drop, we applied for the OBC for our own cabin, and since the fare was now a fair bit less, we upgraded our 'kids' from the cabin they had to the same class cabin as ours.  There was no reprice on theirs since there hadn't been any of those available since last June.

 

In 2021, we had a whopping $5,600 to play with on a 15nt B2B.

In 2022, we didn't score because there were no more cabins in our class to compare.

In 2023, we moved to Silversea for that year.

In 2024, we picked up another $1,700 or so of OBC to play with on a 14nt.

 

Best Price Guarantee really is still a 'thing':

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/company/customer-support/best-price-guarantee

 

 If within 48 hours from creation of booking or if on or before the due date of final payment, regardless of creation date of booking, you can submit a request to apply the lower cruise fare or promotional offer to your booking as described above.  --the fine print from the best price guarantee

if you book early, no more repricing after the final payment date, unless you just booked within 48 hrs.  In 2021 that wasn't the case and you could reprice after the final payment for the obc.  In 2024, it sounds like you were able to do it at 91 days so it worked for you.  

That is the reason that others have said that once the final payment is due then they don't look.  It is also the reason why it probably won't apply to the original person from this topic.  They can always try to submit but it doesn't sound like the price guarantee will apply.

[Iamcruzin]

10 hours ago, zitsky said:

My TA tells me not to reprice because I’ll lose all my OBC.  Does that sound right?

If it was part of a promotion you could lose your OBC because now you are rebooking on different terms. This happened to me but my OBC was more than the reduction so I left it alone.

 

In all my yrs of cruising I have never seen a larger price drop of $500 but I don't book suites. Also what travel agent in their right mind would take a cut in commission to save a client $500 unless they are their own TA. It's just bad business. Can you imagine how time consuming it would be to track every client and monitor price drops. It's time consuming just doing it for myself. Every time I do a mock booking a get an email saying your ship has come in but you're not on it. Complete your booking.

Edited August 14 by Iamcruzin

[zitsky]

Well it may not be worth it to reprice but maybe this would make a move up to CS cheaper?  In the official move up program?  I would like to try assuming we don’t get a CS right under the pool.  I have trouble on some devices seeing inventory on all decks.  I select a different deck during mock booking but it doesn’t change.

[canderson]

16 minutes ago, Iamcruzin said:

In all my yrs of cruising I have never seen a larger price drop of $500 but I don't book suites. Also what travel agent in their right mind would take a cut in commission to save a client $500 unless they are their own TA. It's just bad business. Can you imagine how time consuming it would be to track every client and monitor price drops. It's time consuming just doing it for myself. Every time I do a mock booking a get an email saying your ship has come in but you're not on it. Complete your booking.

Yes, booking suites will often cause a bigger delta in price, especially after final.  The % delta isn't all that different, but the number can be quite large.

 

As for the TA, it's good business if the TA is looking to retain clients long term. 

 

If prepared (keep most likely to benefit bookings in an easy spreadsheet) the lookup of one can cover numerous bookings.  The original work is only about an additional 30 seconds per client.  There are also times when it's more likely to occur.  Won't catch all price drops, but can catch the big ones. 

 

When making mock bookings, don't log in first and you won't get those annoying emails.

 

 

 

[Rick&Jeannie]

On 8/13/2024 at 10:31 AM, 20165 said:

Well, that stinks. This post prompted me to check our cruise which i just upgraded last week and its now $500 less this week.  80 days out...  

That's why I'm not even going to look!  I don't want to get mad before I board! 😄 Too late anyway...we leave in just a few days.

[20165]

1 hour ago, Iamcruzin said:

If it was part of a promotion you could lose your OBC because now you are rebooking on different terms. This happened to me but my OBC was more than the reduction so I left it alone.

 

In all my yrs of cruising I have never seen a larger price drop of $500 but I don't book suites. Also what travel agent in their right mind would take a cut in commission to save a client $500 unless they are their own TA. It's just bad business. Can you imagine how time consuming it would be to track every client and monitor price drops. It's time consuming just doing it for myself. Every time I do a mock booking a get an email saying your ship has come in but you're not on it. Complete your booking.

Our cabin went from $11680 to $11165 so im definitely going take Candersons advise and try to get an OBC which is fine.  Frustrating because i literally upgraded this a week ago today.

[zitsky]

My TA talked to Celebrity today.  I have a email from her.  Celebrity said if we reprice we lose OBC and also our gratuities paid which seems really odd to me.  Celebrity said if they upgraded us to a higher cabin, same thing, we would lose those payments.

 

I wonder how so many people on this board reprice and walk away with free money.  Maybe I’m having trouble because I’m in a group booking with a TA.

[Iamcruzin]

1 hour ago, zitsky said:

My TA talked to Celebrity today.  I have a email from her.  Celebrity said if we reprice we lose OBC and also our gratuities paid which seems really odd to me.  Celebrity said if they upgraded us to a higher cabin, same thing, we would lose those payments.

 

I wonder how so many people on this board reprice and walk away with free money.  Maybe I’m having trouble because I’m in a group booking with a TA.

There are a lot of TA's on these boards who make their own adjustments as they come up. If you are in a group booking you probably got extras that the average person in a single booking doesn't get.