Currency for Pre Paying gratuity

[Jakdgr]

Hi - having a blank moment so hopefully fellow Aussie based cruisers can remind me!

Booked cruise for Europe sailing (departure port UK). Cruise paid shows in AUD, understand purchase prices when onboard ship is in USD.

 

To prepay gratuity in advance of cruise - is the amount shown in personaliser AUD or USD?? 
Didn’t prepay last cruise(😩) so paid USD daily onboard but drawing a blank re currency for prepaid. Thinking it is USD but not confident.

 

Note: to be clear - am not going down the tipping rabbit hole just currency question.  
 

[arxcards]

What cruise line?

[arxcards]

I just picked-up on the term "personaliser", which is Princess. Princess pre-payment of grats for a cruise booked in Australia is in $AU. That is outlined in the personaliser, as for one of our Southampton departures next year on Princess:

[Jakdgr]

Oops sorry - cruising Princess …

 

Thanks @arxcards - when I looked yesterday at personaliser it wasn’t showing currency … but just checked again now and it shows - Princess IT glitch/fun 🫣

 

 

 

Princess 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Compare the Princess AUD price with the USD price converted at current exchange rates. Sometimes it's a very favourable price, other times it may be better to wait a while to see what the exchange rate is doing then decide if you want to prepay the gratuities. If it's close then the convenience of prepaying outweighs a few dollars difference in my opinion. 

[MicCanberra]

It should always show AUD or $A if the currency is Australian for the other lines, otherwise if just $, it will be USD.

[lyndarra]

 

Grats are usually in USD but European based lines like MSC, for example, IIRC, are in EUR.

I pay in advance. The service crew have access to your account  and will know this and know that you are serious and not going to delete them at end of cruise. I like to think it can result in better service but can't know this for sure.

Forget about exchange rates, they can go in either direction, who knows? How big a difference would it result in anyway?

[Aus Traveller]

2 hours ago, lyndarra said:

 

Grats are usually in USD but European based lines like MSC, for example, IIRC, are in EUR.

I pay in advance. The service crew have access to your account  and will know this and know that you are serious and not going to delete them at end of cruise. I like to think it can result in better service but can't know this for sure.

Forget about exchange rates, they can go in either direction, who knows? How big a difference would it result in anyway?

I doubt that the service crew have access to passengers' accounts and even if they did, why would they take the time to check them out.

[MicCanberra]

They know who has tipped and who tips along the way.

[arxcards]

20 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Compare the Princess AUD price with the USD price converted at current exchange rates. Sometimes it's a very favourable price, other times it may be better to wait a while to see what the exchange rate is doing then decide if you want to prepay the gratuities. If it's close then the convenience of prepaying outweighs a few dollars difference in my opinion. 

That is good advice, and also dependent on whether you have a no conversion fees built into your card.

 

Another way of prepaying is to find out what the conversion rate is for buying OBC. As they will often only hedge for once per season, it can be a beneficial rate, and then the grats are getting deducted out of your prepaid OBC each day. Sadly this is not in our favour at present:

Buying $US100OBC currently costs $AU155.

At today's rate it should only could cost $AU147, losing $8 per $100.

 

As with my above example, today I could pay grats for:

$AU396pp for our 16 nights.

The US price of $17 per day is $272, which converts today to $AU400.18. Add a 3% conversion for anyone with that sort of account or pre-purchasing US cash will be closer to $AU412.

 

As you say, best to watch closely and do your own sums. I will likely wait until final payment is done before deciding anyway, but if it is much of a muchness it is convenient to get it all out of the way before departing.

 

 

[arxcards]

2 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

I doubt that the service crew have access to passengers' accounts and even if they did, why would they take the time to check them out.

Correct, the service crew don't have access to that info. But the housekeeping supervisors certainly do, and they are known to pass-on who among their passengers has taken their daily grats off. If they are US passengers, they will be expecting a cash tip, otherwise they are very alert to being stiffed. All they can really do is smile and do their job anyway, perhaps wary about going the extra mile.