Does this sound right - Re: port charges/taxes?

[sueceecat]

Hi All

 

 

Was just looking over T/A statement for upcoming Pacific Princess Dec. 07 Honolulu /Tahiti cruise and noticed that taxes/port charges are over $600.00 for DH and I! Not itemized. Called T/A -she was very coy....does this sound right?

 

 

TIA!

[sunsetme]

you can compare prices by going on some of the dot coms for that sailing and also the princess site.

[Times Prince]

The number is most definitely not right in absolute terms.

 

However, you should be aware of a practice that some T/A's have of quoting a much lower cabin cost to win business and then increasing the taxes. This is not necessarily a problem, assuming the final, bottom line price was made known to you in advance, and that price is competitive with what you can get elsewhere.

 

We had one cruise originally booked direct with Princess, for which a TA gave us a better bottom line deal. When I reviewed the package from the TA, the cabin cost was much less, the tax was much more, and the bottom line savings was $75.

 

I was satisfied with the overall savings, but certainly do not think the money actually went to taxes.

 

So - are you satisfied with the total cost as fair and comparable to what you are shown on the Princess web site if you were to book direct?

[denneym1]

Uhm, it seems to me there is a law against collecting money under the pretense of it being taxes if it is not. There government thinks it is thier job to take all your money, and for someone else to do it and blame it on them would not go over well. This issue has arisen before with internet sellers claiming to collect taxes they did not need to, and I don't think this situation would be any different.

MD

[sueceecat]

Thanks! So interesting - Princess and a .com co. both quote tax/gov fees of much less -for a savings of $500.00 and $600.00 respectively for same category.. Guess I will have to have an akward chat w/ TA? I really like her...but thats a lot of money!

[sultan_sfo]

Princess website does not state the port charges. Charges by many agencies are separated as commissionable and non-commissionable and port charges go into the non-commissionable. Our agency also does that. One has to look at the final cost including all costs. If the totals are close (within 20% of Princess) then the method is OK. Then you have to decide whether to book or not. The port charges vary a lot depending on the number of ports for the cruise. European port charges are a lot more than Mexican Riviera port charges. /Sultan

 

 

Hi All

 

 

Was just looking over T/A statement for upcoming Pacific Princess Dec. 07 Honolulu /Tahiti cruise and noticed that taxes/port charges are over $600.00 for DH and I! Not itemized. Called T/A -she was very coy....does this sound right?

 

 

TIA!

[Times Prince]

Thanks! So interesting - Princess and a .com co. both quote tax/gov fees of much less -for a savings of $500.00 and $600.00 respectively for same category.. Guess I will have to have an akward chat w/ TA? I really like her...but thats a lot of money!

Remember it is really the bottom line that matters. There's always the possibility that the TA has to pay some local taxes.

 

It would be nice if the TA's used some other field for their "other" charges,

rather than using "port taxes" as the category. I am sure that "non-commissionable" charges would be more palatable to the customer. That's probably (just my guess) where the savings are coming from when comparing TA pricing.

 

Our guideline is to get a bottom line price that is acceptable to us, then to just go and enjoy the cruise. May you do the same.