Parent company of Princess, HAL, Costa, Cunard & VIP program

[flashdog_1]

A couple of years ago I sailed HAL and was told we'd be eligible for discounts on the other lines under the parent company. The program was called V.I. P.

 

I have never received any ads for specials on any line but HAL. I posted this on the HAL board. It got 100 hits in one day, but no responses. Is this dead in the water?

 

Have any of you any experience with getting a discount on HAL, Costa, Cunard etc? thru your Princess affiliation, thru the VIP program? Thanks

[Druke I]

Past passenger discount only, not all the perks associated with individual companies' policies.

[sandinmyshoes]

We've sailed Princess many times and when we decided to try Carnival in the Mediterranean last fall, our travel agent had no problem using the VIP program to get us the past passenger discount. I haven't received any specific info about the program in correspondence from the cruise lines, but it is advertised in cruise travel magazines. As long as you talk to your Travel Agent, you should have no problem getting the discount.

 

By the way, I used an online agent who doesn't charge extra for booking over the phone.

[cs]

The web site is;

 

http: // vip. worlds leading cruiselines . com

 

You'll have to take the spaces out of the link.

 

From what I understand, it's offered on certain cruises only (very few).

[Colo Cruiser]

Yes VIP is only goood for fare discounts not perks. :)

[Toto2Kansas]

We have always been able to beat the past passenger discount offered by Princess (if you can even find a discount now as most seem to have disappeared except for select sailings) by using a good discount TA. Do begin to book until you check with the discount TA's for price before booking direct.

[BeBes Girl]

We have always been able to beat the past passenger discount offered by Princess (if you can even find a discount now as most seem to have disappeared except for select sailings) by using a good discount TA. Do begin to book until you check with the discount TA's for price before booking direct.

 

 

I'm a bit confused here. How do you locate a discount TA? I'm all for getting a better past passenger discount. I use a travel agent but don't know if she's a discount TA.

 

 

Thanks,

Janice

[flashdog_1]

We've sailed Princess many times and when we decided to try Carnival in the Mediterranean last fall, our travel agent had no problem using the VIP program to get us the past passenger discount. I haven't received any specific info about the program in correspondence from the cruise lines, but it is advertised in cruise travel magazines. As long as you talk to your Travel Agent, you should have no problem getting the discount.

 

By the way, I used an online agent who doesn't charge extra for booking over the phone.

 

Thank you. I'm glad she was familiar with the program. Is it like some other discounts, by state, senior etc. that they are not always offered on every sailing, or is it something you can count on?

 

Colo Cruiser Yes VIP is only goood for fare discounts not perks.

Thanks for the info about no perks, just money off the fare.

[weberman]

I'm a bit confused here. How do you locate a discount TA? I'm all for getting a better past passenger discount. I use a travel agent but don't know if she's a discount TA.

 

Thanks,

Janice

 

We are not allowed to post the names of travel agents on this board. Google will work wonders if you search correctly.

 

The Online Travel Agent that I use has always been signicantly cheaper without a Princess past passenger discount than booking directly with Princess. Most of the cruises I check on Princess don't even offer past passenger discounts.

 

On our Emerald 2008 Trans-Atlantic the my online travel agent was $1600 cheaper than Princess for a Category BB Balcony stateroom. Princess was offering no past passenger (Captains Circle) discounts when we booked.

 

Seek and Ye shall find as there are many. Ask around among any friends who cruise. Most good brick and mortar travel agents will also beat the Princess price.

 

As Toto2Kansas' good advice said or I think meant to say is "Don't begin to book until you check with the discount TA's for price before booking direct.

 

It would be interesting, if it was possible, to do a survey of the different prices people are paying for the same category stateroom on the same sailing.

[CruiseBumm]

A couple of years ago I sailed HAL and was told we'd be eligible for discounts on the other lines under the parent company. The program was called V.I. P.

 

I have never received any ads for specials on any line but HAL. I posted this on the HAL board. It got 100 hits in one day, but no responses. Is this dead in the water?

 

Have any of you any experience with getting a discount on HAL, Costa, Cunard etc? thru your Princess affiliation, thru the VIP program? Thanks

 

I have sailed HAL and never recieved adds until I booked one trip through the web. Now I get cruise adds from all the Carnaval lines and several

others.

 

Since Carnaval owns several lines, including HAL and Princeses, try e-mailing their web contact list with the question. I always think the best advice comes from the horse's mouth rather that the horse's other end.

[notentirelynormal]

I haven't checked it out yet but in the latest Princess brochure I received, there was an ad to check out http://www.worldsleadingcruiselines.com - "VIP entitles you to receive certain past guest privileges.

[Times Prince]

Every since Carnival bought Princess our postal box has been inundated with ads for Cunard, Holland America, Costa, and Princess. I think all you have to do is express an interest in getting mailed offers, but it could be that we had cruised both Princess and HAL before the buyout, so had a double hit on the past passenger databases.

 

Although I've looked into it, We've never tried the VIP thing - from what I can see the only thing it does on Princess is get the past passenger pricing which is what we have anyhow just by logging in with our Captain's Circle logon. Every time we've tried to look into Princess cruises on the VIP web site we get redirected to Carnival. Seeing as that is not what we were looking for, the web site is pretty much useless.

 

Email is another thing - add to the above list "the Yachts of Seabourn" and Royal Caribbean, and we've about got it covered. Most goes into our spam folder for review.

 

So many choices, so little time and money... :rolleyes:

[Toto2Kansas]

I haven't checked it out yet but in the latest Princess brochure I received, there was an ad to check out www.worldsleadingcruiselines.com - "VIP entitles you to receive certain past guest privileges.

 

The above is just a bit confusing, as it actually says that "Any guest who has previously cruised on any of our lines is entitled to certain past guest SAVINGS offered by any of our member lines." It also says, "Take advantage of our vacation interchange privleges when you plan your next cruise vacation."

 

Past guess privileges and past guest SAVINGS would be two totally different things. This could be why many ask if they are entitled to add their cruises on other ships in the Carnival Corp company to their captain's circle status with Princess. I think many people read this line incorrectly and so are disappointed when they find out the only thing they really get are past passenger discounts.