Should I be alarm when a TA is selling at less than what RCCL offer?

[petesweet]

1. Is the TA price apples to apples with other prices?

2. Maybe they have a group booking?

3. Are they giving you cash back from their commission?

4. Worth asking lots of questions before booking with this TA.

 

Another EXTREMELY IMPORTANT question: Does your credit card payment go directly to Royal Caribbean? or does it get deposited with the TA? If the TA is unscrupulous or even if it falls on hard times and innocently faces bankruptcy, you have nothing to fall back on. Your credit card protection is good for only 60 days, so that's not foolproof.

And the fact that the company looks good and is not pulled as a travel agency means nothing.

Everyone would do well to read this HORROR STORY from the HAL board:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1025166&highlight=

 

Kathy

[madforcruising]

Another EXTREMELY IMPORTANT question: Does your credit card payment go directly to Royal Caribbean? or does it get deposited with the TA? If the TA is unscrupulous or even if it falls on hard times and innocently faces bankruptcy, you have nothing to fall back on. Your credit card protection is good for only 60 days, so that's not foolproof.

 

And the fact that the company looks good and is not pulled as a travel agency means nothing.

 

Everyone would do well to read this HORROR STORY from the HAL board:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1025166&highlight=

 

Kathy

 

Though I didn´t read the whole thread, but mostly just browsed through to read the updates of OP it was a very interesting story to follow. Thanks for posting the link. BTW, I have to say kudos to HAL, they provided great support here.

[Canadian Tyler]

Ok..... I may be jumping the gun here, but I'm somewhat concern, I looked into my CC statement online, and noticed that the deposit I left is recorded as "CRUISE PAYMENT VANCOUVER CD", and the merchant name field is call "cruise payment" and the merchant city is "Vancouver".

 

Before I call the agent and inquire about this, I will like to ask fellow Canadian on this board who have booked in Canadian dollar, will you be able to confirm that this is norm? Or the norm is Royal Caribbean should appear in the credit card statement instead?

 

I have booked a couple cruises through a Canadian online travel agency and had "CRUISE PAYMENT VANCOUVER CAN" on my statement. Had no problems.

 

When I called to book my most recent cruise, they gave me a better price than RC direct. Once I asked a few questions, I found out that the same cancellation policy would not apply since it was through a partner tour operator. I was worried about this, so went with RC direct via the travel agent.