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Canceling and rebooking?


KD412

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I listen to the RCL Blog podcast frequently and Matt is always talking about cancelling and rebooking to get better prices. We did not use to a travel agent to book our two honeymoon cruises for Sept. 2020 on Navigator and Symphony. We like our room choices and don’t want to lose them, but I think the Labor Day sale may present some extra savings for us. Has anybody done this and how did you approach it? Do you book the new one then cancel the old, vise versa, or can you call and have RCL do it for you? Thanks in advance!! 

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2 minutes ago, KD412 said:

Thanks Mat! We actually hadn’t booked anything in cruise planner yet, I was wondering about the cruise itself. 

Sorry for any confusion. Re-pricing the cruise is a different animal. Check out this podcast episode: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/podcast/episode-232-how-check-price-drops-your-royal-caribbean-cruise

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1 hour ago, KD412 said:

Looking at it now though, we booked non-refundable, so we wouldn’t get our deposit right? That wouldn’t make it worth it. Darn. 

I mostly always book non-refundable and re-price often.  I have never lost my deposit.  The only time you lose that is if you change ship/sail date.

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1 hour ago, KD412 said:

I listen to the RCL Blog podcast frequently and Matt is always talking about cancelling and rebooking to get better prices. We did not use to a travel agent to book our two honeymoon cruises for Sept. 2020 on Navigator and Symphony. We like our room choices and don’t want to lose them, but I think the Labor Day sale may present some extra savings for us. Has anybody done this and how did you approach it? Do you book the new one then cancel the old, vise versa, or can you call and have RCL do it for you? Thanks in advance!! 

Call Royal Caribbean Customer Service.  They can help you.

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I recently re-priced my cruise a few times. Has anyone run into the problem of finding one price online then when calling they can never get to that price? I re-price the same exact cruise & the same type of room but when calling they never get to that price I find online even after telling them what discounts come up online. 

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@Cruisin' Queen and @chrisb732 and @KD412.  Hello and welcome to the RCB forums!

We have done over thirty cruises and I can only remember getting re-priced several times.  I find that it hard to get TAs to admit the price actually went down.  The times they did they wanted to upgrade me instead of giving me a money refund.  I wish there was a way to do re-pricing directly through a website, but there is probably an obvious reason that this is not allowed.

1 hour ago, chrisb732 said:

I recently re-priced my cruise a few times. Has anyone run into the problem of finding one price online then when calling they can never get to that price? I re-price the same exact cruise & the same type of room but when calling they never get to that price I find online even after telling them what discounts come up online. 

Yes, this happens, but usually if you have proof (like a picture of their very own website) they tend to move on the price.  But, I still find it hard to do.  And don't get me started about the convoluted way they price FREE cruises when using credit card points.  They  seem to have their very own specially higher price list for that.

@chrisb732  In the case you mention, who did you book with?

Detailed tips on how to do this from @Lovetocruise2002 would be welcomed...

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1 hour ago, chrisb732 said:

I recently re-priced my cruise a few times. Has anyone run into the problem of finding one price online then when calling they can never get to that price? I re-price the same exact cruise & the same type of room but when calling they never get to that price I find online even after telling them what discounts come up online. 

Yes, last year this happened to me a few times. Apparently, the port fees (?) could change slightly and they will not re-price those. SO, you'll get the new rate with your original port fee price which explains the price difference. Last year was the first anything like that happened to me. I was using an agent.

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6 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I still don't get it.  Maybe I need to take one of your seminars!  How do you find the latest pricing?  Do you constantly call someone for this info?  Can this info be found on-line?  How often do you check?  Who do you call to get the re-pricing applied?  How do you convince them to do this for you?  These are all non-refundable rates correct?  So are you actually cancelling and re-booking?  Do you ever get turned down even though the price actually went down?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks for your help!

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Anytime you reprice your cruise it is essentially a cancellation and rebooking.  That is why you cannot reprice after final payment.  At that time, a cancellation penalty is invoked and it no longer becomes profitable to reprice.

You can easily check the current prices by going to the RCCL (royalcaribbean.com) website and :

  • Find a cruise
  • Select the box for how many nights 
  • Select your ship
  • Find the month of your sailing at "Leaving Any Date"
  • Apply
  • Find and select your sail date
  • # of rooms - Continue
  • # of people - Continue
  • Cabin Type - Select
  • Cabin Category - Select

If you find that the current price is less than what you paid, and you have not yet reached final payment, ask either your agent or call RCCL and ask them to check to see if you can save any money with the current pricing.  The only thing you have to be careful of is...you might lose onboard credit or some other perk that you had in your original booking if you want to take advantage of a current lower price.

You should be able to price adjust whether you have refundable or non-refundable deposits.  The only time the non-refundable issue comes up is if you decide you want to change the ship and/or sail date of your cruise.  But for price adjustments it will not matter what kind of deposit you have.

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3 hours ago, YOLO said:

I still don't get it.  Maybe I need to take one of your seminars!  How do you find the latest pricing?  Do you constantly call someone for this info?  Can this info be found on-line?  How often do you check?  Who do you call to get the re-pricing applied?  How do you convince them to do this for you?  These are all non-refundable rates correct?  So are you actually cancelling and re-booking?  Do you ever get turned down even though the price actually went down?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks for your help!

To find the latest pricing, I simply do a mock booking online on Royal's website.  I check at least once a week.  If I booked direct, I call Royal myself.  If I booked with a TA, I call my TA.  My TA knows me well enough to know I track my prices.  One time, early on, they claimed there was no drop and I was confident that there was.  I called Royal myself, asked them to make a note in my file for my TA and then called the TA back.  It was a bit more work, but worth the $1000 that I saved on it.

I usually book suites so all NRD.

I have not been turned down yet.  But I track prices meticulously so I will also not call unless I am sure that there is a drop.

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  • 3 weeks later...

@YOLO I made the booking myself, apologies for the late reply.

 

To @Lovetocruise2002 or anyone else who could be of help. I have repriced a few times lately & they still are unable to come up with the price I found online. Do you send them a screen shot of what you are coming up with to whoever you are talking to on the phone. I have even noticed that the taxes and fees are lower then the last time I repriced. I also have been copying exactly what I have booked in the past. This is so confusing to me! Thank you!

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I would screenshot it so they can see what discounts Royal is applying through their website.  Make sure you click on the view pricing by guest to break it down that way and perhaps they can identify why they can't get the same pricing to pull.  I know that DEAL discount randomly pops up when I'm trying to do mock bookings and it will be a random $ amount like $48.

I have also seen port taxes and fees differ depending on when a booking was made.

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4 minutes ago, chrisb732 said:

@YOLO I made the booking myself, apologies for the late reply.

 

To @Lovetocruise2002 or anyone else who could be of help. I have repriced a few times lately & they still are unable to come up with the price I found online. Do you send them a screen shot of what you are coming up with to whoever you are talking to on the phone. I have even noticed that the taxes and fees are lower then the last time I repriced. This is so confusing to me! Thank you!

Make sure you are comparing the same thing.  If you booked refundable, keep in mind that the prices shown on the website are nonrefundable, and will almost always be less.  So when you do a mock booking for a refundable deposit you have to go through the entire process of putting names (I have fake names/email addresses/phone numbers) that I use to accomplish this.  It's a pain to do, and I really wish that Royal would put the refundable price along with the non-refundable price, available to see before having to enter passenger information.

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@chrisb732 you also have to keep in mind that the price you see online fluctuates according to the "deal of the day".  I would agree with @AshleyDillo in that the safest bet is to screen shot it and make sure you are comparing apples to apples.  Some "special promos" cannot always be applied when re-pricing.  If you are a C&A member, I would also recommend calling the C&A line as they are usually much more knowledgeable and competent with re-pricing scenarios.  When I book directly, I never deal with the main line. 

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I have also noticed some rooms within the same categories will be a slight increase in price because of a more "desirable" location or a higher occupancy room.  I'm talking like $8-$17 increased in a room 3 doors down.  I think when someone does a mock booking it may even lock that specific room so no one else can currently quote a price on it.  So definitely need to break it down and pay attention to those options when you do your mock booking as someone else may click on the nextdoor room to compare and come up with a slightly different price. 

I know on Royal's site when you get to the room selection option and you see the list of the rooms some of them will show the price difference.  So you may want to screenshot that step in case they end up clicking one of those more "valuable" rooms in doing their quote.

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@SpeedNoodles Thank you, yes I have been putting in the same exact thing that I have previously booked.  @Lovetocruise2002 What blows my mind is that as soon as I reprice I call immediately. I double and triple check to make sure I am comparing apples to apples. It seems that the resident and DEAL promo can never be applied to repricing. It makes me laugh because sometimes when I reprice I don't even select the state I live in and it still gives me a resident discount LOL?‍♂️. I will try calling the C&A number next time. Thank you for the advice. 

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23 minutes ago, chrisb732 said:

@YOLO I made the booking myself, apologies for the late reply.

 

To @Lovetocruise2002 or anyone else who could be of help. I have repriced a few times lately & they still are unable to come up with the price I found online. Do you send them a screen shot of what you are coming up with to whoever you are talking to on the phone. I have even noticed that the taxes and fees are lower then the last time I repriced. I also have been copying exactly what I have booked in the past. This is so confusing to me! Thank you!

Note that taxes and fees do not get repriced (unless you do a full cancel and rebook). This can be a good thing (if they go up) or not (if they go down).

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2 hours ago, WannaCruise said:

Note that taxes and fees do not get repriced (unless you do a full cancel and rebook). This can be a good thing (if they go up) or not (if they go down).

So, if you try to re-book after say an itinerary change where a port was dropped and the port/tax fee went down, RCL somehow thinks you are obligated to pay for that port that they sort of tricked you into paying for even though you will never see it?  That's crazy...

On NCL Dawn we were on the St. Lawrence river last year when a port was cancelled due to environmental sensitivities.  They refunded the related port charges right then and there to our on board ship account!

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  • 1 month later...
On 9/3/2019 at 7:12 AM, YOLO said:

@Cruisin' Queen and @chrisb732 and @KD412.  Hello and welcome to the RCB forums!

We have done over thirty cruises and I can only remember getting re-priced several times.  I find that it hard to get TAs to admit the price actually went down.  The times they did they wanted to upgrade me instead of giving me a money refund.  I wish there was a way to do re-pricing directly through a website, but there is probably an obvious reason that this is not allowed.

Yes, this happens, but usually if you have proof (like a picture of their very own website) they tend to move on the price.  But, I still find it hard to do.  And don't get me started about the convoluted way they price FREE cruises when using credit card points.  They  seem to have their very own specially higher price list for that.

@chrisb732  In the case you mention, who did you book with?

Detailed tips on how to do this from @Lovetocruise2002 would be welcomed...

I'm a TA -- as long as it's prior to final payment, it  can be repriced.   

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So I called Royal Caribbean and they were able to help me out with it. I found it to be about $70 cheaper which I thought was a good deal (basically enough money for another dinner on board) but what I didn't think about was the INCREDIBLE price I had on the VOOM + Drink package. I ended up saving $70 but after re-purchasing the package, I ended up losing $120. 

I don't think they always make you cancel everything on the cruise planner (it happened to me because I used Staff Friends & Family discount) so do also keep that in mind. 

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