nate91 Posted March 24, 2020 Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 Hi All, I'm a little stumped here. I book all my RC cruises through Costco travel, and I'm having a strange issue with them. I have Grandeur OTS 9 day booked for August 6 (before final payment, non refundable deposit). I got a great deal on an Oceanview, but now I'm seeing that both balcony guarantee AND Suite Guarantee are WAY cheaper on the Costco Travel website than they are on RC's site (for balcony guarantee, roughly $2300 vs $2900. I have called Costco Travel, who can see the price on their website, but when they call Royal, Royal says that this rate is only for first time bookings. I could find that nowhere in the fine print on Costco Travel's website, fine print reads as follows: "This category can be booked for a special rate, guaranteed to you. Please note that the category is not associated at the time of booking with a specific stateroom, deck, bedding configuration or other particular settings. The assignment of an actual cabin will be performed during your check-in. The cabin can be anywhere on the ship." Does anyone know any way around this? I have had issues before where certain Costco Travel agents would call the wrong department at Royal that couldn't get group rates. Could this be something like that, or is this worth dropping completely? If so, how do I know which rates on either site (Costco Travel or RC) are available for reprice vs. which are just for new bookings? Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted March 24, 2020 Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 If there is really a $600 difference between the price you paid and the Costco group rate, you could probably still make out better by cancelling your current booking, pay the $100 PP cancellation fee, and rebooking with Costco. Just know that Costco has some problematic “rules” about repricing and they do not participate in the Royal Up program, etc. It is not always easy to get assistance when you need it from those big agencies. But if $$$ is your main concern, it looks like you could still come out ahead by rebooking through Costco. Before I did that, however, I would be very sure that Royal would not reprice your cruise, first. Did you all Royal to see if you could reprice ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nate91 Posted March 24, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 They mentioned that I could cancel and rebook. Basically, it would be around $500 for me to upgrade to a balcony, but $700 if I cancel and rebook, so I'm not too sold on that. At this point, I feel that it's a worthwhile upgrade at the $500 but not the $700, so I'm trying to understand Costco's rules and if there's any way around this. My bad, $2300 for a balcony on Costco, $2500 for a suite. So about a $400 upgrade for balcony, $600 for suite, not counting the cancellation fees if I were to rebook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted March 24, 2020 Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 And Royal won’t upgrade you directly ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nate91 Posted March 24, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 Since I booked it through Costco I can't even talk to Royal about the reservation, I have to go through Costco. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlantix2000 Posted March 24, 2020 Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 1 hour ago, nate91 said: Since I booked it through Costco I can't even talk to Royal about the reservation, I have to go through Costco. I'm a bit confused. You started the thread by saying... 2 hours ago, nate91 said: Hi All, I'm a little stumped here. I book all my RC cruises through RC travel, and I'm having a strange issue with them So I initially thought you booked through Royal and wanted to rebook through Costco. Now I'm thinking your first post was a typo and you meant you booked with Costco and are looking at rebooking through them. If that's the case, yes, Royal won't talk to you. However, with Royal's customer support, it's often true that calling back and talking to someone else will get you a different answer. Perhaps the same is true with Costco. I've heard multiple times that Costco is great for initial price but not so great if you need changes. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted March 24, 2020 Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 Ok. That’s what confused me, too. I thought the OP had booked through Royal and wanted to rebook through Costco. So this is one of those pitfalls of using the big agencies. They will not reprice. Lesson learned. Book with an Agency that provides better service and will reprice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nate91 Posted March 24, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 Thanks for pointing that out. I did indeed make a mistake, I meant Costco instead of RC. Fixing now. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nate91 Posted March 24, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 13 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said: Ok. That’s what confused me, too. I thought the OP had booked through Royal and wanted to rebook through Costco. So this is one of those pitfalls of using the big agencies. They will not reprice. Lesson learned. Book with an Agency that provides better service and will reprice. That's another reason I'm confused. I have repriced through Costco before, a few times. Usually it's easy, one time I got ahold of a Costco rep that called the wrong department at Royal, and they had to connect me to another rep who called another department at Royal that handled "group rates." So I'm not sure if this is one of those situations where the people I'm talking to just don't see the rate I'm talking about since they're not the right department. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted March 24, 2020 Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 11 minutes ago, nate91 said: That's another reason I'm confused. I have repriced through Costco before, a few times. Usually it's easy, one time I got ahold of a Costco rep that called the wrong department at Royal, and they had to connect me to another rep who called another department at Royal that handled "group rates." So I'm not sure if this is one of those situations where the people I'm talking to just don't see the rate I'm talking about since they're not the right department. It sounds to me like you just got a dud on the phone. I would try calling again and see if they will either reprice or upgrade you at no cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt S Posted March 24, 2020 Report Share Posted March 24, 2020 @nate91 Costco was able to do an excellent change for me about a 2 months ago. It was for my June 14th cruise on Harmony. We originally had a GTY oceanview balcony for 4 of us. Me, my wife, and 2 teenage boys. I booked that last June. So 2 months ago, I saw that pricing was almost identical to get 2 rooms directly across the hall from each other.... And I could now pick my rooms. One was a oceanview large balcony and the other room was a central park view. The Costco agent was able to call Royal and make the switch for me. Baked Alaska and WAAAYTOOO 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnK6404 Posted March 25, 2020 Report Share Posted March 25, 2020 I don’t know the specifics of this reservation, but I can tell you with certainty that you can reprice with Costco. Our current Oasis booking is through Costco Travel (our first through a travel agent since our honeymoon). We booked an Oceanview Balcony initially with the “Buyer’s Choice” package (free specialty dinner at Chops or Giovanni’s, a Johnny Rocket’s lunch and the soda package), Costco gift card, 2% rewards check at year-end, additional 3% reward with their credit card, etc., and at a group rate much cheaper than Royal could offer directly. Costco’s price also automatically came with the refundable deposit option for this cabin class. My wife and I repriced three times prior to the final payment and we kept our perks. One thing I learned was that you can actually reprice from a refundable deposit rate to a non-refundable rate. Less than a week before final payment, we switched to the lower non-refundable rate which was almost $200 less! Last week, with all of the craziness, we called to see what could be done and we upgraded to Oceanview with Large Balcony... of course at no charge. Except for the long wait due to all of the recent madness, we have never waited very long for an agent with Costco and they have been nothing but great to deal with so far... Now, we wait to see if there is a 5/31 sailing after all! WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nate91 Posted March 25, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2020 To update, I called in to Costco again, and was told, again, that those rates are with a 'Friends and Family' discount which is only available for new bookings. I said that that's not mentioned on the website, they said that they will have a supervisor call me back. Some curious things about it: - I found the Friends and Family Rate flyer here: http://www.creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Loyal_To_You/13032574_Travel_Agent_Friends_Family_Rates.pdf My cruise on Grandeur of the Seas is not listed. - I was told that I can upgrade by paying the current full price. While the price I saw and wanted for a balcony was $2349, they offered me a price of $3300, $1k more. This is WAY more than even the $2817.06 that is on Royal Caribbeans own website. I'm really confused with where that higher number came from, and why they would think I would be willing to pay $1000 more than the quoted price. Any advice for when the supervisor calls me back? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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