MEI Travel Questions

[nate91]

Hi,

I have been booking cruises through Costco for a while. While I love the Costco Cash Card I get, I hate having to wait on hold anytime I call Costco, and then waiting for them to wait on hold for RC before I can get an answer. I also hate being unable to use RoyalUp. I recently booked a cruise directly through RCI, and I loved just being able to call someone and have them adjust a price in less than ten minutes! My question is with MEI, which I know a lot of people around here use, is there any sort of perk/kickback similar to the Costco Cash card (though obviously not Costco related)? Also, can I use RoyalUp if booked through MEI? Any other differences between MEI and Costco, such as how long are the hold times usually? Thanks!

[Pooch]

The perk of MEI is being there for you when something happens.  They sit on hold with RC instead of you.  I email my TA & usually get an answer within 24 hours.  Yes, you can use Royal Up.

[WAAAYTOOO]

As a general rule, MEI does not provide any booking incentives (OBC, gift card, etc.) but they more than make up for that with their wonderful customer service.  Since any booking incentives must be paid for by the Agent, it is generally not done.  There may be an occasional bottle of wine or specialty meal given, but again, that comes straight off the top for the individual Agent.  In all the years of using MEI I think I have gotten one of each of those gifts.

[rjac]

I have been using Michelle Cunnigham with MEI for a number of years now. I don't expect and perks nor discounts. I research the ship we want pick the room we want and when we want to go. I e-mail this info and the next day I get a confirmation email from her if not the same day. Never had a problem. The perks i get is from my Royal Caribbean credit card. It gets 2 points for every dollar spent on Royal Caribbean which we convert to on board credit. When we first started cruising with Royal I called in for a booking, what a pain in the a** that was. Then I joined this fantastic message board, learned about MEI and viola. No more Phone calls! Michelle has my RC credit card on file which she uses to charge my deposit when I send her a booking request. Michelle is really great, her email is [email protected]. Why not join the 21st Century and send her an email? She'll answer any questions you may have with the exception of "what is the winning lottery number for this weekend"? Oh, the hold time is a week.

[teddy]

Michelle for the win.  In addition to everything everyone has said about her (all over this forum), she’s very patient with our us and our questions.  

[WAAAYTOOO]

Woohoo for Michelle !!

[Neesa]

Please allow me to introduce @Sharla [email protected] to this thread. She has been a phenomenal MEI TA as well. 

[wordell1]

Others above have done a great job explaining why having a full service TA vs a discount TA (Costco).  The inconvenience you are experiencing now with Costco can get a lot worse if you ever have a cancelled cruise and add FCC's into the mix.  I know because I have been there.  I now use MEI and have been happy.

 

[Scooter6251]

I used Costco for many years, until the Covid mess happened.  Costco was impossible to reach, so I switched to MEI.  I use Jan Pepe, [email protected].  She's great and we've had OBC every cruise and last time we even had a free dinner for 2 at Chops.  It was a special deal from MEI.  We love dealing with her and she's easy to reach and handles everything very quickly.

[Xaa]

@nate91, you are likely to be underwhelmed with having Royal up access, but if you want it, you'll have it.  One of the benefits is that MEI often has group room availability on sailings resulting in a much lower than website price and a refundable deposit rate.  it's not 100% of the time, but it is quite often.  As other's have noted, you won't be on hold anymore, you'll contact your agent and they will do that part for you.

[OCSC Mike]

3 hours ago, Xaa said:

One of the benefits is that EMI often has group room availability on sailings resulting in a much lower than website price and a refundable deposit rate.  it's not 100% of the time, but it is quite often.

This. I know everyone says use MEI for their service not discounts, which is no doubt very good (it 100% has been with my agent), but those group rates can provide quite a bit of savings.

Extreme example and I only recently started using a TA... group rate on Wonder for our spring break 2024 plus some OBC booked in mid-May (so nowhere near when it was released, only 10 months out)... was many hundreds less than the online price at the time. Now that prices have gone up, the same cabin is something like $1300 more online as of yesterday. And this is a lowly interior, so the % savings is huge (it's not like I'm saving $1300 on a $12000 suite, which is still nice of course, it's a $2000-ish 4V).

For a frugal cruiser on a limited schedule and self-imposed budget, these savings can be the difference between going or not.

[RCIfan1912]

We used MEI for two cruises last year but those were both pushed back from the stupid pandemic. They were excellent. But we have 3 booked with another agent now. Just felt it was time to move on but nothing bad to say about MEI at all. 

[PL8SWPR]

Maybe we were just lucky, but...

After booking 4 or 5 cruises directly, I decided to try MEI for 2 rooms next October on Wonder.  The oceanview room was the same price as direct.  However, for the intererior room, choosing the room and getting a refundable deposit was cheaper with MEI than booking a GTY non refundable deposit direct through RCL.  We also got $50 OBC.  We also just got an email that they were able to get the OV room for about $120 less so they repriced it for me. 

For Royal Up this past January we were also lucky.  Went from an ocean view to the newer panaramic ocean view rooms on Mariner for about $10 more pp than the minimum bid.  I basically moved the slider one increment up from the minimum. 

[OCSC Mike]

2 minutes ago, PL8SWPR said:

for the intererior room, choosing the room and getting a refundable deposit was cheaper with MEI than booking a GTY non refundable deposit direct through RCL.

This is my exact experience. Prior to a few months ago, I booked interior GTY's myself using last minute deals, the GGG flyer, etc. I didn't care about refundable b/c often I booked after final payment. Booking farther out now, the refundable deposit is suddenly important and while we're not picky, choosing our cabin is obviously worth something.

[Sharla]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:57 PM, nate91 said:

Hi,

I have been booking cruises through Costco for a while. While I love the Costco Cash Card I get, I hate having to wait on hold anytime I call Costco, and then waiting for them to wait on hold for RC before I can get an answer. I also hate being unable to use RoyalUp. I recently booked a cruise directly through RCI, and I loved just being able to call someone and have them adjust a price in less than ten minutes! My question is with MEI, which I know a lot of people around here use, is there any sort of perk/kickback similar to the Costco Cash card (though obviously not Costco related)? Also, can I use RoyalUp if booked through MEI? Any other differences between MEI and Costco, such as how long are the hold times usually? Thanks!

MEI-Travel does not offer an automatic onboard credit for booking. This is a practice known as "rebating".  Rebating is when an agency cuts their agent's commission and passes the savings on to the customer.

We are a fee-free agency, which means that you do not pay ANY fees for our services. We do not charge any cancellation or change fees other than what the supplier charges.

Yes, you can use RoyalUp with MEI.

Go to royalcaribbeanblog.com and request a quote on the right hand side and you'll be paired with an agent. 

[nate91]

Thank you for all the great feedback everyone! I think I will book future cruises through MEI!