I love my TA but her price is too high - Page 2 - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Forum, Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

cruzinlass · 10-14-2009, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patsea

I just want to weigh in here a little about cruise compete. Firstly, the agents that reply to you that are so much lower are rebating their commissions to you. Rebating of commissions is prohibitted by the cruise lines. Usually, and I am saying usually because I don't want to start of big discussion about it but usually, it is given to you in a form of a check after sailing from the travel agent because it's against cruise line policies to discount. Secondly the service you will get is nil. If you have a question you will not get an answer right away or it may not be the correct answer. I had a friend use one of these agencies and they did not do the insurance correctly and during the time between deposit and final he developed a back issue. Had he made final and then tried to cancel they would not have accepted his claim as those agents generally wait until just prior to final to make insurance payments. I'm not saying anything they do is wrong but just make sure you do your due diligence before plunking down your hard earned cash.

I have a correction to the above post. The ONLY cruise lines that prohibit discounting of commission are Royal Caribbean and Celebrity. Carnival (and all of it's other cruise lines) and NCL DO allow a TA to discount their commission.

If you ever try Cruise Compete, you will notice that many TA's do not quote RCCL or Celebrity cruises, or their prices come in pretty close to one another. That is a result of the prohibition on discounting commissions.

mafig · 10-14-2009, 04:31 PM

My TA found a group so my price has come down a little.

Even with the price I was *complaining* about, it was nowhere near the cruiseline's "list" price. She was discounting, just not as much as those on Cruise Compete.

I always get discounted pricing on all lines except for Royal Caribbean (I haven't cruise Celebrity since they changed the rules). Even on RCI, I have a cruise booked with them (through that same TA) and will have an OBC.

patsea · 10-14-2009, 08:07 PM

Yes you are right that it's RCL and Celebrity and Azamara that do not allow discounting but I can assure you that they totally do discount RCL, Celebrity and Azamara over on that site. I can't even imagine doing that work for $10 in commission. I spoke to the SVP of Celebrity at the trade show last week and Edie Bornshein said yes they know they do it but they really can't stop them.

thevacationstop · 10-16-2009, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patsea

Yes you are right that it's RCL and Celebrity and Azamara that do not allow discounting but I can assure you that they totally do discount RCL, Celebrity and Azamara over on that site. I can't even imagine doing that work for $10 in commission. I spoke to the SVP of Celebrity at the trade show last week and Edie Bornshein said yes they know they do it but they really can't stop them.

All the cruise lines could at least make it more difficult. Most only require net to be paid to the cruise line. They should require Gross to be paid to the line, with commission paid back to the agency after final payment. Then the discounts would have to be after the fact rebates like was suggested, rather than an upfront discount.

There are also times when cruise lines give a real sweetheart deal to a mega agency, and simply will not match it for smaller agents. I just ran into this for a trip that my own mother and friend are booking on NCL in Hawaii. The mega agency is offereing BD balcony cabins for $1199 pp plus taxes and throwing in 2 nights at the Sheraton Waikiki pre-cruise. The best rate I can get from NCL for a BD balcony is $1509 pp plus taxes, and that is without the two nights in the hotel. My commission would only be $148 per person, so even working for free, I can't get close. I had to tell my own mother to book with the other agency. Totally frustrating. NCL really wouldn't do anything for me except allow me to open a group and they would give me 2 extra amenty points. So, I could offer a $75 OBC. Still not close. Their bottom line was too bad. The other agency sells millions of dollars of cruises and therefore they give them better rates. Well, if they gave me those rates, maybe I could sell that much too. I guess we'll never know.

nealberk · 10-16-2009, 05:42 PM

Know how you feel Pat and Steve. It is just like the computer business. We simply could not match the sweetheart deals on hardware or software that the big companies give to their big sellers so we had to shift into custom work and service.

cruisin' chick · 10-17-2009, 02:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nealberk

Know how you feel Pat and Steve. It is just like the computer business. We simply could not match the sweetheart deals on hardware or software that the big companies give to their big sellers so we had to shift into custom work and service.

When I worked for a computer store, we couldn't compete with the chains (Comp USA, Best Buy, etc) for pricing as well as availability (the chains would be able to get the new models quickly than we were able to). So the store decided to get out of the hardware end (we had a software niche for a specific market anyway). Unfortunately that meant they didn't need half of their staff.