Today we got a cute little postcard from Celebrity informing us that they now have Bermuda cruises on offer at the astounding rate of $549. (Side note: we get three or four postcards from cruise lines on their knees for us to book a cruise, daily! Now back to the main feature...) Seeing as the Bermuda run is (rightly!) very popular, this came as a bit of a surprise. I figured it must have been for undesirable sailings in, say, October.

Imagine my surprise when I go on to Travelocity (choice based purely on the fact that they line up the departures and show the lowest price for each, whcih makes it nice for shopping) and see that the lowest price presently available for the ENTIRE season (that I could see) is June 28th, starting at a mere $700 pp on both HORIZON and ZENITH. That's pretty cheap, and I figure that this looks interesting. I enter our details (no air, 3 pax) and click "Reserve". The lowest fare is now $1250 pp plus $900 for the third passenger!

WHAT!? My cynical mind comes in, presses "Back", and puts in for 2 pax. Lo and behold, the rate is now $700 pp - but only for guarantee cabins. Since not all cabins can hold three, they don't do multiple person guarantees. Makes sense.

That said, having THREE people in one cabin is now $600 MORE than FOUR in two cabins, or $1300 more than three people would be if all three were charged the same lowest rate (the third person is $900 whereas the lowest rate for double occupancy is $700 pp - the opposite of what usually happens!).

I figure there must be few cabins left... WRONG AGAIN. A quick search reveals DOZENS of four-berth cabins open for this cruise. Surely many of these will go to guarantee pax putting two passengers in... However if you have three passengers in (MORE REVENUE!) they are going to charge an exorbitantly higher rate.

Now, I'm going to investigate this a little further (at the moment the official Celebrity site is spewing error messages right and left) but at least as it appears from the above, are they shooting
themselves in the foot? More pax means better occupancy ratings and more revenue raked in, but they're making it fiscally suicidal to put three or four pax to a cabin. Where's the sense?

I'm just curious to see what all of you think of this.

If you pay the "normal" (non-guarantee) rate for TWO people, guess what cabins are open - QUADS! (At least in the inside grades that is, mainly because almost all of them ARE quads).

So unless the upgrade all of the $700 inside people to outside cabins, they're charging a premium for... Um... Actually, they're not charging a premium for much, since they're the SAME CABINS!

I've heard that IT is currently screwing with Celebrity's res system but since this has been going on for some time... I can't help but think that this is their ACTUAL pricing policy.

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Originally posted by cruiseny:

Can anyone think of a way that this DOESN'T defy logic, other than that perhaps they don't want their ship too full (oops, here we go with defying logic again)?

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Have you tried calling someone at Celebrity reservations and asking? It could be as simple as the web interface not supporting all of the pricing algorithms in the line's host system.

For a variety of reasons many online systems still only support a subset of commands available to an agent with direct access to the host system.

You'll have to give them a ring.
We had a 'problem' once when booking a quad. Went ahead, only to be rung back half an hour later by the TA to say although P&O had taken the booking, and it was a quad cabin, they had now rung back to say the limits on cabins with more than 2 occupants, and more than 240 children aboard had been exceeded and we couldn't book [not a quad nor 2 doubles even]. Well the TA told P&O they'd taken the booking so had to stand by it.... the toing and froing went on for a few days until they finally said OK. I wondered if someone else in a quad had cancelled freeing the space.

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Originally posted by PamM:
Just because a cabin is a quad doesn't mean it can be booked as such.

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But you CAN book them as such - just at a much higher price.

We'll have to call Celebrity, but I get the feeling that the price is the price.

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Originally posted by geno-r:
I would NEVER use Travelocity for any travel arangements anymore, much less a cruise!

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I've used the UK versions of Travelocity and Expedia, several times, without problems. maybe I've just been lucky?

However, I understand that there is basically a travel agency behind the computer interface. Your bookings are actually made by real people.

Yes there are errors and innacuracies, just as there are in brochures, just as can be spoken by poorly trained travel staff!

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Originally posted by PamM:
Can we have the Smilie with the BLACK eye in here please Joe?
Pam

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How's this, Pam?

[ 06-11-2003: Message edited by: RuthPerk ]