Another side to this is what does the travel business and Princess take away from the experience.
Does Princess change and improve how it manages the process of voluntary changes to deliver better and more reliable customer outcomes?
Will Princess share it’s learnings with it’s industry peer groups so that they can better learn how to improve the customer experience?
Or will the travel and cruise industry look at how to more effectively shut out consumers who have shown your persistence to get what was rightly claimed?
I did receive fairly strong indications that Princess was keen to learn from the experience. Clearly that would benefit all concerned, and be a lot less costly to Princess both in monetary terms and good will.
I think there are also issues here which will not be addressed, primarily the practice of overbooking which is practiced by airlines, cruise companies and I presume other similar bodies.
It would see to me that no-one should sell more seats than they have to fill - and this should be basic common sense. Tackling that issue isn’t going to be something that arises from my experience, and the most that is likely is that Princess will probably handle that particular process more efficiently.
Anyway, I board the cruise in a week and hopefully will enjoy it as I have so many other cruises.
Yes it would be great, but unfortunately it is likely to increase the costs of fares. Airlines are renown for over booking flights as they know on average, that there will be a small number of passengers which miss their flights (either through delayed connections or not thurning up to a gate for other reasons). The overbooking protects the airline from additional costs (a plane flying with a vacant seat which could have otherwise been filled…and the cost of transfer to another flight where the same seat could have been onsold).
I don’t think there is any easy solution (one of those damned if you do, d a mned if you don’t)…unless as a whole all passengers are willing to pay a premium to cover no show passengers (in such events, the costs are transferred to other passengers rather thsn the no show ones). Every one paying for no shows may not seen as fair to these ither passengers.
Enjoy your cruise and have a relaxing time. Hopefully the hastles of the past sit in the history basket never to return.
In which way does this genuinely make a difference? Nearly all airline seats, cabins when pre-booked are paid for in full up front.
The situation suggested for a cruise booking or an airline flight may not stand scrutiny in most instances.
The cruise business perhaps misses out if there is an empty cabin on not gaining the extra income (high profit) from the on board spend. However an empty cabin booked is still paid for, cancelation terms applicable, and hopefully travel insurance covered. It still puts cash in the cruise line pockets without any need to service or provide for the cabin.
Fly often enough and there are empty seats on a large number of flights. If someone misses a paid seat on a Qantas or worse Jetstar flight, they simply fill an empty seat at another time. Typically at a change fee cost. Over a day or week the total number of passengers carried on a route will be the same. The airline wins with the change fees where applicable.
As well as change fees or forfeit any passenger on a full/flexible fee ticket or business class already pays a premium to cover missed and changed flights. It is built into the fares.
If there is a business case for over booking perhaps there is a different need. Is it simply one strategy to minimise opportunities for a passenger going to a competitor when a service is fully booked, in the hope that there will be spare capacity?
For airlines with multiple daily flights on a route the risks may be acceptable to the business. For a cruise operator, where the departures and routes are very limited, waiting till the last days would seem a bad idea. It would seam appropriate that they do need to make a call weeks ahead, and perhaps also their booking systems are a little less rigorous. Do they in practice accept a booking on signing or deposit? But do not confirm until the travel agent payment in full is received?
It seems worthy of a more reliable explanation than idle speculation.
I think the points you make are quite valid. A cabin or seat that isn’t filled because someone didn’t turn up is still a paid seat. In fact a passenger who doesn’t turn up saves the company money in saved fuel! Selling more seats/cabins than you have is simply greed IMHO.
Of course it would be interesting to hear the justification provided by the industry.
That applies only if the fare was 100% non-refundable and non-changeable. If the fare is not forfeited by a no-show the empty seat would indeed be without revenue as the revenue would move to another cruise or flight. Most fares, even non-refundable ones but often not the absolute cheapest, can be applied to another cruise or flight.
Subject to clause 29 (Price changes) and availability, some changes (excluding changes to ship or sailing date) can be made to your booking. You may request changes via your travel agent up to 45 days before departure. We will make every effort to meet your change request; however, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to make any requested change. Please note: any booking that is modified after the promotion has ended will result in the loss of the promotion. Examples of changes that will result in the promotion being forfeit are including, but not limited to; change of ship, sail date, category booked, amending the travel agency ID or selecting an alternate price/promotion.
Up to 45 days before departure an administration fee of AU$50 per booking will be payable for each change requested. If you request a change within 45 days of departure, this will be treated as a cancellation of your original booking and cancellation charges as set out in these terms and conditions will be payable. The changed arrangements will then be treated as a new booking.
What is not known is how this works in practice, or whether the combination of fees and charges plus over booking results in a greater profit for the business than simply a full ship with everyone turning up as first booked.
Not that I have taken a cruise but I would expect that many also spend decent amounts of money onboard beyond the booked costs. Any non arrival in this case is also lost “cream” to the business that they would otherwise scoop off their customers.
They, the cruise industry, in those cases probably feel well jilted out of somewhat easy and captive money. I guess they may overbook to ensure this Well of money is not missed due to a non arrival. Of course I could just be a jaded viewer of industry tactics and they have other reasons for overbooking and charging large cancellation fees at quite distant times to the planned event.
Back in 2001, wy wife and I were part of a group tour organised by a local broadcasting station to fly to Hong Kong and cruise to Hainan Island and Halong Bay, and return to Hong Kong before flying home.
Aftter attending their informational presentation one evening and being provided with the details of the local travel booking office they had organised the tour with, we visited the booking office who advised us that we could upgrade to an ocean view balcony suite instead of a “cattle class” lower level cabin with no view, plus receive an onboard food & drink credits of around $1,000 for a pre-payment of around $700 for the two of us.
It was probably the best offer we ever took up as we could simply look out day and night into the South China Sea and watch the myriad of fishing vessels includind the squid fishers with their lamps shining on the water.
When we were getting back on one of the small transport boats to return to the cruise ship after the day onshore on Hainan Island, another Aussie in the queue behind us proudly drew our attention to the el-cheapo suitcase he had bought in Hainan and proceeded to open for a “sneak peek” to reveal the carton of 24 bottles of some Chinese beer he had bougt as he was sick of paying the exorbiant prices on board the vessel.
But in our case, we had to make a dedicated effort to actually use up our very generous onboard allownces.
So instead of doing what “old mate” did to smuggle some Chinese beer aboard, simply research everything before and enjoy your cruise.
