We've all been there, the enthusiasm of the moment gets to you and you decided buy, but is it the best deal? Each one of the cruise lines has different ways of dealing with these future cruise purchases, whether it be to book the cruise or purchase a future cruise reward, so lets talk about a few.
The picture to the left, is a copy of part of the pack of information left in my cabin when I was on the Norwegian Epic last November.
With NCL you pay a deposit for any future cruise and get either $100 on board credit or have it set against your deposit - so $250 only costs you $150!
As an added bonus they are even transferable to anyone over 21 at no cost.
With Cunard, you can book the cruise on board and then you usually some added benefits like extra on board spend. I know of a customer who booked for a Queen Victoria 12 night cruise on board and they received $600 each on board spend!
But is there a draw back. Well, I spoke to customer who had purchased a Celebrity Passage Account - paid a deposit and would get a set amount of on board credit when they decided on the cruise they wanted. All well and good, till they decided and then tried to book the cruise using the Passage Account at the prices I could offer.
The drawback is they are not combineable with any other offer, so the cruise which had a £100 per person discount and on board spend from me went up in price and lost the current offered on board spend, to gain what they had paid for via the Passage account. And on top when the passage account is transferred to the Travel agent they only have 30 days to make the booking.
To me it seems like too many hoops to gain not many benefits.
So the moral of the story is when you decide what you are going to do make sure you know all the relevant facts so you aren't left holding something you cannot use!
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