P&O and Cunard new fare structure.
P&O and Cunard have now announced a new way of pricing their cruises in an attempt to restore some faith in their brands and bring transparency to the way they sell their cruises.
Those of you familiar with the brands will know that it was only a few years ago that they launched the Vantage Fare in a huge fanfare of activity, promising customers added benefits and price protection for booking early. Only to later bring out the Getaway Fare with the same cruises at a much cheaper price and to then tell Vantage Fare customers that their price was not price protected against this afterall.
Obviously this left a sour taste in the mouths of a lot of passengers.
Now the two brands have decided to be open and honest about the pricing structure and are now saying that they are likely to offer 3 different fares for each cruise, all offering the customer a different level of benefits. The fares are:
Select Price / Cunard Fare £££££
This fare is for bookings in advance and offers you flexibility and choice.
- Choose your cabin number
- Choice of car parking, coach transfers or on board credit
- Priority dining choices
- Complimentary shuttle buses to resort where available
- Deposit payment
- Flexible booking conditions for cancellations, name changes and transferring to another cruise.
Early Saver Fare £££
This is again for booking early and will be offered on selected cruises.
- Choose your cabin grade but not number. This will be allocated by the cruise line.
- Choose your dining but this will be allocated only after those who have booked on the above fares have been allocated.
- Deposit payment
- Flexible bookings conditions as above.
Saver Fare £
P&O and Cunard will bring out Saver Fares on selected cruises within 90 days of departure.
- Choose your type of cabin, ie inside/outside/balcony/suite but no choice of grade or number.
- No choice of dining
- Full payment at the time of booking
- 100% cancellation charges and no name changes, transfers allowed.
The prices of these fares will obviously reflects their merits and basically you will get what you pay for.
Now – on the face of it, I am all in favour of these fares. The industry has changed over the years and the majority of cruise lines now drop their prices as you get closer to the departure date in order to fill the ships. This isn’t something new and it isn’t restricted to cruise holidays – beach holiday tour operators have operated like this for years and every one knows to go to lastminute.com for holidays and laterooms.com for hotels. So we shouldn’t be surprised by cruise lines operating this way too. I also think it is good that you get more for your extra money by booking early, the holiday and hotels companies don’t protect people this way as far as I’m aware.
I also really hope for P&O and Cunard that this works for them and that the Early Saver Fare promotes some more bookings for them, however I am not convinced, I personally feel that more and more people want their money to go further and will wait until Saver Fare comes out to book.
What we all really need is a change in the whole cruise industry with pricing to mirror those of the airlines – the majority of airlines announce low fares at the start and the prices increase as the planes fill up. This encourages early bookings and helps airlines manage their businesses whilst protecting customer too. All we need to do now is persuade a whole industry to change.
What do you think?
4 Comments on “P&O and Cunard new fare structure.”
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I have worked in the travel industry for over 25 years now since beginning as a holiday rep on a campsite in France and I have a real passion for travel. I've worked in all aspects of the industry including sales, marketing and management and I've specialised in most products…
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You are so right.
On our recent P and O cruise we had freedom dining and had the opportunity to talk to many different people.
We found 80% of them had booked within 3 weeks of departure and had paid peanuts! Exactly the same thing will happen with the new price structure.
Your idea of rising fares is brilliant.
Bring it on!
They
Thanks Tony, we’ll have to start a campaign and see what we can achieve.
10 Members of my family have booked to go on Azura in November 2014 (all booked at the same time by myself but split into 5 separate bookings). These bookings were made prior to the new pricing structure but since the change some members of the family have received e-mails saying that as the price of the cruise had altered they would get an on-board spend of £127.00 credited to their account. Two of the other bookings have been sent identical e-mails except for a paragraph stating that the price of the cruise has not altered and the rest of us have received no e-mail notification at all.
I subsequently telephoned P & O to ask for clarification and was told that the family members who had been offered the OBS had received this because they had not sailed with P & O before and that P & O had not yet decided whether to give the discount to previous customers!
I pointed out that this did not make sense as one part of our booking who had been declined the OBS had also not cruised with P & O before and that surely the cruise had either been reduced in price or not. Surely a price promise should extend to all customers (putting aside my view that if that was the case then P & O have obviously got no regard for customer loyalty!)
I was told that enquiries would be made and P & O Customer Relations would come back to me with an explanation – I am still waiting nearly two weeks later!
I feel that as a previous customer with an overall booking for 10 people, P & O do not value my custom for if we had not had multiple bookings we would have been unaware that other people were being offered compensation. In fact some of our booking have still heard nothing.
Does anyone else have any experiences of this?
Kerry
Hi Kerry, I am totally with you, P&O are just daft to offer differ options to linked bookings. Or even if not linked, everyone should be offered the same. Whilst I am all for this new pricing structure an transparency they would have done better to wait until the new brochure comes out for 2015 to introduce it. In that respect they wouldn’t have the current situation of having customers already booked and loosing out.
I will keep my fingers crossed for you with your current booking, and just to let you know they have 28 days in which to reply to you so you may be waiting another couple of weeks.