Think twice about opting out of receiving marketing information – especially if you have a cruise booked with P&O

I have to say that although I really like P&O cruises in general I was informed of something by them earlier this week that I found quite disappointing.

As I am sure most people are aware, P&O cruises have now changed thier pricing strategy and instead of Vantage and Getaway fares there are now offering Select fares and Early Saver fares.

When this change of fare was announced one of the differences to the new Select fare as opposed to the old Vantage fare is that it no longer carried the price promise guarantee.

One question I had to P&O about this was what about passengers that had already booked on a Vantage fare in advance with the price promise and that fare had been replaced with a better deal on a Select fare and the Vantage deal would no longer available on the sailing.

I was told by P&O that they would look to honour this for the client and at the time I was very pleased to hear this as it would certainly be the right thing to do as far as I believe.

I had a client of mine call me earlier this week who originally pre-registered with me to book on launch day three cabins on a P&O cruise which sails mid-2014.  My client had noticed that there was a small price drop on the new Select fare but on top of that there was an extra £150 cabin on board credit being offered.

When I called up P&O to see what could be done about this I was told that on the first cabin that I was looking at that they would offer to book the clients onto the new Select fare at the current rate and with the extra on board credit, “great” I thought, my clients will be pleased.

I then went to check the other reference numbers with the advisor at P&O and I was told that one of the cabins of the three would be allowed the slightly cheaper price but would not be eligible for the switch to the select fare with the extra £150 cabin credit.

I naturally asked why this particualar cabin wasn’t eligible for this and was quite shocked at the response.  I was told that the clients on that particualar cabin weren’t eligible as they had opted out of receiving marketing emails and calls from P&O cruises.

I did get this double checked as I didn’t think this would be received very well by my clients and was told that this is the policy that they have chosen and it must be stuck to.

Has anyone else experienced this ? Is it just me that thinks that this is ridiculous ?

I would like to thank P&O for resolving this situation so quickly and efficiantly and needless to say, my clients were over the moon to hear the news !