What can you do if the price drops after you have booked ?

Some people will always say “leave it to the last minute” but that plan doesn’t always work either as prices can go up, you could miss out and not get the terms that you are happy with.

There doesn’t seem to be a right or wrong answer of when to book as the circumstances on each sailing can be different.

One thing that can happen on occasion though is that the price of your cruise booking may drop after you have booked it or some sort of better deal may be offered.

If this happens there are sometimes things that can be done, a lot of times nothing can be done and it is just one of those things.

Here are a few of the major cruise line policies when it comes to price promises.

Royal Caribbean
Royal Caribbean do have a price promise program but I don’t like to mention it too much to people.  The reason for this is that whenever a promotional price or deal is released they more often than not add “for new bookings only” to their terms and conditions.  The result of this is that they will just say that you are not eligible for the new offer.  There have been some occasions though that I have had prices matched successfully, this isn’t automatic and it is the clients responsibility to check if the price has gone down.

Celebrity Cruises
Celebrity are owned by Royal Caribbean and their policy on this is the same as listed above.

Princess Cruises
They can do price promise matches sometimes but most definitely not within 90 days of cruise departure, if outside of that date it is worth checking.  It is the clients responsibility to watch this and check.

Cunard
They introduced a price promise guarantee with their “Vantage fares” that were introduced just over a year ago.  They have since then changed their fare codes to “Select” and “Saver” fares and none of them now have any price promise attached to them so if the price goes down then nothing can be done.  If this happens I will always then get asked “Well how much would an upgrade be ?”, I am afraid that Cunard also have this covered, to work out the upgrade fare they will go back to the price of the new cabin grade at the time you booked and quote you the difference.

P&O
The same situation as Cunard above.

Of course there are lots and lots of occasions where the price of peoples cruises rises or the deal is not as good after they have booked, this is of course much easier to palette.