Select or Saver Fares?

[wolfie]

For at least 10 years we always booked on the first day that cruises were on sale and booked a specific cabin and dining.(Now we much prefer Freedom Dining.)

A few years ago we were unable to book ahead due to health reasons so bookednearer departure,often a saver fare but on ships that we had sailed on before so that we knew what cabin we might be getting, (research here is imperative).Had some great cabins allocated, even an aft cabin on Arcadia.

Last year, we booked two long cruises for this year, one whilst on board, ( and another soon after we got back from our 23 night Caribbean cruise), both on the £50pp deposit and both select fares. Within weeks both cruises had been heavily discounted with huge amounts of OBC added.

We cancelled both cruises, forfeited the small deposit of £200, and rebooked the same cabins for both cruises with a huge amount of additional OBC. We saved well over £3000 by doing this.

A few months ago, our next cruise had been reduced, yet again, by a considerable amount, I am not talking 2 figures or even 3 figures, but 4 figures and even more OBC. I contacted our cruise agent and they had received numerous complaints; many of their customers had cancelled and rebooked, because, even forfeiting their full deposit and rebooking made such a huge difference to the cost. However, I decided to take a different route on the advice of my cruise agent and am glad to say that, with me on a mission to disprove that booking early secures the best prices for loyal passengers, and refusing any more OBC, ( have more than we could possibly spend, even if we spent all day in a bar!!)wereceived a cash refund which covers cost of a private transfer to Southampton for this cruse and a few more cruises. A resounding result!

So, saver V select? No contest in future, even on a cruise that has many new ports of call and that,years ago, one would expect to be oversubscribed and fully booked the first day that bookings opened, we won't book ahead any more. This was such a cruise, a new and innovative itinerary.

When I say that our initial cost pp was just under £5000 and, despite cancelling, rebooking,and further efforts to reduce this, the cost was still around £4000: recently guarantee/saver cabins were on sale for half this cost,admittedly without the large OBC, we won't book so far in advance any more.

[gravy1955]

We have booked both select and saver fares in the past depending upon the factors in play at the time we booked the cruise. If the cruise is one we especially want to go on because of the itinerary, destination,special occasion etc then we will book the select fare. ( we did this when we went on Oceana to the East.Med and for our upcoming cruise on the Oriana to the Caribbean.This is for our 30th anniversary and have never been to that destination before,but as it is for 50 days ,my wife had to negotiate holiday time off from work.Therefore we took a gamble and booked the select fare ,almost as soon as the cruise came out, to enable my wife to give plenty of advance notice to her employers and if unsuccessful would only lose the deposit if we had to cancel ( luckily she did manage to wangle the time off) However, if dates/ destination aren't a factor we would look for saver fares as the "benefits" of booking the select fare such as choosing your cabin, choice of sittings, shuttle buses etc do not IMO outweigh the huge financial benefit you receive in booking the cheaper saver fare.