Beware fluid pricing!!!!

[towny44]

I had an interesting, if rather expensive, experience with fluid pricing recently, this was with a booking on Royal Caribbean’s Independence OTS, although there will doubtless be similarities on most other cruise lines.

We need to book early to secure an accessible cabin, and travelling with my youngest son and family, they prefer a larger 4 berth with a sofa bed for their 2 children, both under 9 on sailing. We had been waiting for the launch of the 2019 cruises and wanted a Mediterranean summer holiday cruise. As soon as they were available my TA provided me with pricing for 2 options which I gave to my son on a Wednesday evening, they deliberated and gave me their choice on Thursday evening, early Friday morning my TA apologetically came back to me with new prices which had increased the overall cruise cost by a smidgeon under £1000, or 9.5%, gulp! However if we were booking now, the cost would have increased by a further £1700, bringing it to a total increase of 26% from the initial offer.

Whilst I recognise that this is possibly an extreme example of fluid pricing, it does illustrate how cruise lines use demand patterns to adjust their prices to ensure they maximise the price obtained.

I do accept that the initial launch price was an extremely good deal for a summer school holiday cruise on Royal Caribbean, especially on Independence which historically has sold at a premium to similar cruises on RCI’s other, Voyager class, UK based ship; and even the higher price we eventually paid was less than a similar 14 night cruise on Britannia would have been when we looked last September as P&O launched their 2019 summer schedule.

The lesson learned for the future is to ensure we make our decisions a lot faster.

[Ray B]

Towny, a lesson learnt indeed, need to be faster out of the gate next time.

[Manoverboard]

We learnt that pitfall on P&O's Azura in 2010, albeit we booked within 10 minutes of our Tier Slot opening.

[barney]

I had a similar situation last week with a land based holiday.

Due to building work, we've postponed this years cruise but still fancying a bit of sunshine, looked to book a Canaries holiday with Tui for early November.
I saw one that seemed to fit the bill in Lanzarote, leaving Exeter airport on the 4th.
So, as usual, I researched TripAdvisor while on line to make sure it was as good as it looked.
Most reviews were favourable so I decided to proceed.
When I got to the check out it flashed up that this holiday had gone up by £21.72 and I should proceed quickly to hold this price.

Well, me being me, I thought balls to that so logged off.
That's a bit of a cheek when you are still going through transaction.
I'll book something else if I fancy it.

[Stephen]

Good for you barney. These travel companies take the pi** sometimes knowing that they've got you hook line and sinker so far into the booking process so why not just push their luck a bit more with a bit of inflation knowing most people will pay it. Bl**dy cheek.

[Quizzical Bob]

This often happens with online booking systems. Once they know that you are interested then the next time that you log on they increase the prices. Try clearing cookies for that site or using a different computer.

[david63]

I was looking at a P&O cruise the other week and it gave one pricing on my desktop computer, another on my laptop and a third on Mrs63's iPad

[towny44]

This often happens with online booking systems. Once they know that you are interested then the next time that you log on they increase the prices. Try clearing cookies for that site or using a different computer.

The arrangements were through my TA, if each time a TA went online to check prices the computer raised the price they would end up sky high.
Oh perhaps that's why prices do keep increasing.

[London Cruiser]

Holiday firms, aircraft companies, cruise companies all use analytics, systems are designed that way so even if people click to view it will analyse a customers interest, especially if the viewers have been on a web page for more than a certain time period, that time period will be set by the programmer, I doubt clearing your cookies would work as they look for the amount of hits on the page.

[barney]

A chap was talking about Easyjet fluid pricing on TV this morning.

It's pure supply and demand.

As the demand increases, the supply decreases and the price goes up.

That may explain why P&O best price is always immediately after release but can go up considerably in a day.

Long gone are the days of fantastic late bargains unfortunately.

[daib GC]

A chap was talking about Easyjet fluid pricing on TV this morning.

It's pure supply and demand.

As the demand increases, the supply decreases and the price goes up.

That may explain why P&O best price is always immediately after release but can go up considerably in a day.

Long gone are the days of fantastic late bargains unfortunately.

I have been saying this for 3/4 years but when people only book occasionally they can be caught out by waiting for the deal. Also people try to book 9 to 12 month before the cruise and think that is early when in reality that is possibly the worst time to book.

[towny44]

Late deals do still exist, someone posted on RCI the other day about a bargain price on Independence for a 14nt Med Beaches cruise in June. I checked and you could get a balcony cabin for less than £1500pp, granted this was for a guarantee grade only, but a bargain compared to the current P&O offers.

[Manoverboard]

Late deals can even be had with P&O !!!

Due to health issues some folk have to book at the higher prices because booking at time of release is not possible if they wish to be insured.

[barney]

Late deals do still exist, someone posted on RCI the other day about a bargain price on Independence for a 14nt Med Beaches cruise in June. I checked and you could get a balcony cabin for less than £1500pp, granted this was for a guarantee grade only, but a bargain compared to the current P&O offers.

I'm not talking £1500 pp Towny, I'm talking about some of the seriously cheap deals that used to be about around six or seven years ago.
Example - cannot remember the exact year but we booked a very late cruise on Oriana, 10 nights, mid October into the Med and it was £349 for an outside cabin.
I had to do a double take at the time.
As it happened, the weather was stunning for that time of year and we had a most wonderful holiday.
That level of prices are unlikely to be seen again.

[GillD46]

Cunard were selling atwo week cruise last week for £799

[Kendhni]

I have never been a fan of fluid pricing - what is wrong of charging a fair price for a product?
However that is how the market seems to work and I am sure most people will try to use it to the best advantage that they can. I think that overall those that are price savvy do a bit better than those that look for bargains on a specific day.

[Kenmo1]

We are finding that with fluid pricing we win some, we lose some. We always used to go for very late bookings and usually did quite well but recently we have started to book earlier, even paying select fare as opposed to saver. Often the OBC helps make it more attractive than booking saver especially if PO have sent us a welcome home booklet which usually has an offer of extra OBC if you book before a certain date. We are due to go on Oriana shortly and it was booked some months ago and the price rose steadily but then dropped back but never fell below the price we had paid. Our cruise in July, again booked months ago, has gone up by £1000 pp but may well fall nearer the time as there still seems a lot of availability.

We booked in February on board ship for a cruise next July. The price has now dropped by £110 pp. I think there is every chance that the price may drop again ----I really must stop looking or I will be kicking myself for jumping in too quickly. The advantage of booking on board was that we only had to pay £50 pp deposit. I did check that if we couldn't go due to husband's health issues we would only lose a total of £100. We also received extra OBC for booking on board and if I have worked it out properly I think we are just about breaking even with the new reduced price.

[Kendhni]

We booked in February on board ship for a cruise next July. The price has now dropped by £110 pp. I think there is every chance that the price may drop again ----I really must stop looking or I will be kicking myself for jumping in too quickly.

I am the opposite, I keep tracking the price so that the next time I might get an even better deal.
Just looking at one of our holidays the price has varied quite a bit but that has been more down to the offers they have had on. The price was at its lowest when they offered no discounts; higher when they offered £50pp discount; and higher again when they offered £150 per booking discounts. But something I have noticed is that occasionally the price comes down a day before they remove the discounts. However on that particular holiday the price variance was about £30pp. Also keep an eye on QuidCo for additional discounts..

[barney]

Because of this subject I took a look at the price for our late May 2019 cruise to the Med.

We paid £3,200 for the two of us, best grade balcony on C deck Azura,, give or take a couple of quid.

The price for the same grade today is £4,418

That's £600 per person difference

Now, that's what I call fluid pricing

[CaroleF]

We booked 14 nights on Oceana for this coming September, Malta to Malta, calling at Malta again after 7 nights but we liked this as it means we'll have a chance to see something of Valletta, which you don't do on arrival or departure day. We have booked an aft mini suite and I suppose we booked it about a year ago. The price now of the cheapest balcony cabin is £400 in total more than we paid for our mini suite. All the mini suites and the suites are now sold out.

Carole

[daib GC]

Because of this subject I took a look at the price for our late May 2019 cruise to the Med.

We paid £3,200 for the two of us, best grade balcony on C deck Azura,, give or take a couple of quid.

The price for the same grade today is £4,418

That's £600 per person difference

Now, that's what I call fluid pricing

We booked our Oriana Cruise for Oct when it first came out. Sep16. We are in a mini suite, there are non left. The next grade down is available and can be had at £1300 more each! So if we tried to book today it would be £2600 more for not so good a cabin.

That’s what I call fluid pricing.

[sunseeker16]

Early booking seems to win out at the moment
J814, booked on release has virtually doubled! The saver fare for an inside is within a few pounds of the price we paid for a select balcony.
I think this may be an extreme example?

[colin parry]

Being on your own and having to pay the dreaded single supplement, it is absolutely necessary to book early. I travel mostly on Oriana now and always book an outside cabin, LD, on C deck. The trip I go on next Friday would now cost me just over £1000 more than when I booked it and in October, 19 days on Oriana is now more than £1400 additional to when I booked.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Our 2019 7 night cruise on Azura has gone up. We've booked a suite, a first for us, and it would now cost around £400 more for the two of us.

[Ray Scully]

Booked Azura 1/12 on the 4th of this month. It is £304 dearer to day