Q – Hi – I have spent some time on your site, and I have to thank you for the effort you put in, and the advice that you provide – it is a great resource. I have seen a couple of comments or recommendations in regards to cruise vacations that I would like you to expand on, if you could.
The first is that for ‘air-fare included’ cruise lines, a client would be better advised take the credit and book their airline tickets directly. Can you really do better than the cruise line (and is the credit they offer really enough to let a client do so?) The second is that a client should deal through a travel agency, rather than booking directly with the cruise line. Why – especially with the “miracle pricing” you have alluded to – isn’t that only available when you deal direct?
A – Thank you for visiting www.traveltruth.com We have been gratified with the response worldwide given that we have never sent out a press release announcing the site. You asked two questions that would require lengthy responses. But for now, we hope this suffices:
01 – The question regarding air is “It Depends”. Every cruise line air department operates differently and each negotiates its air contracts differently. The top lines normally negotiate better fares than are available online. But they may negotiate these fares more than a year in advance of your actual cruise date so they have no way of knowing of their offer will be “average”, “outstanding”, or “terrible”. They can only guess. We’ve seen, for instance, round-trip Business Class airfare offered for $1990 per person. That s a savings of more than $2,000 off the prices we are currently seeing on most European routes. For coach fares, most studies have shown that internet sites are actually higher than the airlines own corporate sites. Air strategy is something you always need to discuss with your consultant. There are a great many variables and every air scenario is totally unique.
02 – There are numerous reasons why you never want to book directly. When you book a cruise directly with the cruise line you are always charged the travel agent commission even though you are not using a travel agent and you are not receiving the services implied in the fee. You receive nothing for it. In fact, you specifically do not receive the consortium benefits offered to member agencies.
Personally, we don’t much care to pay for something we do not receive. In that sense, charging direct booking clients the travel agent commission is, in our view, gross misrepresentation.
As to your point about miracle pricing – no, in our 31 years in this industry, we’ve never seen a price offered to a client by a direct sales heatset at a cruise line that was not available to any professional travel agent. It just never happens. If a line did that, they would likely lose the support of the agency community they depend on.
There are lots of other reasons involving advocacy if there is a problem etc. But let’s leave it at that.
