Cruises - Cruise Compete This good?

For all the people that have used cruise compete, is it this good, or too good to be true? I have been searching and waiting for a particular cruise on Celebrity to come down in price in August 2011. I am going to book soon so why not give this site a try. I got various responses from travel agents ranging in price and incentives. As I was searching over the past several months I found out that celebrity cruise prices stay put regardless if being sold by celebrity or travel agents. The responses I have gotten ranged in same price as celebrity along with onboard credit, while another agent is 1,000 less or so from celebrity price quote or other travel agents. Some of the onboard credit seems too high as well.

are these legit travel agents on cruise compete?

I have used cruisecompete several times and I have been extremely happy with the results. I have found that whatever I was offered from the travel agents has been what I have received.

Several times cruisevacationoutlet has been the lowbidder when I have used cruisecompete and I have been extremely happy with them as well.

Which agency gave you the lowest price? Do some searching to make sure they're legitimate. I've booked 6 cruises with various cruisecompete agencies and have never had a single problem.

It is important to know all the details though. Some agencies charge a booking fee, and some charge change fees. Just be certain to factor in all these costs, if any, before making a decision.

I have gotten 10 or so responses and 3 have struck me as being too good....the total price anywhere I have looked is around 6400 for 2 with all taxes and charges added on.

dvacations gave me a price of 5600 with no hidden booking fees/charges or so they say

cabin clearance store gave me a price of 5700 as part of a 2 day sail with 7.95 per cabin booking fee


cruises -n- more gave me a price of around 6400 but with 750 on board credit....

all the other ones are similar in price but range in onboard credit...I am going to have to call and talk with some of these over the phone

I've used cruises n more, with no issues. I don't have any experience with the other two.

The main thing to do when booking with an unfamiliar agent is to get a confirmation number right away and then check with the cruise line to ensure that the confirmation number is valid and the booking is accurate. Then watch your credit card to make sure the deposit is paid directly to the cruise line. As long as those two things happen, then there's not really much that can go wrong.

Any booking fees should be charged separately and will be credited to the TA.

I've used cruise compete 3 times without any problems. In each case, I clearly specified the cabin category and room type that i was interested in so there wouldn't be any deviation when various agencies supplied quotes.

I use Cruise Compete virtually every time we cruise, and even if I find a great price from another TA I check on CC to make sure the deal can't be better. I find that the same TA's come up with the lowest prices/best incentives pretty consistently, and have used one of them four times. Beware of some TA's that charge a membership or registration fee to use their booking services.

I've used cruisecompete a number of times and have had only one problem. One quote was much better than the others and they seemed reputable. Unfortunately when my documents came in they indicated I had booked a "senior" fare. Being in my 40s I knew that wasn't correct.

It took a few phone calls to the agent and to Celebrity but it all worked out in the end.

Double check what they are offering and go for it! To the best of my knowledge it's always the cruiseline that processes your credit card and in the event of fraud/etc they should be able to refund your money and cancel the cruise (as long as it's within their normal cancellation times).

I have used Cruise Compete for pricing cruises for about the last five years or so. Most of the time the quotes are within a few dollars of each other. The big difference is in how much the agent is willing to give you in onboard credits. Do be careful because some agents depeding on the cruise line you are booking with will try to charge you an additional fee. Every now and than one agent's price will seem to be way off. I try to call all those who have bid and speak with them to review my arrangements. Some times they will have a better deal.

I know Celebrity does Happy Hour sales on Tuesdays. Most of the sailings are only about a month or so out.

Try this link to see what they are:
http://www.creative.rccl.com/sales/exciting_deals/XcitingDeals_cel_tues.pdf

I've been looking at a HAL 58 day cruise (Australia/Asia) in Nov /11 & the prices I am being quoted on Cruise Complete are over $1000.00 less than I am getting directly from HAL & from my T/A.
I have 5-7 bids on each segment (28 + 30 day). I am a little nervous paying this way but seems from reading here that all is on the up & up.

Anyone have any bad experiences & are any of the bidders better than others?

Have used CruiseCompete and booked with Cruise Vacation Outlet many times and always been very satisfied with price and service.

I have used TLC on a few cruises on Azamara. They cannot change the price, but they can definitely lower your cost (ask Dave).

You can become very pleased.

gotchaben@cox.net (that's me if you have questioins).

I have used cruisecompete several times, all successfully. I think the thing it's most useful for is getting the names of various agencies who do offer perks (onboard credits, pre-paid gratuities, etc). It is very important to check out the agencies, particularly their cancellation policies and possible charges, before booking with any of them. Also, their availability is important and their policies regarding matching price drops (and how that will affect the perks offered).

The agency I have used for my last 3 cruises was one I found initially through cruisecompete.

Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Sometimes an agency will bid on a lower cabin category than you requested or without port charges and taxes making it hard to compare and the lowest price not quite that low.

I have used Cruise Compete for pricing cruises for about the last five years or so. Most of the time the quotes are within a few dollars of each other. The big difference is in how much the agent is willing to give you in onboard credits. Do be careful because some agents depeding on the cruise line you are booking with will try to charge you an additional fee. Every now and than one agent's price will seem to be way off. I try to call all those who have bid and speak with them to review my arrangements. Some times they will have a better deal.

I know Celebrity does Happy Hour sales on Tuesdays. Most of the sailings are only about a month or so out.

Try this link to see what they are:
http://www.creative.rccl.com/sales/exciting_deals/XcitingDeals_cel_tues.pdf

Thanks! Good inf

I have used TLC on a few cruises on Azamara. They cannot change the price, but they can definitely lower your cost (ask Dave).

You can become very pleased.

gotchaben@cox.net (that's me if you have questioins).

+1 ^ -- I also transferred a previously booked Celebrity cruise to Dave at TLC -- their offer was the best of any agency. TLC only deals with RCCL, Celebrity and Princess for now (I really hope they work with others soon:D), and I was very satisfied. There were no additional service charges, and I was still able to get my OBC from having booked onboard.

BTW - I may be wrong :confused:, but I think Cabin Clearance Store is the online-only agency of Cruise Brothers, as they are both located in the same town (also both use the same internet interface). The difference being that CCStore is very difficult to reach via phone --and no "hand-holding", you need to know exactly what you want to book. But their prices are very good if you have a little experience with cruising.

I don't want to start a new thread, but has anyone received Foursquare spam lately at an email address used with CruiseCompete? I received 4 pieces of spam addressed to custom addresses that I *only* used at CruiseCompete (I have my own domain and have a wildcard definition so I get all email addressed to it and and got mail at cruisecomp and cruisecompete at that domain; I do this so I can figure out where my email was compromised in situations like this). The subject line of one of them was "Myrddin Anderson has sent you a private message on foursquare" -- the others were similar. I contacted CruiseCompete, they told me they had not been hacked and the address must have been stolen from my local machine (they also told me that agents who respond to your request do not get your email address). That's pretty much impossible, since the only spam of this sort that I received was to those two addresses.

Anyway, I am curious to know if anyone else got this spam.

I've had good experiences with Cruise Compete.....have booked several cruises through CC.

Like others have said, make sure the quotes you get are for the cabin grade you requested and check that all taxes/fees are included.

I have tried CC for the first time. I got 5 offers on a named cruise.

1 offer 2.600 with 50$ onboard credit

4 offers 2700 with 100-200$ on board credit

The difference is not that big, but it was still cheaper than booking at the cruiseline directly.

Deleted

CruiseCompete claims it is not a travel agency; it states it is an LLC:

CruiseCompete LLC is an independent organization affiliated with Compete Ventures LLC. We are not a travel agency or owned by a travel agency, and we provide travel agents with a steady stream of easy-to-manage, highly qualified leads.

Clark Howard (http://www.clarkhoward.com) refers to CruiseCompete as "Using a reverse auction model, CruiseCompete puts providers in competition for your business and the price keeps bidding down, kind of like the opposite of eBay..."

It appears to be a "middleman" brokering bids from would-be cruisers to agents (who pay of they do not respond to 300 bids in 90 days - that is a lot of bids, and how many they could bid might depend on how many submissions are received from would-be cruisers, the specialty areas each agency has, etc.)

(Information given in the post above is readily available online, including CruiseCompete itself claims Robert Levinstein is CEO and the company address.)

With only vague statements and no specifics, it might be difficult for some to put much credibility into accusatory statements.

Cruise Compete has no business licenses.

A 30 second search came up with their business license...

http://sos.iowa.gov/search/business/%28S%28fwbgeebxxvy2ep452ago1w55%29%29/summary.aspx?c=s_QBk-SBZnf6hlrrbddjZcCGK5gbYnsMOzHtLiMbVwk1

Perhaps share more details about your bad experience with them?

The link you provided takes you to the Secretary of State Division of Corporations. That just shows that they are a registered limited liability company in Iowa. It is not a license.

Moderator, you are correct that Cruise Compete claims it is not a travel agency, however Iowa law is clear in its definition of one: "Travel agency" means a person who represents, directly or indirectly, that the person is offering or undertaking by any means or method, to provide travel services for a fee, commission, or other valuable consideration, direct or indirect." It is a pretty broad definition.

Link to Iowa Code:
http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/cool-ice/default.asp?category=billinfo&service=iowacode&ga=83&input=9D

Other states such as Florida, California and Washington have similar language.

Additionally, Cruise Compete registered a trademark with the USTPO and claimed they were a travel agency.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4005:ddju51.2.1

Cruise Compete claims it is not a travel agency on its website, but markets cruises and makes commission on them (between 2 to 15%), sells shore excursions and travel insurance as well as other travel related services for which it receives fees or commissions.

Also, here is a link to the list of registered Iowa travel agents. Cruise Compete is not on this list.
http://sos.iowa.gov/business/pdf/TravelAgencies.pdf


I have an upcoming trip booked through them so I'm interested in what you have to say. However, as of now the only issues you have mentioned is that they seem to be a one man show operated out of his home, and may be bending the rules about travel agent registration. Can you please shed some light as to how they "burned" you?

I don't want to start a new thread, but has anyone received Foursquare spam lately at an email address used with CruiseCompete? I received 4 pieces of spam addressed to custom addresses that I *only* used at CruiseCompete (I have my own domain and have a wildcard definition so I get all email addressed to it and and got mail at cruisecomp and cruisecompete at that domain; I do this so I can figure out where my email was compromised in situations like this). The subject line of one of them was "Myrddin Anderson has sent you a private message on foursquare" -- the others were similar. I contacted CruiseCompete, they told me they had not been hacked and the address must have been stolen from my local machine (they also told me that agents who respond to your request do not get your email address). That's pretty much impossible, since the only spam of this sort that I received was to those two addresses.

Anyway, I am curious to know if anyone else got this spam.

Same here, I also use custom email addresses for each website and have started to get recent spam to cruisecompete@mydomain addresses. They have definitely either been hacked or sold their email list to someone.

Just got some kind of phishing type of spam purportedly from facebook but leading to some other website to my cruisecompete@ email address.

Just used CC for our upcoming cruise. The prices were certainly better than I found elsewhere. I ended up going with Cruises-n-more but the agent himself sucked. I couldn't get a quote for the exact cruise I wanted through CC, so I found the cruise I wanted & contacted the agency directly. Although I had to do all the legwork of finding the cruise, the best combination, available rooms, etc...they quoted me $200 less (on an inside) than the cruise line.
As an aside, on CC I only got a maximum of 3 quotes for each of several cruises that I requested. When I filled out their survery after, it appears that there's only about 6 participating agencies total.

I have had as many as 7 bids in reply to a cruise request to cruise compete-- Although, my last request was about 5 months ago and it is possible that the number of agencies has dropped.

Have used them twice to good advantage. Used the same travela gent again without cruise compete. Both cruises were at better prices.

However, you may still find lower prices elsewhere

J
As an aside, on CC I only got a maximum of 3 quotes for each of several cruises that I requested. When I filled out their survery after, it appears that there's only about 6 participating agencies total.

Funny, in the last week, I have requested quotes for 3 different cruises I am trying to decide between for this coming January. I got 5 replies to the 2 RCI cruises, and 3 replies to the Carnival, and those 3 were identical other than the perks one agent offered that I posted about in the Carnival Hubris thread, and were also the same as off the Carnival site. The RCI quotes were within 30-50 dollars of each other, but varied in on board credit each would offer.

I've been getting quotes for various Princess and Holland America repo cruises. They're pretty competitive within $50 of each other for HAL. Latest one came with no agent credits but I saved over $100 p.p. (~8% of basic cruise fare) though I could have gotten another $50.

Good way to see what the market is, then try to beat the price through other means. Don't know where else to look though...
Anyone use Amex for platinum upgrade?

I have used TLC on a few cruises on Azamara. They cannot change the price, but they can definitely lower your cost (ask Dave).

You can become very pleased.

gotchaben@cox.net (that's me if you have questioins).

What cruise agency is "TLC", please also provide their phone number.

THANKS

Hello, has anyone heard of http://www.travelizer.co.uk/cruises/ they seem to have quite a few good cruise partners on the site, but as I've not heard of them I don't know whether they're reliable or not. Anyone ever used them to book?

Yes. With AMEX Platinum, depending on the line one gets a two category upgrade or $300 cabin credit and some minor perks. Check on this page (https://axptravel.americanexpress.com/consumertravel/cpp.do) for specifics. In any case, I have received good value using my AMEX Plat cruising.

Good way to see what the market is, then try to beat the price through other means. Don't know where else to look though...
Anyone use Amex for platinum upgrade?

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

As you included a URL link in your first post, your post was suppressed and sent to the moderation queue as part of FT's spam control protocols. Our volunteer moderators may take some time to complete their rounds, so your post was delayed a bit before it was cleared by a human being.

JDiver, Senior Moderator

Hello, has anyone heard of http://www.travelizer.co.uk/cruises/ they seem to have quite a few good cruise partners on the site, but as I've not heard of them I don't know whether they're reliable or not. Anyone ever used them to book?

What cruise agency is "TLC", please also provide their phone number.

THANKS
The company is CompanionShips and they are located in Massachusetts. I'll send you a PM with the phone number & eMail.

I used CruiseCompete years ago and got good responses. The last couple of times I used them I got practically nothing.