Originally Posted by
DeirdreTours
Could well be-- I have no insight into why the pricing was different, nor do I much care. As a consumer I am looking for the lowest price on identical goods. I have consistently found that, for whatever reason, online TAs quote me a lower price than the cruiseline for the identical trip and that, even between online TA's there are significant price differences.
Because that is my personal, repeated experience, I find the repeated statement in this thread that "discounting" no longer takes place to be inaccurate.
Maybe it is just a semantic game in which lower prices are called "group incentives" or "promotions", but to me--If I am paying less than I would have to pay the cruiseline directly for the same product, it is a discount.
And I hear what you're saying but it
does make a difference when you say you're comparing identical products if not all of the products
are actually identical.
What I mean is it's common for large online TA's to hold group space and that's something other TA's or indeed the cruise line itself may not have so therefore the pricing
looks different for the same product but it's how it's calculated that makes for the spead. I could see how it would
look like a discount when it really isn't and IMHO shouldn't be called one. There are volume pricing in other industries so why ignore it with cruising?