Carnival Hubris
 

NEWSFLASH: New Carnival Policy goes in effect August 1st, 2012


Carnival has just announced that effective 8/1/12, they will not allow travel agents to give ANY cash equivalent value-adds (i.e shipboard credit, pre-paid gratuities, gas cards, airline miles, reduced airfare; free or discounted travel insurance, hotel nights, or shore excursions) and will be limiting any booking incentives to a $ 25 pp non-cash equivalent item (like a tote bag, hat, beach towel, memory book, sunglasses and Carnival gifts delivered onboard (Bon Voyage items)). This new policy applies not only to advertising, but all forms of communication, including in-person, phone or any other means. If any travel agent is caught violating the policy, (whether big, small or even a home based agent belonging to a host agency) their commission can be eliminated and they can be put on a "no book" status.

What does this mean for you??

If you are a consumer and have been thinking of booking a Carnival cruise sailing in 2012, 2013 or 2014...make sure you book it before July 31, 2012 with a CLIA certified travel agency so that you can maximize your booking bonus before this new policy becomes effective. If you have a Travel Agency you already book with, use them. If you don't, give us a try. Either way, support the Travel Agent community and make sure you book with a cruise specialist before August 1, 2012.

I got that notice last evening.

I wonder why Carnival has gone this route... seems like it could only hurt their bookings potentially.

Does this also apply to Princess cruises since they're owned by Carnival? We're about ready to book a Princess cruise for Fall 2013, so if applies to Princess as well, we'll have to bite the bullet earlier than planned so that we can get OBC from our travel agent.

On some discussion on cruise critic, someone says they talked to a media relations person who said that it's Carnival Cruise Line only so far, not Carnival Corp, so it shouldn't affect the other brands. Carnival Cruise Line was already apparently pretty restrictive on discounting before this.

The claim is that it's to help the small travel agents compete since they won't have to discount as much against their commission. Personally, I think it's more likely to get people to book through Carnival directly since it'll be the same price there as anywhere else.

See also this post and the larger discussion ongoing about the whole rebating/discounting practices and how they affect the passenger.

That's exactly what I think about it too. Personally, if there is no benefit to me to not use my TA, I will still use her. At least I know some small chunk of my vacation spending is staying in my community. And frankly, Carnival (or RCI for that matter) has no idea what kinds of perks a TA might offer direct back to the customer, outside of the cruise transaction.

It's not hubris. I'll be surprised if this isn't policy at Royal and NCL soon. It's no different than when Royal first banned TA's from advertising lower rates than advetrised by Royal itself. Within a couple of years it was policy at the other two.

Interestingly, travel agents who post at CruiseCritic say they asked for this, and are happy because now they can compete with the larger internet agencies. Personally, I think they're morons as I haven't booked with a TA since Carnival adopted the "no lower advertised rates" policy a couple years ago. It's not worth the added hassle of going through a TA for $25 of OBC or free insurance. Now they're even more restricted/. Why would I add an extra layer of hassle with no added benefit to offset it?

Now if only Carnival would improve their embarrassment of a website.

Yes it is.

Heh, we'll have to agree to disagree. I think that not only will this succeed, the other two mainlines will adopt the same policy within a year.

An objective opinion? Booking direct only gets you the company line, though understandably I have my built-in biases. ;)

That's fine if you are looking for advice. I've never called my TA and asked her what she thought a good cruise would be for us. While I'm sure you still get a ton of people asking what a good cruise is for parents and 2 pre-teens, dad likes to gamble, mom likes the shows, etc., more and more people read websites like cruise critic and get more info than they ever thought they would get. I basically email my TA, and say "I want this ship, this date, this cabin, we are staying at X hotel and here are my flight times." She'll check on price changes for me, but we typically book cruises that seem to go higher, not lower as time goes on.

I don't really need her for the booking, but like I said above, I like some of my money staying in the local economy, and she has been my wife's family's TA for years, so I keep going back to her. I actually met her for the first time after our 4th cruise booked with her, and her office is a block from our house LOL.

There is an over supply of cruise ships and cruise cabins. The industry is trying to fight supply and demand. Only idiots are going to get hurt. Just remember a cruise line pays 17% + other goodies to a travel agent. Use that knowledge to your advantage. And please do not challenge my statistics.

:mad: 74% of all statistics are made up on the spot.



;) :D

I can only speak for myself, a regular Carnival cruise passenger. If there is no incentive for me to book through a TA, I will just book directly on the Carnival website. Less hassle.

I think that the TAs that wanted this change just shot themselves in the foot and will lose a lot more business than they will gain from the "level playing field".

I have to admit, one of the reasons I still book through a TA at this point is that I figure if I'm going to pay the same amount anyways, at least this way *someone* gets some money out of the company for the booking. And I've been dealing with the same TA for a number of years, with a reasonable number of cruises booked through her. But for someone like me, I'm not relying on her for advice, I'm probably one of the easier customers she has to deal with :). Heck, I even feel a little guilty when I call in to get my price reduced because the cabin price has gone down (but not guilty enough not to take advantage of the $800 price drop that popped up on my next cruise).

For me, it's no more hassle to use the TA as it is to use the Carnival PVP. While there is no incentive to use the TA, there isn't an incentive to not use one either. If Carnival would be willing to make it worth my while to use their guy instead of mine, I'll listen LOL.

Booking direct, you are in control of your own booking, where using a TA, you have to go through the agent to make changes to your reservation. I've never found this to be an issue for us. The only time I had to call the cruiseline direct was for our cruise leaving New York City on Sept 15, 2001. Obviously it wasn't going to still be sailing from there, and I needed to find out what was going on. I got the "You need to call your TA" line from the first person I spoke to, but I insisted I was the guy paying the bills and would be the one finding this info out right now. She put me to another agent who helped me out and that was that.

Being a TA I'll challenge that asumption as not being accurate all the time. TA commissions can run that high but it's by no means a blanket amount for all lines to all TA's always.

Totally thought that the HUBRIS was the new CCL ship name....

That'll be the name of the next ship they do the Destiny/Sunshine makeover on LOL.

Not hubris, strategy.

If Carnival is paying 17% or 14% off the top, they can probably afford to lose a few bookings to bring some of that cash back in-house. (My understanding is that is the percentage of the base fare, which itself can be 1/2 of the actual price on a cheap cruise, right?)

I will book though CCL going forward because I have had problems with several TAs who didn't understand what an FCC is, how to log an ES price drop, etc. Basic stuff.

I'd much prefer to play dial-an-answer with Carnival because they'll at least be willing to talk to me. :D

You are correct I agree 17% + goodies are not always paid to TA's

;) What a great name to compete against RCL's new floating cities. The new Carnival Hubris a 15,000 passenger ship!

I always booked with TA's until recently, for the bennies. I actually have found a really helpful Carnival PVP, though. I take the time to book through him on the phone rather than online, even, and I usually HATE talking to people when I can do something online instead.

For the first time ever I have a question related to a current cruise booking, and it was nice to call and get a helpful answer and get my problem taken care of right away.

My big project now is to squeeze in two mroe sailings in 2013 so that I can get Platinum under the current rules. :cool:

I wonder how this will impact cashback portal bookings? I've liked booking cruises via ShopDiscover/Cruise & Vacation Desk. It earned 5% cashback, (but apparently only on the cruise portion, not port fees/taxes), so it was really more like 2.5% cashback.

From the sounds of this policy, something like Chase Ultimate Rewards extra 4 UR/$ on cruise bookings would no longer be allowed in the future. They may have to exclude Carnival if they do such a promo again :(

I was pricing out a Carnival cruise for January and entered the details on cruise compete to see what results I got. 4 quotes came back with identical pricing and each had a couple things under special offers, such as an unspecified onboard credit (call to find out), or a logo item. One agency must be taking the $25 dollar limit thing and saying there isn't a limit to how many $25 items they can offer. I saw this in their quote:

Can someone explain why is it legal for a company to tell its independent sales agents that they cannot give rebates?

IF a TA says "spend $5k with our cruise agency on cruises in a year and we will send you a check for $500"...why can a cruise line stop that?

THANKS

For many years, it wasn't. About 5 years ago, Scalia et al changed the rules.

Can you give a case cite please?

This isn't unique to travel as Bose is very stringent on it's retailers not discounting or rebating it's product.

Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leegin_...._v._PSKS,_Inc.

I don't think a cruise line can stop that, in a situation as you describe. But they can't discount or rebate as part of a particular booking. If they want to sell cruises for a particular line, then they need to follow the rules set out by that cruise line.

Apple is another example. You don't see sales on ipads very often, and when you do (for like $20 off as with Best Buy this week), it's with Apple's blessing.

It's no different legally than any other contractual restrictions. It's not as if the agencies are required to sell the products.

Or, more directly, try this.

People still use travel agents? How quaint. Do they ride their horse and buggy down to book with them?

Sure, if there is commission to be paid, why not let the cruise line pay someone local, since they don't make it worth my while to book direct? I don't waste my TA's time with things like airfare that don't make her money.

Until last year, there was significant money to be saved by using travel agents to book cruises, as certain ones would rebate a large chunk of their commission to you.

I wonder if they'd get away with this in the EU. It would seem to be a breach of article 101 of the TFEU.

Belated THANK YOU J. Diver

I have not been on this thread for a while. (The title is not indicative so I forgot about my question.

If you book with a local TA you can get some of that +17% commision. If you are booking high end or many cabins it should be worth your time

If you read up this thread you will note that Carnival is prohibiting TAs from rebating commission to you.