Good to know, thanks. I booked 3 cruises a few months ago when Chase was running the 6 UR points per $ promo. While booking I asked the rep who told me you had to redeem in full.

Since you mentioned it, can you refer me to your cruise agent? I usually buy directly from the cruise line at a discount or from an online consolidator.

Agree overall, but we have to consider what his choice will be if Galveston to save on flights. Typically the (typically bigger) new ships will go to the bigger ports. Galveston ships will be in the second or third tier.

Alas, I'm not bound for Galveston on this month's cruise - I'll be forced to cruise the Med and will miss all the excitement in the Gulf.

The only way I know is Thank You points and Capital One rewards.

Actually there is another way involving Amtrak Guest Rewards. 175,000 Guest Rewards will get you a Premium 7 or 8 Day Cruise with Carnival Cruise Lines.

The AMTRAK card is from Chase and Chase cards can be used to open bank deposits. It would take a massive amount of spend manufacturing but you could generate a free cruise. However, that free cruise would be unlikely to be in a cabin for 4 people.

funny I read this e-mail tonight about United cruises...booking through them earns up to 35k bonus points (if you splurge on a suite) and 8 points per dollar for booking through them...of course they probably jack up the prices like most airline vacation packages.

I have cruised a bunch, used to read cruisecritic, until the neo-natzi multitude of moderators banned me...they were stout cruise line cheerleaders and edited or banned anyone with a negative opinion of anything cruise related...If I didnt know better, I'd say they were paid shills, for their one-sided boards.

Nowadays you can get cruises cheap online...crucon was a favorite, also check Travelzoo they have names of many different companies best specials, many throw in extras like specialty dining, stateroom credit, casino credit, a free excursion, or other perks...most will give you a stateroom credit if the price falls before you sail, so check the prices often. Best prices are now (hurricane season) or spring break (don't do it)...also cheap are last minute sailings and ones booked over a year in advance...some of the cheapest are repositioning cruises when they change routes from/to Carib - Med you have to pop for FF tickets one way from Europe, but the cruise is often 10+ days at $50 or less a day.

Gavelston will be my closest port since I moved to DFW, but it's almost quicker to fly to MIA/FLL or SJU (if you want far southern itineraries)
Most gulf port cruises are boring, with galveston, New orleans, and Tampa all sailing to mexico, jamaica and Grand caymen (best trip) or multiple mexico and belize...or even key west and bahamas (pretty lame) but all offer short trips to see if you like cruising.

Bahamas = pretty lame. Really? Fins up! you parrotheads - they have some interesting shark dives over there. Here fishy fishy.....

I would add some extra thoughts here.

Long post but may give some useful information for those who care to read it.

First of all, EVERY booking place whether it is an online agency, a cruise-only agent, even a cruise-consolidator, they ALL need to make a profit after all they are not in it for charity. This is a given. The notion of booking thru an online agencies (there are indeed a TON of them) is always cheaper than going thru a real cruise-only agent is very misplaced.

In my experiences, using a cruise-only top agent has often beat the best prices I could find online, when all are added up, plus you get personal services which at time can become crucial.

We have over 20 cruises since 2005. (We had a few between 1990 and 1995 but stopped until 2005 to resume this mode of travel.) The first 2 cruises in 2005/2006 were booked thru "quotes" found from Cruisecompete or some site in that name where you put in your intended cruise(s) and got up to 3 quotes. Once I have found our current cruise agent via a cruisecritic poster's referral we have never used any other booking avenue. The NET cost I got generally matches or slightly better than what I could see from Cruises-n-more site or Crucon site. In fact cruises-n-more is my main source of finding what I wanted as I like its way of arranging things. I got Crucon's emails all the time but I dont like how they dont have all the details on their site and the only way to find out is to call, on their "special deals".

Here is why a cruise-only volume agent could get better incentives from cruiselines and then be able to pass to the customers. As a top volume agent, the agent often gets incentives in the form of group booking shipboard credits, free cabins, upgraded cabins, and miscellaneous shipboard niceties such as specialty restaurant / wine / photo whatever...
The agent can book you as among an invisible group if the sailing has group OBC incentives, or if there are free cabins the agent can put the cabins into the pool for sale but spread the value of the cabins to customers booked the same cruise, thus bring down the actual cost the customer would need to pay, for example. Different cruiselines have different mechanisms in its marketing and promotion / agent incentives of course. RCL works differently from CCL - while no agent can discount RCL corporations lines - Royal Caribbeans, Celebrity, Azamara, and such, agent could give you shipboard credits as a form of discount, not upfront, but it works out the same.

As for personal services, I can give you 2 examples why book thru a real person is better.

A few years ago we booked a Princess' South America cruise which I paid multiple times long before payments were due using as many as 6 credit cards to earn the sign up bonuses (back then the bonuses were much lower but the spend requirements also, in hundreds instead of in thousands.) We wanted to cancel the cruise by final payment due date (we had already paid almost in full except a few hundreds left) for a reason I forgot now.
The thing was, the final due date was on a Monday. We were going on a 5 day cruise on RCL's Navigator of the Sea on prior Saturday. Our cruise agent was on way to her own cruise to sail on Emerald Princess when I called her. I left urgent messages on her 1-800 and regular numbers on Friday. I got a call back that afternoon when she arrived FLL, that she would take care of it when she boarded Princess on Sunday. Not to worry. We decided to put the refund of the South America cruise to a Transatlantic cruise so we dont need to be bothered with the refunds going back to all the different CCs that 2 of them were already cancelled... She did all the works when she boarded Emerald Princess on Sunday. We later rebooked the Transatlantic when price went down a lot from when we changed.

Another example just happened a few weeks ago when we booked our upcoming 2 cruises sailing in October. We decided to sail Holland America's Noordam Transatlantic from Rome to Ft. Lauderdale on Oct 22. I wanted to add the last portion of the European/Africa portion to the Transatlantic, but realized it the per day cost on the Add-On was almost 40% HIGHER than the Transatlantic portion. So I checked other lines sailings and found 3 options - a NCL's Med 7 days, a RCL's Med 7 days and a RCL's Holy Lands 11 days - all can get us back in time to sail the HAL's Noordam. So I asked her quotes on all 3. She promptly gave me the NCL but told me to wait till next Monday for the RCL because both ships I eyed on, were on the Tuesday sales that opened on Monday for Crown and Anchor members. There was also another sale that RCL would include prepaid gratuity but only above certain categories were eligible.

She sent me the PDF file so I could see the sale prices would be, as well as whether it would make sense to book higher category to get the prepaid gratuity or book the lower category for a better cost ratio.

If I use the online booking, I would NOT know the upcoming sale and would have paid a few hundreds extra already. These are last minute bookings that dont offer price protection. We NEVER book something 10 - 12 months ago - those you do get price protection all the way till the final payment which normally is due between 30 to 75 days depends on the length of the cruise. The longer the lead time also longer - i.e. you would need to commit much earlier on a long cruise than your generic 7 days Caribbeans sojourn.

After some number crunching, we picked the 11 days Holy Lands. While we were studying these, she has already held a desirable cabin on the HAL Noordam for us pending our final decision.

On next Monday I was ready to book and pay (75% of the payment is due upon reservation as the sailings were just 6 weeks away on RCL's, and 8 weeks away on HAL's), she was too busy to handle our multiple cards so she got an extension from both lines to wait another day.

When we finally sat down to do the payment phone call, I used, or intended to use, 2 AMEX GCs, an AMEX DL and a Citi HHonor. The 1st AMEX GC did go thru without glitch but the 2nd one did not. I called AMEX GC thinking may be the registration at AMEX end was messed up. It turned out that in the fine print - AMEX GC cannot be used to pay cruise lines! (the other 2 places are obvious being Casino and ATM). Such condition is NOT online when you order the GC, but in the fine print on the paper that came with your GC. We had a conference call and eventually been told by AMEX GC rep that the reason of decline. The AMEX GC CSR even went further to say the 1st GC may get kicked back despite the authorization went thru. So I told her to just put the $500 to the Citi HHonor instead. Both she and I monitored the AMEX GC payment that got thru - it never got kicked back. The bill was posted in 2 days and HAL got its payment.

I dont see HOW I can do all the above with an online agency or with an agent that I only get to do business with thru some cruisecompete quote or thru a consolidator where it has just employees not a professional with industry credential. My cruise agent works as part of an AMEX Travel Services Consortium - google it you would understand what it means, and has full credentials. Her home office system directly links to cruise lines' booking system including the payment interface. She normally does not do agency checks but client's CC directly pay to cruise lines.

On every cruise we booked, we would get an invoice from her office with the breakdown of the commissionable portion, port charges and taxes. I also ask her to send me the Guest Copy of the Invoice which often shows a higher amount than we actually paid when it is HAL or Princess cruise which allow agent discount. The Guest Copy of Invoice also is good to have when you have Shareholder Credit / future cruise credit / agency credit - they show up on the Guest Copy of Invoice one way or the other. I always bring this with us just in case the shipboard account does not reflect that. So far we never have any issue.

As for the declined AMEX GC, the AMEX GC rep offered to refund the card value. I got a claim number on it. The process takes 20 business days but you can ask a supervisor to escalate it by sending an email request to the office in Utah, make it a 7 to 10 business days.

This is the first time the 2 ships go to Galveston I think. Both are much nicer than the Carnivals sailing out from Galveston.

In general YES. However this season RCL has 2 Voyager class ships as mentioned above, and Crown Princess will go to Galveston on Dec 22 as her final port of Transatlantic Westbound. It is because of that we decided to sail HAL's Noordam instead - because if we get off at Ft. Lauderdale, we lose 3 days on Crown's itinerary onto Galveston. If we stay on, flying home from IAH on Dec 22 would be either a very expensive pursuit with pay ticket, or a forced stay in Texas till Dec 24 or beyond. Either option is crappy so we decided not to sail Princess. We really should though because we are in need of 3 more Princess cruise to reach Elite so we get free laundry! But the way we keep deflect to HAL, we may end up being 3 star Mariner before we reach Princess Elite.

I priced out the UA bonus offers on our coming sailings - they are a few hundreds higher than what we paid, on 2 miles per $1. That is some expensive miles!

Your general point is expressed well, but I'm confused. Are you saying that your Cruises-n-more agent is part of the AMEX consortium?
I've used Cruises-n-more and while they had the best price for me in the end, the agent himself was a moron that I had to walk through the booking process (with multiple rooms on a B2B and shared pricing). Obviously, even within one company, the individual agent can make a difference.
For our next cruise, I've booked directly with the line until I can find a better TA deal elsewhere & have it transferred.

General cruise nugget:

Seascanner.com for seeing availability on your ship and judging price drops or upgrades.

I just finished a 7 day on the ncl Jade and paid for an upgrade onboard the ship from Oceanview Cabin to Penthouse with Butler cabin#9500 and what must have been a 300sqft balcony). Cost of upgrade for 2 pax $1390 all in.

If the ship has a lot of suites (see link) your chances of scoring this onboard, on NCL at least is pretty good.

Reckon that cabin was selling at about 6k the day before the cruise.

Points-wise, your best option IMO is Citi TYP.

Use 2-browser trick to get 2 VISAs. With the points from the min spend, each one will be worth $525 of travel credit. You have 2 Visas, so $1050.

Have your spouse do the same. $1050 more.

Wait 65+ days between Citi apps.

Use 2-browser trick to get 2 TYP Mastercards. Meet spend, collect another $1050.

Same for your wife = $1050.

Grand total is $4200 worth of travel credit / gift cards within as little as 3-6 months. Less if you can manufacture spend pretty quickly. FWIW, my in-laws did exactly this, only they only got one set of TYPs for $2100 of travel credit. Working with the Citi Travel Center was easy and they were able to take a $4100 Alaska cruise for $2k. Not free, but with the free flights thanks to United Explorer signups and a couple of hotel nights from HHonors, they're getting a 6k "bucket list" vacation for 2k. You could do better by doubling up on the Citi apps.

Read again. You have missed my words.
Your experience booking with Cruises-n-more just confirms that using an online agency is NOT the way to get good service if you expect one.

My cruise agent is the owner of her agency. She has been a member of the AMEX Travel Consortium ever since I know her. Over the years she went from having a part-time assistant to now having 2 assistants and a website which her customers have secured access to their booking details. However I use emails and phone calls as our mean of communication and booking. Though I am pleasantly surprised that since our last booking in March till now in Sept, now we could check on our booking details thru secured access on her website.

I use cruises-n-more site ONLY to search on potential cruises we would like to sail. Then I call my cruise agent to give me a quote on the sailings I am eyeing at. I dont ask quotes by random or at a whim. When I asked for quotes, we generally 80% sure we would go on a cruise. Her prices usually match what I can see from Cruises-n-more. Sometimes slightly better when you factor in the incentives thrown in.

Sometimes I feel bad to book thru her for some dirt cheap cruises - we sailed a Crown Princess Transatlantic in April this year with a fare of $545 all-in. She could not offer any incentives with the commissionable portion was less than $250. I actually asked her should I go thru Princess direct this time and not to add work to her. But she said my booking would help the volume and I have been a very low-maintenance customer who knows exactly what she wants. So she still handled all the work. We came back from HKG almost Mid March and felt it was too rush to do the April 2nd TATL on HAL so we booked the Late April one on Princess. On the week of sail, got an upgrade from inside to full ocean view. Both she and I got a big chuckle on it.

I know we are getting good prices and good services so I dont haggle with her. She gave me the number of the final all-in cost, as well as whatever incentives there might be or no such available. Our 2 upcoming cruises do not have any group incentives for example but the per day price is very cheap.

whew

Try this:

1) Look up the price and cabin you want on Priceline. (always cheapest)

2) Check back occasionally looking for flash sales or 3 day discounts.

3) Call UA cruises, AA cruises or whoever. Have them match.

4) Enjoy your cruise, gain weight.

400,000 ultimate reward points , from Chase, will buy a $5,000 cruise.
That's a lot of points to earn in one program, but UR reward points are easily transferable. Chase Sapphire, Ink Bold and that other Ink card that just came out. Have spouse do the same, and you got a good start. While you are at it , get some Spg points, some more Thank You points, and anything else you can trade.
Earning 400,000 points , for a family is not that hard. Getting them all in one program is a lot harder.

There are a lot of ways to earn points. Then offer everything up for UR points.
Coupon connection is not the only way to trade.if you have friends who collect points and miles, encourage them to do some Chase apps, and trade for some points.

Get some aa miles, they can easily transfer into someone else's Hilton account.
Hawaiian and others also transfer to Hilton.
Keep churning and start trading.

Hmmm...I know where 40k per person could be manufactured, but that is still just 20%...

Seems like a worthy challenge.