Hello everyone
Thank you for allowing me to ‘take over’ the blog once again. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing a little about what is going on here at P&O Cruises, and I’ve appreciated all your comments. Your feedback helps us to improve, and we are always happy to hear from you.
I’ll be handing over the blog now to Johanna Grove, our Port Presenter on Aurora. Jo is able to give you a great overview of our destinations, as well as an insider’s view on the best places to see on a P&O Cruises holiday. I hope that you continue to enjoy the blog, and I’ll be back soon.
Kind regards
Carol
Posts
11 comments:
Carol
Thanks for your comments and answers in your time at this blog,there were some tricky ones.
Alan
A question for Carol Marlow with regard to pricing and discounts.
Carol
Following on from Aitch quesion on the 2nd July I also fell for the pay in full up front for the best prices on a cruise in August on oriana with my siste in law family to find that in May & June P&O have slashed their prices in their Summer sale which has left us well out of pocket.
When this was queried both directly and through our travel agents Thomas Cook we were given the usal brush off and that nothing could be done. No mention of upgrades or increased on board spend. This does not lend itself to customer loyalty or indeed booking in advance if P&O are now going to discount prices to fill ships.
Indeed back in 2003 P&O stated that they would offer upgrades to existing customers and then sell off the lower price cabins in order to stop this sort of thing occuring again. However now seem to have changed their policy.
I would welcome a response and have given my email address below.
Kind Regards
Thomas Butler
tw_butler@hotmail.com
I must admit I do agree with Thomas Butler above, as we always tend to book our Christmas & New Year cruises 18months before and always find people on same cruises have only booked 2 weeks before at a much reduced rate, how fair is that to regular P&O cruisers like ourselves. Having always cruised with P&O as they tick all our boxes it does make you think are we being fairly treated, I think not.
Ros
I agree with the comments above - but P&O just come back and say you had first choice of dinner sitting and cabin by booking early - but both sittings and cabins in all locations are available for late bookers - and at a fraction of the price!
One year we got OBC - the difference between what we paid early on and what we would have paid had we booked late - what happened to that?
What has happened to giving upgrades? Why not upgrade early bookers first and then allocate what is left to the people booked on a guarantee basis - instead of the other way around?
Upgrades whats that.I have done many cruises and never been offered an upgrade once.Heighbours who we recommended to P&O are on Ventura just now and guess what they were offered an upgrade from an inside to a balcony thier first cruise.Wheres the loyality to regular passengers there.Also 2 years ago when the fuel duties came about we had 9 of us booked early and we all had surcharge even my 18 month year old great neice.At random lunch one day i was at atable with 6 other passengers who all booked just a couple of months before because of the great prices,and guess what?yes they didnt even know what a fuel surcharge was.Another own goal by P&O who continually say they like to reward their regular passengers.How does this totally unfair system work?
i think Carol has gone now!? LOL
Yes but she will still read it and if you are not prepared to sign your post,then dont bother
I don't think she cares !
My parents have always cruised with P&O as they were promised the Gold qualification next year. But no P&O don't keep their promises.
We'll never cruise with P&O again
We also book the day that the cruises open, and have been loyal cruisers for 25 years, we've even done 2 cruises some years. As others have said, what has happenned to loyalty.We booked an obstructed cabin on Azura for this August(budget is limited this year due to the recession) but was horrified earlier this year to read that if you booked an obstructed view you would be automatically upgraded to a balcony cabin. I telephoned both my travel agent and P & O and the reply I was given was "you can cancel your booking, lose your deposit and free parking(which we dont need anyway)and re book!!!So much for loyalty.I'm enclosing my email address in order that I may have a response.
Sorry email address not added, should read:
normaperis@tiscali.co.uk.
Many thanks.
We too made the big mistake of falling for the "best prices for booking early". In January we booked two inside cabins on Oriana's Med cruise E121 in August. The total costs was £1,569 per person. When we came to pay the balance in May the price had been slashed to £1099 per person. Almost £500 cheaper per person. The only thing we could do was cancel our original booking and lose our £700 deposits and rebook at the lower price. Neither P&O or the travel agent were helpful or interested - it was just a fact of life! Needless to say P&O kept our £700 deposit so we have in effect paid for balcony rooms at the lower price but still have our inside cabins. We are disgusted that P&O could treat it's customers like that - companies like P&O need the certainty of numbers that early bookings provide - we played by their rules and were badly stung - they have made £700 out of my family for nothing. We will certainly think twice before booking a P&O cruise again...and it has certainly taken the shine off our cruise in August. Having read the blogs below it seems we are not alone in being treated so badly.
Tony, Elaine, Lauren and Isabel Raine.
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