Beware of "Princess Promotions" sold on Princess Cruises' ships.

 

While on the ship during our Norwegian Fjord cruise, my partner and I decided on taking an Alaskan cruise next year out of San Francisco, purchasing a package ("Concierge Service") which gave us a $3000 credit to be used in booking a cruise, plus other credits to be used in a hotel stay.  Since I knew that the package details weren't that clear from what information I was given onboard the ship, I decided to contact Princess Promotions to find out the specifics on how to use this deal - and I was underwhelmed.

But first...

It's easy to get confused as we did.  We thought that Princess Promotions' "Concierge Service" was being offered through a special department of Princess Cruises.  This is not the case.  They are two separate entities, with Princess Promotions having gained the privilege of having its product sold on Princess Cruises' ships.

When books a pre-cruise hotel stay through Princess Cruises, one can get all needed transfers from airport to hotel, from hotel to cruise ship, from cruise ship back to the airport, and get one of the hotels below as part of the booking:

All three hotels are very good deals, and Princess has negotiated good prices for their cruisers to stay at these hotels.  These were the choices I was expecting when I bought the package from Princess Promotions.  However, when I called the "Concierge Service" at the number listed in another email, it appeared that the service was something other than expected.

Looking at the list of hotels available, one isn't getting that much of a discount when booking rooms through this service.  When I looked at rates presented through the plan for the two hotels below, I would still end up spending more money than might be expected for a 5-night stay.

With the promotional discount, I got these rates:

As you can tell, the 5-night certificate is worth roughly $500 (at most) no matter where you use it.  Have I gained that much by taking advantage of this promotion?  That's the $64,000 Question. Given that I've been to San Francisco enough to know how to get around the city and to have stayed at a few clean, safe, and inexpensive hotels, I found one hotel on this list that meets my requirements.  So I can make use of this credit and have a relatively hassle free time before the cruise.  But for those who have never been to San Francisco, this deal might not be worth it.

From what I can tell, cruisers are not getting a discount on the hotels in which Princess Cruises would book for them.  So this leads me to wonder - who is behind the promotion?   The way I see it, the operator behind the scenes might be a online booking site such as Priceline, Expedia or Orbitz.  But, according to my slipshod research, I found out that the vendor is an operator called Open Network Exchange (ONE). According to a Reddit post, 

They (ONE) are a contractor that staffs Princess on board future sales department and well as doing other direct sales functions. The owners of ONE inc used to own a company that would allow time share owners to trade weeks for cruises.  They sold that business and started ONE.  Their previous business gave them good contacts in the cruise industry and led to their current business arrangement with Princess.

But why has Princess Cruises partnered with such an organization?  In my opinion, I think short term decision making has caused Princess to make a big mistake that will hurt their reputation for the long term.  Although I'm effectively out $500, I can afford to lose a few dollars from my bank account - I was lucky enough to be able to save for an unknown future.  Unfortunately, it sours my opinion on the services provided by Princess Cruises, as I would have spent my money differently had I known what the deal was up front.  

Since it looks like we can use the promotional hotel stay anywhere and not connect the stay to a cruise, I got to thinking - why not use this package for a stay in a city where we've enjoyed traveling more than once?  Washington, DC comes to mind, as we can book Amtrak by ourselves and book the hotel stay through the promotional service.  This leaves us with the option to use Princess Cruises' EZAIR deal for our next cruise on Princess, and to keep things simple by use of Princess' EZAIR, Hotels chosen by Princess Cruises, along with transfers supplied by Princess Cruises by using our travel agent.

In the end, we decided to book both hotel, air and all transfers via our travel agent and Princess Cruises.  I'll try to find a decent discount on an East Coast hotel stay from Princess Promotions for another trip my partner and I will be taking.  Hopefully, our experience will be a warning for those who want to book a cruise via the future cruise desk, so that they do not buy a package from Princess Promotions and waste their money doing so.

PS: Every time I have compared a Princess Promotions price against one from Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Orbitz.com, I always found the latter 3 sites gave better hotel prices than Princess Promotions.  In all cases, stay away from anything that has to do with Princess Promotions, and only deal with a reputable travel agent for booking your travel. Don't fall for the line that their bundles will save you money.  Princess Promotions will only give you false savings and cost you money in the long term.