Booking a Cruise

How do you book your cruise? In the past I booked direct with the cruise line. Since the pandemic my international business travel as whind down along with my status on American Airlines. Thus, now I book cruises exclusively on AA Cruise as I recive a minimum of 20K American Advantage points per cruise as well as build status on my cruise ship lines. While I prefer to visit new countries, I am flexible to the cruise ship experience.

What is your vacation planning strategy? Let me know the who, when, and why!

Tags: planning ports website duration discounts

14 Answers

Hi Gil,

Thanks for sharing, I definitely take more land (global resort destination) vacations per year than cruises. Based on the number of trips I definitely have personals consultants at all of the premium and luxury cruise lines and they call me serveral times per week. With that said they never make me a better offer. I was hoping cruisers on this forum would share the benefits of booking directly with a cruise line consultant and or other websites that I may be missing out on.

Cheers!

You really seem to have everything already picked out to fulfill your cruse/airline needs.

I am boring. For the most part, I book directly with my cruise line of choice.. A certain class ship. A certain cabin.

Obviously things seem to be working for you. As long as you are happy - status quo is the rule.

Hey Aunt Pinky,

That is great strategy and thanks for sharingHappy

I will share once my cruises are booked on Virgin or NCL (I can see all avaiable rooms for my category on the AA website) they have customer service has always made changes, booked restaurants and etc. when I call before the cruise.

Ciao!

We prefer to book directly with a representative from the cruise line. They can see cabins that are available that are not visible online. There is a point of contact with cruise line to “blame” if the booking is wrong and documentation with that person. A travel agent or outside company or yourself (if you book online) can be held responsible (if the booking is wrong) but the cruise line is off the hook. I research and pick the preferred cabin before I call, but can be persuaded by the representative if they have something different.

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