Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - As anyone ever used sky auction??

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As anyone ever used sky auction??

As anyone ever used sky auction?? Should I trust it? I know they have an add on of 225 $ on top of the auction price, but is there any other add ons, like port charges and tax, or the 225 covers it?

Sky Auction is a great company - I have used then several times without problems. A couple of hints: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!! I cannot strees that enough. Know how much the lowest price is and the range of low prices for the cruise that you want. I have seem MANY people overbid for many cruises. Sky auction can offer great prices, as long as you know your prices. The auction ending time is EXACT. In otherwords, when they say an auction ends at 5pm est, that's when it ends. Usually, the bidding gets more frantic about 15 mins. before the auction ends. You must be ready, and I would say don't put in your final bid any later than 5 mins of auction closing. The only other charge besides the $225 is a document delivery charge: I forgot the amount. The fee is per itinery, not per person, and it's not too much. On cruises where is are several dates to choose from, the good thing is that if for some reason, they cannot give you the date you want, you will get all you're money back; they don't force you to take a date or pay for a trip you can't use. If you win a bid, they won't give you your documents or cabin assignment until 2 wks before sail date. I have nver had a problem with getting docs in time. They are good with free upgrades; we won a bid and paid for a inside cabin on Celebrity Millenium, and got a free upgrade from SkyAuction for a window cabin! Please ask if you have any other questions.

Oh, a couple of other hints. Skyauction releases space on the same cruise all the time, usually at 2 per auction. SO, if you don't win one auction, don't worry, the same cruise will come up again. You are able to check what the winning bids were for past auctions. There is a past winners section, that holds wining bids for 7 days. VERY important to check this section, to see what the range of winning bids are for a particular trip is.

BE CAREFUL. Here again is another place that does NOT include port charges up front. You'll find them buried way down the page. Again, why do travel agents not all follow the same set of rules? Like Anthony says, do your homework. I looked at one sailing on the Triumph and thought it was a good price at $595, but later I found there was almost $200 in port charges, so, not much different than many sites on the web.

Hi Al, Do you mean a travel agent sold you a cruise for $595 and then added $200 later or did you just read an ad in the newspaper? Paul

Paul: I meant on SkyAuctions site. Al

Anthony: What am I missing. I reviewed their "starting bid" price and everything I looked at was about as high as most internet agents prices. Then, they add on port charges which makes them higher than most internet companies. And that's their STARTING bid. Again, what am I missing? You said you bought cruises from them several times.

Ted: Here is an example of a great deal: Skyauction date 12/9/02 - Winner @ $271/person for a 8 Nt Southern Carribean Cruise on Carnival Spirit - range of sail dates available, some with surcharges. $271 (winning Bid Price) + $195 (additional fees)+ $7 ( 1/2 of document fee of $15 per itinery) = $473/person Lets choose 1/19/03 as sail dates, since there is no surcharge. Doing a qucick search on travelocity .com, this same cruise, with an inside guarentee, comes to $784.23/person, all & taxes. So Skyauction saved $310/person vs Travelocity. As I noted in this example, MOST of the 7 day cruise additional charges are $195 per person. Shorter cruises have less additional charges.