Discount cruise company
 

Hi-
Has anyone booked through either:
Discount Cruises (USA based)
or discount Cruises (Australia based)?

I've never booked through them, but they're owned by Liberty Travel. This a is a large national company (founded in 1951 if you believe their web site) so you should be OK.

But no matter where you book, I'd recommend that you follow four basic rules to be safe:

1. Ask lots of questions.
2. Get the answers in writing.
3. Pay with a credit card.
4. Make sure the cruise line (and not the agency) charges your card.

Finally, before you book I'd recommend you try http://www.cruisecompete.com. This is a site where you select your sailing, then get competing quotes from various agencies. Put in the best rate you got from Discount Cruises in the comments and see if anyone can beat it. (There are also consumer and Better Business Bureau reviews of agencies so you can research who you're dealing with). I've had good luck there, and others on this board swear by it.

I used cruisecompete for my first online booking, found a great agent the first try and have successfully used her several more times, so cruisecompete can be a very good tool.

Lucky you! I've picked the cabin category, type it in "cruisecompete" and all I got were the standard replies "inside from... window from... balcony from..."

Dayenu:

That's odd. I've always gotten the actual pricing for the category I've typed in. (Not that agents always pay attention to the comments section, though).

But the other thing that I've learned when I've changed my mind midstream is that the agency with the lowest rate on any one cabin category usually has the lowest rates on other cabins on the same ship, so you can just e-mail or online chat with the low bidder directly.

I have used CruiseCompete 6 times with good luck. On my 7th time this past June, even though I still did all my research, I got sc****d. Out of 6 "bids", I chose "ecruisestores.com." The price quoted was comparable to another bid, but when I spoke w/ the agent,I really liked her. As some of you might know, ECS went belly-up in Oct.2009, and took down a huge pile of people. CruiseCompete, even though asked, did not remove ECS from their list. I don't know if they have now--I haven't been back to that site. I found out these agencies pay CC to advertise on CC. The CEO (or whatever big-wig) did not go to bat for the people who got hurt ( I was lucky--after 2 months of anxiety and sleepless nights, Capital One dealt w/ it and refunded my money). My point is, use CC, but research once, then do it again on different sites. Richard Tanner (owner of ESC) is still out there, using different aliases, and operating in Fla.

Afterthought: Dayenu, I was thinking about your comment. Did you actually create an account and request quotes, or were you looking at the specials postings? (These are the ones with "rates from" on them).

Cruizer2: Sorry to hear about your experience. Is it just me, or does the news only seem to focus on the unemployed when talking about all of the companies that have gone out of business in the recession, and never how the customers were treated? Glad you used a credit card and were OK!