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Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:
The ship/plane may depart with empty cabins and seats, but at least the companies have been paid for holding the space from inventory.

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I don't think this applies to passenger ships too (there aren't many regular lines any more ), and I haven't much heard about the problem here in Europe.

Here the money paid is seldom refundable, and you have to have insurance to have it back, if you can't travel.

Good points and thanks to Pullmantur however, I had booked for the Oceanic for mid-june, but due to a very important professional appointment, midst in that week, I asked if the booking could be changed to the beginning of july, this wasn't a problem. The money paid could be used, but we had to pay a little bit more as the cabins were more expensive in july than in june. Still, I hadn't lost my cruise nor my money (and this without insurance, brr )

I don't know if there is in the US a similar overbooking/bumping regulation in the airline industry as in Europe.

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Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:
I posted in the past regarding overbooking of cruises and flights that there is really one great solution. 100% non refundable trips. At a certain point say 60 days before your cruise (or 48 hours before a flight) the trip becomes non-refundable and your credit card is charged for the trip or final payment must be received. Trip insurance is available if you have to cancel to due illness or an other emergency.

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Originally posted by Globaliser:
The other problem is that there is already a certain amount of this in the US market already. But the 60 day point is when the trouble starts, if the overbooking is going to go wrong. That's currently the point at which the deposit becomes non-refundable and full payment is due - and it's at about this point that a large proportion of booked passengers seem to cancel. And the reports suggest that Carnival is having problems at this point.

I wonder what the necessary overbooking rates are in the US when compared to the UK, where as I understand it standard terms are non-refundable 10% deposit on booking, full payment about 60 days out. Common sense suggests that this would tend to discourage the rather speculative bookings (even multiple bookings) that some parts of the US market seem to make, and therefore reduce the need to overbook and its concomitant risk. It would also reduce the amount by which people play the guarantee/upgrade game, which might itself have a positive effect on yields.

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Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:

On some flight routes (LAX-Las Vegas route) I have heard have a 40% no-show factor at certain times of the day. That means the airlines may overbook that flight by 40% if they choose to. The problem starts when passengers actually show up for their flight or cruise!

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Actually, to cover a 40% no-show situation one has to overbook by a whopping 66 2/3 % to have a full plane. Such an over-booking factor is nothing short of fraudulent because it involves taking peoples' money on the basis of promises that they often cannot keep, and they do it consistently. People who book and pay in advance in good faith and actually show up when they are supposed to show up should never be victimized in any way by the airlines (or cruise lines). The airlines (and Carnivore) need to find another way to handle no shows. Penalizing the people actually who keep their end of the bargain is punishing the WRONG people, but they do it because they don't have the guts to penalize the RIGHT people. This greed-driven gutlessness has led to 140 people being defrauded in this case. SUE the b*s*a*r*s! This nonsense needs to be STOPPED.

Brian

[ 09-04-2004: Message edited by: Brian_O ]