Princess Cruises increased the cost of my trip by $10,000. Is this legal?

Princess Cruises recently accidentally published a fare for a 21-day Mediterranean sailing that was too good to be true. Literally. The mistakenly displayed price – caused by human error – rang in at just a fraction of the cruise’s actual cost.

That fat-finger rate was only briefly available on the Princess website, but word spread quickly across the Internet. That alert caused an immediate flutter of unusually high booking activity, and the cruise line noticed. For all of the elated would-be cruise passengers who snagged this dream deal, bad news was on the horizon. 

Princess Cruises had no intention of honoring the obvious fare mistake and would soon cancel every one of those reservations. If the customers still wanted to take the cruise, they could pay the actual fare. 

Cathy Gu had grabbed not one, but two, of those bargain basement cruise cabins for her family’s next summer vacation. She says Princess sent a confirmation and charged the first payment for the cruise to her credit card. 

She assumed that sealed the deal and her family would soon be cruising through the Mediterranean aboard the Sun Princess.

Princess Cruises offers two choices

But Princess had an unpleasant surprise in store for Gu. Several weeks after booking the cruise, she received an updated invoice with a new, shockingly inflated rate. The cruise line would cancel the reservation if the family didn’t find the $10,000 upcharge agreeable.

Not surprisingly, Gu and her family didn’t find the giant price increase fair or acceptable.

Now, Gu is asking Consumer Rescue to get to the bottom of this cruise fiasco. 

She’s demanding that Princess reinstate her cruise at the price originally confirmed, and she’s claiming discrimination if it isn’t. Why discrimination, you might ask her (as I did)?  Well, Gu says her neighbors booked the exact same cruise through a travel agent, and their cheap reservation remained intact. 

So, what’s really going on here? Let’s find out.

Gu’s case is a cautionary tale of the risky nature of booking obvious cruise fare mistakes. You might be able to snag one – or two, as in this case – but you may just be setting yourself up for a giant disappointment. 

An unbelievable deal on a Princess cruise through the Mediterranean

Last May, Gu heard about a great deal Princess Cruises had displayed on its website. She found it possible to book a 21-day cruise through Europe aboard the Sun Princess at an unbelievable rate.

With ports of call in Spain, Gibraltar, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Montenegro, and Corfu, the cruise would be the perfect way to spend their summer vacation. Envisioning themselves sailing from one rugged coastline to another, enjoying all the unique details of each country, she quickly began booking the cruise.

Of course, the driving force behind booking this particular Princess cruise was the price. It was strangely so economical.

Gu first booked one cabin, an inside room, for the impressive total cost of $3,140 for two people. That rate included all taxes and port fees for the 21-day comprehensive odyssey through the Mediterranean.

She didn’t stop there, though. Gu then checked the rate for a cove balcony room.

“I thought it was a good deal,” Gu recalls. “But I didn’t think it was a mistake rate. It seemed like a promotional, discounted price. I booked that one, too.”

She soon received a confirmation for the second cabin as well. At just $4,326 for the mini-suite, the cruise was quite the bargain. For $7,466, she had just booked two cabins for four people for a 21-day Princess cruise that included food. 

Gu should have recognized that something wasn’t right with the cost of this reservation, but she says she didn’t. 

Princess Cruises: We’ve made a mistake, here is the new price of your cruise

With next summer’s family cruise confirmed, Gu didn’t give the price another thought. 

That is until several weeks later when a cruise consultant at Princess Cruises called and left a disturbing message. The fare Gu had booked was a mistake and the cruise line wasn’t going to honor it. 

The family wouldn’t be cruising through the Mediterranean on the Sun Princess unless they agreed to the new correct price. And the new price was quite a doozy.

According to Princess, the mistake on their website had allowed a certain number of customers to book a three-week cruise at the price of a one-week voyage. The actual cost of the cruise that Gu had booked would be three times the amount on her original confirmation.

When Princess refused to reinstate her original price, Gu checked with her neighbors and discovered their cruise remained booked at the low rate. 

That got her thinking about why that might be. She became convinced that her cancellation wasn’t the result of a pricing error but rather some form of discrimination. 

After she found an article I had written about another cruise passenger who had his Azamara Mediterranean voyage canceled over a pricing error, Gu decided to ask Consumer Rescue for help. 

Did Princess make a pricing error or is this something else?

When I received Gu’s request for help, it was a little over a month since she had booked the bargain basement-priced Mediterranean cruise. Although I immediately determined Gu had booked multiple cabins at a fat-finger rate, she insisted that she hadn’t. She said she had a reason why she believed this to be so.

A group of my friends still have this same cruise booked and at the same rate I booked. Princess Cruises hasn’t canceled their trips. This isn’t fair. They [Princess] only canceled the cruise of the person who booked through their website. This is totally unfair and discrimination against individual customers over the ones booked through agents or third parties like Costco. I called to ask for the reactivation of my reservation with the original price we booked on May 2. 

But the Princess staff reactivated with a much higher price from original around $7,500 to over $19,000, which I can’t accept.

Gu to Michelle

I knew from experience that if Gu’s friends had booked the same rate, they would soon have their cruises canceled as well. She remained unconvinced and told me that if Princess had really canceled her cruise as the result of a pricing error, then it should have canceled all reservations at that rate at the same time.

I’m a little unclear: What is your theory about why your specific cruise reservation was canceled if not because of a pricing mistake?  

I’m always happy to send a case to the cruise line if there is a compelling reason, but I don’t see anything in your paper trail that would indicate this was anything but a significant fare mistake that was discovered a month after you booked it.  

Michelle to Gu

Gu didn’t have a theory as to why Princess selected her for the cancellation, other than the pricing error.

Princess Cruises isn’t obligated to honor a pricing error

Before I sent Gu’s complaint over to Princess, I explained to her why there was little hope that the cruise line would reinstate her wildly discounted reservation.

Princess is not obligated to honor that fare (per their terms and conditions). Even an interior cabin on that particular cruise is $4,000 per person (with the discount applied and taxes added). 

Your friends’ cruises will also almost certainly be canceled in the coming weeks when their reservation shows up in the accounting department – if the fare is similar to what you booked.  

Based on the rules and regulations about pricing, I’m afraid there isn’t anything our team could do to make Princess honor this rate. The $400 discount is just a goodwill gesture and not anything the cruise line is required to provide. BUT…

If you booked any nonrefundable hotels or airfare and have proof of that, Princess may be willing to compensate you if you don’t intend to travel to Spain next June without the cruise in place. Do you have any additional expenses?  

Michelle to Gu

Asking Princess Cruises about this passenger’s canceled trip

It turns out Gu had not invested any funds in this trip so far. So, I sent her case over to Princess to make certain her cancellation wasn’t the result of a computer glitch. 

Hi *****!

…One month after booking the trip, a Princess cruise consultant informed her that Princess had canceled both the cabins because the rate she had booked was a mistake. The consultant then offered her a rate that would decrease the cabins by one and increase the cost by thousands of dollars. 

Gu says her family would have accepted the explanation from Princess, except their neighbors booked the same cruise at the same rate and their cruise wasn’t canceled. So, as you can imagine, this family is very disgruntled. Their neighbors are still set to go on that trip for the same rate. She isn’t convinced that the rate they booked was a mistake. She believes that the cancellation of her trip was the result of a glitch in the Princess system. 

Would your team be able to have a look at this case and see if this family’s reservation was canceled because of a fare mistake, or if something else is in play here?  Thank you!! 😊⛴️

It turns out that everyone at the cruise line is well aware of the pricing error that occurred in the first week of May. The mistake allowed website customers to book three-week luxury cruises for the price of one. As per the cruise line’s terms and conditions related to pricing errors, Princess has now canceled all cruise reservations that were booked during that time.

The passengers have either rebooked at the correct rate or will not be sailing on the Sun Princess on that particular 21-day cruise.  

Princess confirmed it canceled Gu’s neighbors’ error fare reservations, too.

The expected but disappointing news about this Princess cruise

There will be no one cruising through the Mediterranean on the Sun Princess for 21-days in any category of cabin at the rate Gu was able to book. That price would barely cover the cost of food per person for three weeks, let alone two cabins, taxes, port fees and other expenses.

I broke the news to her that, as I suspected, Princess wouldn’t be reversing course on this decision. She could still enjoy three weeks of meandering through the Mediterranean, albeit at the true rate the cruise line intended.

Gu wasn’t happy and says she intends to take her complaint to an unnamed government organization. 

I want the original price. As discussed, what is the difference between the error and normal price, and [on which] date [did Princess find] the price error? Or can [the cruise line] claim the rate [was an error] at any time and cancel lower price bookings to [resell the cabin] for more money? Consumers on the other hand have to take whatever crappy reason they come up with. 

Perhaps you should write an article about [the problem with cruise price errors]. 

I will [complain at the] government level next.

Cathy Gu

Publishing an article about Gu’s experience is exactly what I had in mind. Unlike when you go shopping at a store, buying travel doesn’t come with the same protection against post-purchase cost increases in the case of mistakenly priced items. It is certainly something every consumer should be aware of. That’s especially true if you spend any amount of time searching for these types of fares.

What to keep in mind about published fare mistakes 

Entire websites are dedicated to teaching travelers hacks to find and book fare mistakes. Newsletters spin out of these sites, alerting their subscribers when an airline or cruise line publishes an error rate.

Unfortunately, what these sites fail to mention in their exciting announcements is the reality of booking trips with advertised fares that any reasonable person would recognize as an error. But I often see the aftermath.

One of these sites recently published an alert about a cruise being offered for zero dollars. The AI-created article attached to the alert pondered whether the cruise line would honor the “rate” but didn’t make it clear that there would be nearly a zero chance of the zero dollar fare being honored. Only a gullible person would waste their time attempting to book such a “deal.” 

Yet, I frequently receive requests for help, both here at Consumer Rescue and at The Points Guy, from disgruntled travelers who’ve booked outrageously obvious mistake fares and want to hold the airline or cruise line accountable. 

Here’s the truth about booking fare mistakes, also known as fat-finger rates:

• No laws require a cruise line to honor a pricing mistake: The Department of Transportation doesn’t require your cruise line to honor fares that it identifies as a mistake. There are also no federal or state laws that would force a fat-finger rate to be upheld. This is also true for mistakenly published airfares. So, unfortunately, travelers do not have the law on their side in this situation. That’s true even if the cruise line has taken a deposit and sent you a confirmation. 
• There is no clear definition of a mistake fare: Further complicating the problem for travelers looking for bargains is that there is no specific, commonly accepted definition of a fare mistake. So if your cruise line says the rate you booked is an error, it is. There is no place for you to appeal your argument. However, in most complaints I’ve received over the years, the mistake is obvious – rates that any reasonable person would recognize as a fat-finger data entry error. Today’s case was clearly a giant pricing error, but cruise lines often honor slight rate mistakes.
• Book a mistake fare and prepare for the repercussions: If you suspect you’ve snagged a rate due to a pricing error, it’s wise not to book any nonrefundable and unrelated parts of a trip. That means pre- or post-cruise hotels, excursions, airfare, or anything else not part of the deal. Travel insurance would not likely cover losses associated with a cancellation in this circumstance, so proceed with caution.

The bottom line

Everyone loves a bargain, and hunting for great travel deals can be a fun sport that leads to unexpected new adventures. But finding and booking too-good-to-be-true travel deals in the form of obvious fare mistakes can lead to frustration, disappointment, and, in some cases, monetary loss. 

Book error fares cautiously and with your eyes wide open because, as we’ve seen today, they’re not guaranteed. Remember, you may find no trip at the end of your efforts… and that’s no fun at all. (Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer Rescue)

Before you go: Why did this elderly Royal Caribbean couple buy $10,000 of skin care products during their visit to Nassau?