??? For Anyone Who's Used Points For Alaskan Cruise

[Michelemouse]

Can you use points for some of the passengers and cash for others (like on DCL) or must you use points for everyone in your party?

TIA

 

[helenabear]

I don't know the answer to this myself, but I wanted to give you a bump

 

[Dean]

The last time I checked you could but it's been a few years. Call or email MS and ask the prices for when you're going. You could also upgrade your cabin on points. The problems I had in planning an Alaska Cruise were the number of points compared to what I could pay cash and the fact I could not combine this directly as a cruise tour combo. I could have independently scheduled the tour part through HAL, but no way to link it with the DVC portion. Overall it seems that the per point value is a little better used with HAL compared to DCL at least compared to last years numbers and before, at least after they lowered the price. I haven't looked into it this year with the change in how it's done and the "seasons" approach though I think it's actually going to be a little better than the last couple of years. Remember the price started at 302 and came down to a low of 200 pts for the first 2 passengers and then inched back up to 225. It was the same price no matter when you went. Also remember that ALL points must be in a single account to use for this exchange.

 

[RuthnPaul]

Originally posted by Dean
Also remember that ALL points must be in a single account to use for this exchange.

Dean, just to clarify, are you saying that if we've purchased two separate resale contracts, this would be considered two separate accounts? Does having all points in a single account hold true to DCL as well as HAL?

Thanks!

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by RuthnPaul
Dean, just to clarify, are you saying that if we've purchased two separate resale contracts, this would be considered two separate accounts? Does having all points in a single account hold true to DCL as well as HAL?

Thanks!

I believe it's the same with DCL and all other exchange options but I'm not certain. If you buy two separate contracts the same use year, they usually combine them into one so that's not a big deal. For totally separate contracts, you'd need to transfer points to do this as it was explained to me when I was investigating. Having said that, this is one of the situations where they should be able to transfer banked or borrowed points of a single owenr if need be, that I have discussed with the head of MS several times though that person has changed positions.