We have an unblemished record with our local Better Business Bureau. Plus, we are one of a handful of online cruise-only agencies accepted for membership in the Better Business Bureau's national Online Reliability Program. Visit our home page and click on the BBB logo for more information. 

In addition:

• We are insured for errors and omissions.
• We are insured for liability.
• In virtually all cases, your credit card will be charged directly by the cruise line (or other travel provider), not us, insuring that your funds are immediately in their care between now and your cruise. You will see this on your credit card statement. We generally insist on payment by credit card since that maximizes the consumer protections available to you.
• We are members of CLIA, the Cruise Lines International Association, to which all reputable cruise-only agencies belong.
• We are members of IATAN, the International Airlines Travel Agent Network, which requires formal industry recommendations and a proven track record for membership.
• We keep your personal information secure through the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) when you are viewing or entering personal information on our Web site.
• Our confirmations to you will include the actual confirmation fax sent to us by the cruise line. You receive the official cruise line confirmation number in case you choose to contact the cruise line directly about your reservation. Ask for your cruise line confirmation number prior to placing payment, if you wish.
• Happy existing customers make it more likely that you'll have a great experience with us too! Read a few of our many testimonials.

For 7+ night cruises we are almost always able to offer you promotional and other special rates, whereas for shorter, less-expensive cruises this may not be possible.

Interested in booking a cruise on a line you don't see here? Email us and we'll let you know whether we can help you out; we probably can.

Why? Many reasons, but among there are a couple of more-common ones. Cruise lines practice extremely complex pricing policies, and from time to time will offer special pricing to one agency or another that are not generally available. Sometimes an agency will book a group onto a particular sailing well in advance, which locks in early-booking rates, and they may be able to offer extra group space and rates to additional customers--after the generally available pricing for that cruise has risen.

For more information on how cruises are priced, read the additional FAQ information below.

Debit cards (bank ATM cards that also function as a Visa or MasterCard but draw from your checking account) frequently cannot be used to purchase a cruise because most banks strictly limit the amount of funds that can be drawn to $200-$300 per day, causing the cruise line to believe your card has been declined and placing your reservation at risk of cancellation and/or penalty for non-payment.

Sometimes, though, you'll find a new promotion that comes along after you book your cruise. Just let us know. We will work with the cruise line to apply the new promotion to your existing booking. So long as the cruise line agrees that your booking qualifies based on the promotion's "fine print" (the cruise line has the final word) then they will adjust their rate to us, and we will be happy to adjust our rate to you. It is more likely that a new rate will be honored if you are still outside the final payment period, but in all cases, the final word will be the cruise line's.

Dollars-off coupons or credit certificates, however, sometimes cannot be applied after you make your booking (or at least not at face value).

Here's how easy it is to book a cruise with 02Cruise.com:

1. Just try us. Complete and submit the the quote request form. 

2. Get a pleasant surprise. We promptly create a proposal customized to your request, and email it to you. Look at our sample quote if you're curious to see what we'll send you.

3. Request booking online. Complete your booking online! Just click the booking link in the email quote you received. This will take you to a secure server where you provide the information we need to complete the booking, including the credit card number for the deposit payment.

4. We book and submit your payment. Upon receiving your booking authorization, we secure your cabin for you, provided one of the same category is still available at the price we quoted you, and either a deposit or the full payment is charged to your credit card. You will receive a payment confirmation via email. 

5. We submit final payment. If your cruise was not paid in full at the time of booking, then between one and two weeks prior to the cruise line's deadline, we will automatically submit your final payment using the same credit card you gave us for the deposit. This frees you from having to worry about remembering the final payment date. You will receive a final payment confirmation via email.

6. Documents arrive via express shipping. About seven days prior to your cruise, you will receive your travel documents via express shipping.

7. Enjoy! Have a phenomenal cruise vacation, at a great price!

First of all, cruise lines print prices in their brochures. This is cleverly called the "brochure price." Next to nobody pays it.

However, cruise lines constantly practice yield management (adjusting prices constantly based on supply and demand) just like the airlines do, so on any given day as a travel agent if you call and ask the price on a given cabin, you may well get a different answer. This answer is almost always lower than the brochure price (the only exceptions are when a ship is nearly booked, or around a holiday). We'll call this the "standard cruise line quoted price."

But this is just the start of the fun. The cruise line will always be running special promotions (like category upgrade offers), a lot of which are only available to large consortiums, or perhaps if you book your cruise using a certain credit card. So now the cruise line is quoting different prices to different travel agents. Let's call this the "special cruise line quoted price."

But wait, there's more. Now that we have a quote from the cruise line, we have to calculate the agent's commission. An agent that does a lot of volume with the line or belongs to certain consortiums will get a higher commission rate than the usual 10% (these bonuses, sometimes called "overrides" within the industry, can sometimes boost the commission rate another 6%). Be aware you can not simply take your total cruise price and multiply by the commission rate to arrive at the agent's commission, since that commission rate either doesn't apply, or applies at lower rates, to things like taxes, port charges, airfare, tours, transfers, etc.

This is where pricing can go all over the map. Agent A may or may not discount from his cruise line price by sharing his commission with you. And then, after you mention to Agent B that you already got a price from Agent A,  Agent B's price may suddenly drop because he's chosen to give back a little more commission in order to barely undercut Agent A's price. We consider Agent B's action in this case unethical: why wouldn't he give you his "best price" in the first place? And is his "best price" really the best he can do?

In summary, the final rate you are quoted depends on:

• The standard cruise line current quoted price
• Whether your agent is eligible for any special cruise line quoted price
• How much commission your agent can receive as a result of his booking volume or consortium memberships
• How much of that commission your agent is willing to give back to you

Here at 02Cruise.com, our price quote to you will be low because we are eligible for outstanding special cruise line quoted prices and the top-tier commissions.

We also want to point out that just because an agent doesn't give you the lowest price probably does not mean that they're unethical or are trying to cheat you. It may be that they don't do enough cruise volume to have access to special cruise line prices, or to high commission rates. 

First, we keep our costs low:

• Entirely on-line cruise purchasing. Conducting the entire cruise transaction on-line is not only simpler for you, it's also much faster and more efficient for us. This is why you request an 02Cruise.com quote online, receive our quote via email, and finally book your cruise online.
• No expensive "goodies." We don't waste your money by spending it on purchasing something like a bottle of wine for you on board the ship. Instead we prefer to give that money back to you, keeping our pricing as low as possible, allowing you to choose how to spend the savings! Remember, you do pay for such "gifts."

Second, we are eligible for extremely low, high-volume pricing from cruise lines. For much more detail on this subject, please refer to the FAQ about how cruise pricing works.

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