BDeck Prices

[Leigh Anthony Ross]

I have a query about the prices of cabins, why is it that Captain and Mrs. Crosby paid £71 or their B-Deck cabin and their daughter Harriette Crosby only paid £26 11s for her B-Deck cabin when they are just down the hall from each other?
Also Captain and Mrs. Crosby's cabin was,I think, a little smaller than Harriette's.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

I don't know if there's a really good answer to that. Prices paid depended on a lot of things such as whether or not you were sharing a cabin, location of the cabin, decor, desirability, demand, and whether or not somebody buying the ticket could swing a good deal with the ticket agent.

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Hi Leigh,

B-22 which was the room occupied by Capt and Mrs Crosby was a 3-berth room, advertised rates £80 for 1 passenger; £45 each for 2 passengers and £33 each for 3 passengers.
B-26 which was the room occupied by Harriette was a single-berth room, advertised rate £60. The room could be provided with a sofa-berth for a 2nd passenger at; £36 each for 2.

Few passengers paid the full advertised room rates. At a guess Harriette who paid the minimum fare from London was put into B-26 because her parents were booked into B-22.

I hope that helps,
Lester

 

[Jeremy Lee]

About the prices, what is the conversion rate of 1912 £ to today's currency?

 

[Bob Godfrey]

The purchasing power of £1 in 1912 was roughly equivalent to that of £60 today. So the £80 charged for cabin B-22 would be close to £5000 (roughly US $8,700), while a 3rd Class ticket would be, again very roughly, £500 (US $870).

 

[Jeremy Lee]

It wouldn't be cheap to sail on the Titanic at all, (but still cheaper than QE2's M5 cabin) the price of a THIRD CLASS almost being a years' allowance for me!

Now it makes me wonder why Sven was stupid enough to bet his tickets with Jack and Fabrizio!

 

[Bob Godfrey]

No problem, Jeremy. You could get yourself a job as a bellboy, which paid the princely sum of £2 a month. Provided you didn't spend any of that, in only 4 months you could save enough to travel as a passenger.

 

[monica e. hall]

And none of the bell boys survived, did they? Average age, what? 15? Everyone discusses the class issue with the lifeboat loading, but I'd have been stuffing the boats with the young - passengers or crew. I know it wasn't practical, calling for the young, anymore than it seemed practical calling for women and children only. And I know once you'd left school in those days, you were considered an adult. But who wouldn't save the young now, if they could? Ah well ..... that's history for you. A future President could have died in the sinking.

 

[Jeremy Lee]

Bell boys! Where do they stay on board?

 

[Brian R Peterson]

Yes, I would question the mental stability of one who bet an $900 ticket on a simple card game, however there were some pretty high rollers on the Titanic, I wonder how history would have changed had some of them like Astor and Guggenheim survived...

Best Regards,

Brian

 

[Jeremy Lee]

I don't think Astor and Guggenheim would be called a coward as Ismay, as people think they were rich and would survive.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I don't think Astor and Guggenheim would be called a coward as Ismay, as people think they were rich and would survive. <<

Their wealth really had nothing to do with it. Astor and Guggenheim were hailed as courageous/heros because they stayed behind even in the face of death. Ismay was hooted at as a coward becuase he was imprudant enough to survive. That he had an enemy by way of William Randolph Hearst didn't help.

 

[Jeremy Lee]

If Astor and Guggenheim had survived, what would the press think of them? And, its likely that if Ismay perished, he would be regarded as a hero among the likes of Andrews and Smith.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>If Astor and Guggenheim had survived, what would the press think of them? <<

Depends on where their friends and enemies were, doesn't it? If the record of what happened is any indication, they wouldn't have escaped some censure, but they wouldn't have had to deal with the sort of stigma that Ismay dealt with for the high crime of being both the owner and alive.