orvil

Final update to our status.  The refund amount that had been erroneously credited to my account has returned from whence it came.  Once I advised both sides of the transaction that the money was in the account and awaiting return, it took less than a week.  As I told the RSSC representative, I am returning money not wanting a refund.  I bet you haven't been getting many of those calls recently.  He laughed.  Amazing how quickly they can process it when it's to their benefit.

Anyhow, all is well that ends well.  Bon voyage.

SusieQft,

Update on our status.  Sail date, June 14 Venice-Venice.  Recieved full refund yesterday, June 26,  to my credit card.  Our friends received their full refund plus an additional refund for an excursion.  You can update us on the spread sheet.

Now, here is where it gets a little weird.  As I have related, I disputed the two charges and the final payment was refunded to me two months ago.  I was unable to get the deposit back through the dispute process.

Yesterday, I was refunded two charges, one refund for the deposit by RSSC.  The other refund by RSSC was for the final payment. Given that I have already gotten the final payment refund for the final payment through the dispute process, it's obviously not mine to keep.  It's most likely a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing.

Anyhow, I called RSSC yesterday and advised the agent of the situation.  I told him that unlike every other client, I wanted to give them money.  He laughed.  Anyhow, this has been brought to the attention of the accounting department for them to resolve with the credit card company.  I also called the credit card company and advised them of the situation.  Hopefully, the two groups will be able to resolve this.  

I was able to get a full refund from  the airline.  That took 30 days.  I was not able to get a refund from the hotel in Venice.  They have credited me 600 euros to use at their hotel in one year.  I think it's transferrable.  I doubt we will be able to use it.  We'll see.  In the big scheme of things, it was my smallest expense.

Still walking around a little pissed off that I'm not sailing around Greece right now.  I'll get over it.  I hope everyone is doing well and the refunds keep coming.  Fair winds.

SusieQft,

The final payment that was refunded to me was made on February 14, 2020.  The deposit was made on September 14, 2019.

The CC company refunded the final payment.  Their electronic records go back six months.  After that, it has to be handled manually.  

I received my final payment refund within a week of notification.  This was the largest of the two amounts.  I left the funds in my CC account for a month.  I stopped using the card so there would be no confusion.  I kept waiting for CC company to claw it back for the very reason that maybe they weren't finished with the investigation.  Then, I received a letter indicating that they considered the matter closed even though the September deposit portion had not been refunded.  Their reason given was the length of time.  I don't think seven months for return of a deposit was too far.  People buy cruises three years in advance.  Airline tickets go on sale nine months in advance of the date of travel.  It's specious reasoning.

I wrote an appeal email to one of their executives pointing out the illogical treatment of the two charges this morning.  I'll let you know what he says.  I have other avenues to get satisfaction, but it's a process and you have to go through all the steps.

This was a VISA account and subject to the whims of the particular bank that is attached to the account.  I am certain that if I had used AmEx they would have refunded the entire amount before the sun went down.  They have that reputation.  If you have ever been on the merchant side of the equation you know that AmEx is ruthlessly efficient.  VISA and MC, not as much.  My mistake.  

I had a separate airline reservation that was cancelled by the airline.  Those arrived in the account on Friday.  Progress.  

katykrol,

Here is a link to an article about a cruise reservation cancellation issue that you might find illuminating.

https://www.elliott.org/cruises/coronavirus-cruise-cancellation-too-soon/

While it doesn't directly address your particular situation, it does advise that all contact with NCLH and RSSC be done in writing in the future.  You need a paper trail.  It will protect you in case you decide to go to the next step.

If you do have a telephone conversation with any company representative at any level, insist on a contact email address.  Upon conclusion of the telephone conversation, write a quick email confirming the conversation, highlight the points of conversation covered.

The Elliot Advocacy group emphasizes that the bottom line, it's you against a huge corporate behemoth. 

Update,

Cruise date: 6/14/2020

Cancellation by Regent:  4/24/2020

Submitted request for refund:  4/24/2020

Refund request acknowledged

Booked cruise: 9/14/2019

Final payment: 2/14/2020

Filed dispute with VISA.  It took about two weeks.  Partial refund received.  Credit Card Company refunded my final payment.  Credit card company declined to refund my deposit stating that is was too far back to process a refund.  

I will either have to wait for RSSC to get around to refunding my deposit or I will have to escalate my request to higher management at credit card company.  I will probably escalate this issue.

My airline reservations were booked separately and cancelled by the airline.  They have been refunded to my credit card.

My hotel was a non-refundable booking.  They are offering a credit.  This one is a grey area.  I'll probably have to accept the credit.  I'd rather have a refund.  

My friends who were traveling with us have received nothing from anyone.

If RSSC blacklists me from ever doing business with them again, so be it.  As much as I have enjoyed their product, there are competitors who will be happy to take my money.

I'm over it.  If I hear one more time that I need a special Travel Agent in order to do business with a company, I swear I'm going to Ralph.  It's a form of social shaming and I'm done with it. 

Any one of us should be able to call a service provider, in this case a cruise line, and speak to person that is empowered to resolve an issue.  As long as we are polite, there should be a resolution.   

I've spent a lifetime in customer service positions. It is unacceptable for someone to threaten to withhold a refund for a service they failed to provide.

Unacceptable.  Sums it up.  Unacceptable.  

There is the rub.  They haven't done everything possible.  They are withholding refunds for services not rendered and are not processing them in a timely manner.  It appears that they are not even processing them at all.

Furthermore, they are not putting any additional resources towards working through the backlog of refunds.  If they were actually processing refunds, we would see a dribble of people getting their refunds on a regular basis.  We are not hearing about any refunds.

The airlines are refunding cancelled flights at a reasonable rate.  That's why you aren't hearing people screaming about it.

If NCL's accounting department isn't working full time, it's a direct management decision.  They should have shifted additional resources to deal with the accounting backlog.  They seem to have time to process the reservations with FCC.  It's duplicitous.  

I can certainly sympathize with MrStanley's frustration.   I think he is correctly upset.  If RSSC isn't going to operate his cruise, he should be able to apply for the return of his deposit without any penalty before the final due date.

It's a very bad policy on all of the cruise lines parts.  I opine that there will be a segment of the customer base that will be so disgusted with their treatment, it will be a long time before they deposit long term money with any of the cruise lines.

Even worse, we see a long list of people waiting for refunds and only a handful of people who's refunds have been forthcoming.

I made my final payment about two weeks before all hell broke loose.  Believe me when I say I regret my timing.  Two weeks after I submitted my final payment, I knew my segment wouldn't operate.  Venice-Venice.  Not going to happen.  I had to patiently wait until RSSC got around to cancelling before I could get in the queue for refunds.  

MrStanley, I wish I had a good answer for you.  Your situation sucks.  

While you are at it.  We were sailing with friends with an identical booking. Orvil's friends.

Booked 9/14/2019

Final Deposit 2/14/2020

Sail Voyager 6/14/2020

Cancelled by Regent 5/24/2020

No refund

Sail date Voyager 6/14/20

Deposit 9/14/2019

Final payment 2/14/2020

Cancelled by Regent 4/24/2020

Refund request form completed, sent and acknowledged 4/24/2020

Submitted credit card dispute 4/27/2020

Credit card refund in account 5/4/2020

Keeping money in credit card account while awaiting final disposition by credit card company....

Sandals, been there done that.  Regent has spoiled me.  There is no going back.  A lot of people like Sandals because they don't know about Regent.

The day will dawn when we can resume our sloth and gluttony.  I'm looking forward to that day.  I do know that it won't be on a Carnival Fun Ship.  That dog won't hunt.

Sadly, our day will be later rather than sooner.  There are so many moving parts to international cruise line operations.  It makes for a very complex situation and none of us wants to make any major changes to what we enjoy and neither does Regent.  

The simple answer to the very complex question of when can we cruise again is we will cruise Regent style when there is an effective, world wide available vaccine.  Until till then, we as a group are in dry dock.

Here is a link to an article in the Manilla Times.  It looks like QE is offloading personnel.  

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/05/06/business/maritime-business/more-cruise-ships-park-at-manila-bay/722951/

Add cruise refund liabilities to that cash burn number.  $1.6 Billion.  With a 50/50 full refund versus rebook w/FCC that's at least $400 billion.  Reduced sales rate won't replace that amount of cash anytime soon.  Add in the required cash holdback in order to do business with the credit card companies.  I don't have that number but it will be a lot.  Add to that number the fact that the guys writing the PE checks now run the company.

The numbers aren't nearly as rosy as at first glance. 

We had a mega ship join us on the island on the same day.  The island was okay.  The situation was miserable.  The clientele were …. different.  We went back to Explorer and had tea.  

I read elsewhere that NCLH said it was about a 50/50 split between booked passengers asking for full refunds versus future cruises with FCC.  That's $800,000,000. This number will include both confirmed cancelled cruises and future potential cruise cancellations.

Let's assume that 50% of the cruise portfolio has already cancelled and 50% of them want their money back.

That's $400,000,00 that must be returned in the next 90 days across the entire NCLH and includes RSSC.  That is a lot of money for a company that has essentially ceased operations with no firm start up date identified.

5 hours ago, CruiserFromMaine said:

I’m putting my recently retired auditor hat on...

 

It’s a big deal for a public company to re-issue December financial statements, especially to add a going concern footnote and auditor’s opinion. While the company may expect to raise $2 billion dollars, there wasn’t enough certainty of success on that front or on other cited plans to avoid the auditor’s going concern opinion. A going concern opinion essentially means that there is lots of worry (“substantial doubt”) about the company being a viable business a year from when the report is issued. 
 

Obviously, getting another $1.6 billion would make a huge difference.

 

I will be interested to see if other companies, cruise lines or not, re-issue their December financial statements similarly. 
 

For those of us awaiting refunds, I get some comfort from this disclosure: The Company also has agreements with its credit card processors that govern approximately $1.6 billion at December 31, 2019 in advance ticket sales that have been received by the Company relating to future voyages. These agreements allow the credit card processors to require under certain circumstances, including the existence of a material adverse change, excessive chargebacks and other triggering events, that the Company maintain a reserve which could be satisfied by posting collateral. The Company is in discussions regarding the nature of collateral, if any, relating to these agreements.
 

It makes sense that the credit card companies don’t want to be on the hook for a merchant’s financial difficulties. 

I wondered how much their future sales liabilities were.  $1.6 billion.  From what I have read, 50% have taken the rebooking deal and FCC.  The other 50% have requested refunds.  That means they need to refund $800 million in the space of a few weeks.  Now you know why the refund period was so long at 90 days.  They needed to arrange financing to deal with this amount and no money coming in to offset this sum.  Ouch.

My guess is there will be additional updating of financial statements elsewhere in the industry, too.  To not update the financial situation could expose management to criminal liability under US securities laws.  Managers don't take that requirement lightly.

I was admonished on this forum for suggesting that the credit card companies would have enormous influence in any Chapter 11 proceedings.  I was also chastised for suggesting that disputing the length of time, 90 days, to refund was excessive and it should be disputed with your credit card company if you wanted a refund.  For those that rolled the bones and took the rebooking and FCC credit, I hope your gamble pays off.  Nothing would make me happier than seeing your cruise blogs and great pictures.

Unfortunately, I have been proven correct.  I'm sorry that it's the situation.  It will give many people, employees and customers some sleepless nights through no fault of their own.  Management will be fine.  I won't give them a moments thought.  They will move on to the next iteration.  It will be much harder before it gets better for the line employees.  That's a shame.

January in the North Atlantic the Queen Mary 2 pretty much has the seas to herself.  You will see a freighter approaching NYC on the last full day or lots of traffic leaving the Channel.  After that, you are on your own.  

I love sea days.

1 hour ago, greykitty said:

Somewhere, I think on this forum, we touched on Johnson & Johnson.  To this day I still have an abiding fondness for the company solely because of the way they handled the Tylenol crisis.  They set the bar for product recall under the scariest of circumstances.  Sure, the cruise lines are all in a bind, and sure the slow walk makes sense from their POV - but good communication can make all the difference in how they are perceived.

 

A customer service plus....my Comcast bill went up.  Yes, I'm old.  So last night I thought I'd see if I could obtain a better rate.  Every dollar counts, at least for so many of us!  Went on the help chat line.  Took maybe three minutes to get to a human agent, and three minutes for her to get me to the correct customer retention area.  Twenty minutes later I had my nice new discount.   Now, talk  about a company that has been facing a challenge, with demand for internet et al at an all time high and having to ut so many of their personnel on work at home status.  And the agents kept thanking me for my patience.  

 

And the other week when the landscaping crew cut my cable line, the on line support service quickly identified that I needed a tech visit, which was free, to correct the issue.  I was informed several time of how they managed COVID-19 concerns, and the technician could not have been more professional, more careful about being masked, as I was as well, and had things fixed quickly.  It's certainly been my month to say nice things about the 'cable company'.

 

PS - due to COVID 19 Comcast does restrict certain in home services, but they were out to ensure I had the internet within 15 hours.

 

Now this is time to pause for a moment.  Does anyone else recognize this as a momentous occasion?  An actual, real life positive experience with a cable company.  Miracles do happen.

Glad it turned out positively for you greykitty.  

Obviously, travel credits and refunds from airlines, hotels, cruise lines, and all the ancillary travel businesses are in turmoil.  While patience is a virtue in many cases, it always pays to know your options.

I searched the Elliot Advocacy website seeking to learn from the experience of others.  I found a thread that included some information on credit card chargeback operations.  If you want a refund, this would be informative reading.

https://chriselliotts.com/winning-a-credit-card-chargeback/

I thought this quote was instructive:  "How much time do you have to file a credit card dispute? Although the FCBA says you have 60 days to dispute a charge, banks are sometimes more flexible when dealing with travel that’s booked in advance. In other words, don’t let a travel merchant talk you out of a dispute just because it’s been more than two months since your purchase."  That's good, hopefully actionable information.

Also, I spent a little time this morning at my other favorite cruise line's chat room on CC, Cunard.  Things can get confusing over there because those that comment are a mélange of Brits, Aussies, Canadians and the odd American.  Thus, the laws and practices can vary greatly.  Cunard, now part of Carnival, has cancelled farther into the future than RSSC.  But, the refund processing and cash flow problems are the same.  Thus, we are all in the same proverbial boat.

It is my observation from the comments at Cunard CC that the airlines are doing a better job processing refunds, mileage credits and rebooking's than the cruise industry.

You, meaning the collective we, may want to spend a little time perusing the Elliot Advocacy website.  Do read the comments after the articles.  They are filled with a lot of antidotal information, some of which is actually useful.

I was hoping that the staff would be upgraded to above decks.  I bet that there will be some great stories as to what they were up to during this time.  We are all very glad that they are safe and healthy.

I've run a retail business that accepted credit cards.  It was just as easy to process a refund to a credit card account as it was to process a sale.  It did take an extra business day or two for the transaction to appear on the account of the end user.  The debit was immediate to the merchant's account.  Funny how the bank always gets to play the vig.  If they are accepting business, they should be refunding business.

My concern is that I only know of one example of a refund from RSSC or NCLH.   That's a pattern not a coincidence.   That is what concerns me.  

JMariner,

To answer your question, I was involved with an airline bankruptcy.  It's been a few years, but as I recollect the credit card companies were first in line in a Chapter 11 because they were vitally necessary to a successful reorganization.  They will be protected before anyone else.  This is why you want to use a credit card and not a debit card, check or cash when you book travel.  It moves you out of the unsecured creditor class and into the 600 pound gorilla class.   Using the credit card provides you with the collective protection of a large, influential corporation in the case of default.

I know from personal experience that AmEx will put the screws to a merchant with gusto and never look back.  Visa/MC is not quite as aggressive but still formidable.

I used Visa to book my trip.  I mailed the dispute letter yesterday and referenced the fact that none of the customers who cancelled in the month and a half prior to me have received their requested refunds as evidence of bad dealings and failure to process in a timely manner.  I'll keep you advised of any developments, good or bad.  I still want to cruise.  I'm just standing up for myself.

Back to solvency.  The money that we pay in advance for our tickets is all aggregated and placed on the balance sheet as a liability.  Much of that money is already spent in capital expenses before the service every occurs.  Once the cruise starts, these funds are moved to the other side of the balance sheet and used to offset expenses.  What is leftover is profit.  The reason these are carried as liabilities is they are funds in advance of a service and theoretically might have to be paid back.

Cruise lines and airlines are cash flow businesses.  As long as there is cash flow, the business is able to pay their liabilities with current bookings.  If you can't book new business, you had better have enough liquid assets to offset that liability number.  Right now, they can't do that.  If you don't or can't mortgage assets for cash, you will be bankrupt.  If you have enough assets but they aren't very liquid, you may be able to reorganize under bankruptcy to restart the business.  If you don't, you liquidate.

This is the situation that cruise lines and airlines find themselves experiencing.  No amount of goodwill will solve this problem.  The only solution is cash flow and it helps by keeping those advanced ticket payments in the bank account and not redeemed.  That future cruise credit is really a loan against cash flow.  Out of that 25% they are removing interest and profit in order to keep your money.  It's a loan at this point.  Right now cruise lines and airlines are living on credit.  If you have paid money for a future cruise or paid up for a cancelled cruise, you are a creditor. 

Cruise lines and airlines can't shed expenses fast enough and can't generate cash to offset these looming liabilities.  They are great businesses until the merry go round quits turning.  It came to a grinding halt in March.  Things will change for all the cruise lines, it's just a question of how.  Only time will provide that answer.  Until then, be very glad that you paid for your cruise with an credit card.  Credit card companies hold back a portion of funds from a company and watch that company's liabilities very carefully.  When the credit card companies start putting the screws to the cruise lines, you will know the end is nigh.  I certainly hope it won't come to that.  I enjoy cruising.  

Because I am the squeaky wheel, I wanted to know my rights under the circumstances.  This morning I contacted my credit card company and asked.  The US law is clear.  I have 60 days upon discovery of a problem to dispute a charge.  While credit card companies often process disputes via the telephone, the credit card company suggested I file a dispute via snail mail in order to meet the letter of the law.  

This 60-day requirement does not comport with RSSC's, or my airline's current mode of operation.  It is incumbent upon me to take an active interest in the matter in order to protect my rights under the law.  It's just business.

My cruise officially cancelled last week.  My TA notified them of the refund request Friday.  Because I prefer honey to vinegar, I'll give them a reasonable amount of time to process the cancellation before I sick the credit card company on them.  I will get my refund.   

Pappy1022, given that your TA has made multiple efforts and is not able to get satisfaction for you, it's time to file the disputed charge to protect your rights.  If you have been waiting for six weeks after cancellation for your refund to be processed, time is getting short. You have been more than accommodating after all of your attempts to resolve this failure to refund.  You had better call your credit card company and ask about disputed charges.  I am assuming that you used a credit card to make the booking.  Good luck.

RSSC cancelled my June 14 cruise yesterday.  My TA applied for a full refund yesterday, too.  I'll hack the clock and watch to see how long it takes for the full refund.  

I'm going to call my credit card company next week to review any deadlines that may be applicable.

I'll repeat, 90 days is unreasonable.  The fact that they are working on a four day work week is not my problem to solve.  They wanted my money by a date certain.  I'll be wanting my money back by a date certain, too.  It's just business.