Murph269

4 minutes ago, kisbel65 said:

My cruise was cancelled by NCL in April.  I initiated a chargeback with Capital One and NCL sent a 30 page dispute in response. I submitted proof of the cancellation from NCL and the form they asked me to fill out for a refund. As of today, NCL is still disputing the charge. Capital One has all my documentation but I was informed that NCL has not been issuing refunds. Apparently NCL is calling COVID 19 an act of GOD so they don't have to pay out. NCL SHAME ON YOU!!!!! 

Why would they give us the option for a refund, and then turn around and say they’re not going to pay it because Covid is an act of god? Something isn’t adding up here.

For these that keep saying “you agreed to wait 90 days when you asked for a refund”, unless I missed something, I wasn’t told it would be a 90 day wait until AFTER I requested the refund. That’s when I received the email telling me to wait 90 days. 

3 minutes ago, pokerpro5 said:

 

There actually is a chance of double-dipping if NCL isn't careful (this commonly happens when large companies don't pay proper attention to chargebacks), but that's NCL's problem, not the consumer's.

 

NCL needs to monitor chargebacks and take those people off the refund list.  This is their job to do, and the consumer need not worry about this detail.

Sure, but that goes without saying. I could've clarified and said “provided NCL does their job properly, there is no chance for double dipping”. If someone intentionally tried it, and got away with it, that would actually be grounds for a fraud case. However, I’m referring to the OP’s situation and have no reason to believe that’s their intent. 

30 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Did you tell your CC company that you already received a refund from NCL in the form of a FCC in accordance with the cruise line's current refund policy?

 

And that you subsequently requested NCL to change the form of refund from a FCC to a cash? And that NCL told you would take 90 days to process the request to change the form of refund?

And that by the CC company's honoring your chargeback, you will now have received two refunds for the same cruise,,,, double dipping?

Your “fraud” argument has been debunked, so now you’re going to grasp at straws and suggest that a FCC is the same thing is a cash refund? They’re not even remotely the same thing, and if they were, NCL wouldn’t give the option for one or the other. There’s no way a credit card company would side with NCL because they issued a FCC for a cruise that didn’t take place. There’s no chance of “double dipping”. Once the chargeback is complete, NCL will remove the FCC, just like they are with people who requested refunds in lieu of the FCC. No cruises will be running before the chargeback process is complete, so there’s no chance of this person using the FCC on a sailing before the chargeback is resolved. 

7 minutes ago, Zippeedee said:

Do people really think that NCL is holding all refunds for 90 days and then will release the money all in one big wave? It is a 90 day WINDOW. Some credits could be issued every day between now and July. They originally said 7-10 days, which was correct until they had to close offices and move to working at home. 

It depends on if you choose to take NCL’s wording literally or not. They said we’d “receive a refund 90 days after” they receive our refund request form. It did not say “within” 90 days. I agree, it would be odd to issue them all at once, but if you go by their own wording, that is what would happen. 

Just now, blcruising said:

How could NCL possibly win that? They've delayed cancelling the cruise, they've delayed making the refund request form available, and they've delayed the issuance of the refund. They don't stand a chance here. No credit card company is going to remove the temporary credit from a good paying customer and make the customer go out of pocket for the cruise for the privilege of having the same money refunded to them. The chargeback will stand and NCL will not be required to issue the refund to the customer whenever they get around to the customers reservation.

I didn’t suggest that NCL would win. All I was saying is that typically if you file a dispute and have funds credited back to you the next day, it’s usually a temporary credit that is subject to being taken back upon investigation.  For the record, I agree with you in that NCL doesn’t have much footing to stand on to fight this. 

Just now, PATRLR said:

To the OP - Call your credit card company and challenge the charge.  I did just that, got my refund the next day. 

Careful with this. What you got was a temporary credit while your credit card company investigates. If upon investigation they side with NCL, they’ll pull that credit back out. Don’t assume that you’re home free and spend that money until you hear back from your credit card company that you’ve won the dispute. 

12 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

Given the small number of people that are active on Cruise Critic that may or may not happen. 

It would be interesting to know what order they plan to use to issue refunds. Is it first come first serve based on when the form was submitted? Is it based on your sail date? Either way, i was set to sail April 12th which was the 1st cancellation date on the 2nd round of cancellations. I also filled out the form within 30 minutes of it up and working properly. I would think I’d be one of the first to see a refund. However, if you read the letter NCL sent out, and take it literally, than I won’t see a refund until 90 days from when the form was submitted. If that’s the case, and a bunch of us see refunds on day 90, that means they had the refunds processed sooner, but hung on until day 90 because they could. If that happens, they’ll never see another dime from me and I will be canceling my future sailing that I have booked in 2021.

7 minutes ago, buckeyefrank said:

The staff they have is most likely very limited.  Yes NCL is a large corporation but their staff who processes refunds is probably less than 5 people total in the department on a 'normal' day.  For each cruise, they will need to match up the refund request from the client against their paid balance.  They will need to mark the account for a refund of the paid amounts.  The system will most likely generate a penalty for a portion or all of the cruise amount paid.  The NCL worker will then need to override that amount and get it into the batch for payment processing.  They then need to make sure that all cruisers on the specific sailing either have been given FCC or a refund.  

 

There is a LOT of human intervention that is needed to make sure refunds or FCC are correct.  FCC is much easier and faster because their system will certainly have the capability baked in to move payments to FCC.  Not so much for cash refunds within the penalty window.

If this is the case, and they’re processing refunds daily, than we should see stories on here of people receiving refunds in the near future. If we don’t, than it’s safe to assume that NCL is just sitting on the money as long as possible.

2 minutes ago, babydaryl24 said:

WE were 6 figures on our taxes last year..... and got ours.

 

It's only a rumor that it's going out by income.

 

It's rolling because big banks like Wells Fargo, Chase, and BOA are holding it a few extra days to squeeze out interest.

 

Smaller banks and credit unions saw it earlier.

What’s happening is people who have direct deposit info on file with the IRS are seeing stimulus checks deposited as recently as this week. People with no info on file with the IRS will receive a paper check, and those will be dispersed at a later date and will be mailed out based on income tiers, with lower income people seeing checks before higher earners. 

People who are defending this delay as no big deal are also not taking into account the risk of NCL going bankrupt. With each passing day of no incoming revenue, the risk increases exponentially. The sooner we receive refunds, the better. The longer this goes on, the greater the risk that we never see a dime. Therefore, it’s in everyone’s best interest we requested a refund, that we receive the refund as soon as possible. 

9 minutes ago, brovol said:

This issue, and folks being so upset over the refund delay, is a bit curious to me.  You paid for a cruise in advance, which means that you budgeted that money accordingly, and since you spent it on a cruise I assume this was surplus, or play type vacation $, rather than the part of your budget that should be used to pay basic necessities; food, mortgage payment, shoes for the kids....  The cruise was cancelled, so you didn't get that vacation, but you also shouldn't be in a position where you "need" that money immediately, because until now it was already "spent" as far as you were concerned, right?.  Actually, if we assume you would have spent more of that "vacation" money while on the cruise, like most tend to do, you actually already should be in a better financial position than you would have been had the cruises never been cancelled. 

 

I get it, and don't disparage anyone for being upset over the situation.  I generally expect a merchant to provide me with an immediate refund when I return something, or when, for whatever reason, the merchant cant provide the product or service I paid for.  I am just surprised that so many folks, (1) don't understand that the cruise companies are in a desperate mode, and are working on passifying a lot of masters at the same time; creditors (including cruisers looking for their refunds), governments, shareholders, and more, and aren't in a position to simply refund everyone immediately; and (2) seem to be so cash strapped themselves that you cant wait 90-120 days to get money which you already budgeted to be gone anyway.

I don’t understand this line of thinking. What someone spends their money on is irrelevant when it comes to a refund. Here are the 2 points that should be considered when it comes to a refund: 1) did I pay for a good or service? In this case, yes I did. 2) did I receive the good or service I paid for? In this case, no I did not. It was cancelled. If the answer to question 1 is “yes” and the answer to question 2 is “no” than nothing else needs to be discussed and I should receive a timely refund. It’s not up to you, or anyone else to make judgement calls based on whether or not the purchase was a purchase of need or a purchase of luxury. 
 

I also don’t understand the line of thinking that your average Joe should have a bunch of money in reserves to weather this “storm”, but the billion dollar corporation NCL shouldn’t have enough cash on hand to provide refunds to the customers who paid in full, but hadn’t even reached their sale date. Business 101 is to always have enough cash to cover your customer deposits. If NCL counted their chickens before they hatched and spent all of our deposit money, why should their bad business practices become my issue?

24 minutes ago, Laszlo said:

On the other end.......we canceled our cruise Saturday March 14th, by Tuesday March 17th we had our refund 

This must be for a deposit? You can’t opt for a refund if you cancel. You can only opt a full refund if NCL cancels. It doesn’t sound like yours is an apples to apples comparison. 

1 hour ago, sparks1093 said:

Good luck finding a cruise line that is handling things differently. Carnival and Royal are both experiencing the same delays in processing refunds. Tens of thousands of cancellations being handled by reduced staff is going to take time. Yes, the payments are all stored electronically but each refund has to be initiated by a human being and that is just going to take time. 

If this is the case, than people should start seeing refunds every day until everyone is refunded. However, the letter NCL sent makes it sound like you’ll get your refund 90 days AFTER the form was filled out. That leads me to believe they truly are delaying the refunds and holding on to the money. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone on here who had a cruise cancelled and opted for the refund actually receives their refund before 90 days. If they’re processing them daily, we should start hearing of some refunds hitting account soon. If not, than we know NCL is using less than desirable tactics.

35 minutes ago, anyman said:

 Yah, but Delta is still flying. See any cruise ships sailing?

Not trying to be rude, so I hope this doesn’t come off wrong, but what does Delta still flying have to do with them processing more refunds than NCL and in a more timely manner?

2 minutes ago, mdsgu said:

I just called them because I'm having the same problem trying to get a refund on our May 1 sailing.  They said it's an IT problem, they are working on it, and to keep trying throughout the day.  It should be working properly later on.  Again...... "they said."

So they made us wait 2 weeks to be able to even apply for this refund, and now the webpage that they’ve been sitting on for 2 weeks doesn’t even work? Nobody bothered to test it out to make sure it’d work on the day that people can use it? Color me shocked.

8 minutes ago, tallnthensome said:

Try using the form link to the refund page in the pdf in the letter in the original posters post. I can select every day after April 11th thru May.

Nope, still doesn’t work. This is really bizarre that it’s working for you and not for others who are clicking on the same exact link. Nothing past the 11th works for me, I can’t even click the arrow to go to May if I wanted to, but you can select any date after the 11th?

Same, goes up to April 11th and you can’t click on any dates after the 11th.

I’ve tried reading up on if there’s any protection offered to us who will be requesting refunds, who have paid for future cruises in full. Does anyone know if there’s any sort of recourse, such as protection through the credit card companies etc? I have to say, the thought of losing my hard earned money that I paid for the cruise in the event of a bankruptcy is extremely stressful. 
 

*Edit to add that I tried researching this online, but the results were vague, at best. I plan on calling my credit card company soon to see if they have any information on what happens in these types of situations.

1 hour ago, njhorseman said:

 

Fstuff1...you're the one with no clue. I suggest you look at NCL's balance sheet.

 

As of December 31, 2019, the latest publicly available data...which is going to look even worse when the first quarter 2020 financials are posted...NCL had cash of $253 million on hand and total current assets (cash, prepaid expenses, accounts receivable) of $730 million.

 

However, NCL has current liabilities of $3.584 billion including $1.955 billion in advance ticket sales alone. 

 

If only a minority of passengers request a cash refund for their already cancelled cruises or future cruises, NCL doesn't have the cash to pay them, not to mention that NCL also won't have the cash to pay the current portion of their long term debt, which at $746 million is by itself more than their current assets.

 

The balance sheet can be found on page 75 of their Form 10-K:

http://www.nclhltdinvestor.com/static-files/ebce2e02-cf0d-42ce-b3f6-4c91efcd3c9a

 

Thank you for posting this, and confirms what I suspected. My hope is that with NCL being so profitable leading up to this pandemic, that banks would likely be willing to loan them money since we know that this pandemic will

eventually subside. 

40 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

 

you have no clue about ncl's finances, do u?

they have enuf cash/credit to cover expenses thru the yr w/o 1 single customer

Where are you getting this info? I’m not doubting you, I’m genuinely curious and hope you’re right since NCL owes me 4K in a refund that I’m scared I won’t receive. When I was trying to research their financial situation, I found that they have something like 250 million cash on hand, which is nowhere near enough to cover their expenses with no revenue coming in. Do they have a large line of credit I’m not aware of?

5 minutes ago, SeaShark said:

Yeah, but there is no dispute there either. The cruise was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown. Does either NCL or the guest disagree with this?

What, exactly, is your angle? Are you simply arguing that people should be disputing charges with their credit card companies, and not “bickering” about it here? If so, what’s wrong with discussing NCL business practices on a NCL dedicated forum? You suggest people are “bickering” but most of the arguing is stemming from you. Whatever happened to just moving along if you read something you don’t like? Surely, arguing about it for days and keeping the thread at the top of the page is counterintuitive.

3 minutes ago, SeaShark said:

 

You don't have to wait! Don't you see that? Just call your Credit Card issuer and have the conversation outlined in Post #103. Do it RIGHT NOW. No waiting necessary.

 

You aren't going to get a refund here...no matter what. That is the part that really irks me. CALL THEM. Don't wait. CALL THEM.

Thanks captain obvious. I had no idea that I couldn’t get a refund through Cruise Critic, I really appreciate your insight. I guess a message board dedicated to Norwegian Cruise Line is not the place to discuss business practices of Norwegian Cruise Line. Just an FYI, people can post their frustrations here, while also handling things like chargebacks with their credit card company. The two are not mutually exclusive. 

4 minutes ago, SeaShark said:

 

Big distinction...OK. Where did NCL state that they "were not going to begin refunds until 90 days after April 13"? Please reference a link or provide a screenshot showing where you got that particular phrase.Within vs after is a big distinction, and so is "begin". 

It’s right in the cancellation letter they sent out to everyone. Direct copy and paste from

the letter.

A lesser value refund is also available for guests who do not wish to avail themselves of the 125% future cruise credit. Those guests can request a refund of the fare paid to be reimbursed to the original form of payment 90 days after completing the request form at www.ncl.com/case-submission/peace-of-mind. The form will be available from April 13 through April 27, 2020.

1 minute ago, SeaShark said:

 

Not exactly...

 

"Those guests can request a refund of the fare paid to be reimbursed to the original form of payment 90 days after completing the request form..."

 

The only after (since you bolded it) was 90 days after completing the form, not refund after 90 days. Be honest. Stop the Cruise Critic histrionics and just call your credit card issuer and lay it out.

 

One thing for certain...you can post here till your keyboard falls apart and it won't speed up your refund...so why post instead of calling? Some people, not me of course, might thing you'd rather complain on a forum than get the refund.

If we want to get technical about it, it would be 104 days since they force you to wait 2 weeks from the time of their cancellation announcement before you can even fill the form out. That part really irks me. Why should anyone have to wait 2 weeks to fill out a form that already exists?