Hey everyone!
Firstly, I want to reiterate how blown away we are by the response and attention this community has shown to our situation. I want to go out and say while we appreciate all the responses, a special / huge shout out / thank you to wrk2cruise!
We emailed the CEO and director of customer engagement (Jennifer is on mat leave btw) this morning and got a call back within 2 hours from a member from their ‘Engagement Center Senior Leadership.’
They were super helpful and finally started to be proactive about jumping in to help. It took about a day, but I’m pleased to share that Celebrity will be refunding us the entire amount that was owed for the flights we paid out of pocket. They’ve also been great about giving us updates throughout the day so I think we’re really glad to put this chapter behind us. Just need to see the amount credited back to our account.
In terms of extra compensation for the inconvenience, they provided me with $150 FCC which isn’t the greatest but not worth trying to push / prolong this any longer. We’re ready to put this behind us and honestly, i can’t understate this enough - it’s all thanks to this forum or else I would probably be still talking on the phone with Celebrity contact center.
In terms of the recent questions regarding my TA, I’ll be thinking twice on whether I will use them again. I certainly believe that they should have been the ones dealing with this on our behalves since they were the ones coordinating our travel and definitely shouldn’t be let off the hook. Also, since the airfare wasn’t paid for by Celebrity, we basically ‘paid’ for the entire reservation which included the return flight home.
In closing, just want to put out some Lessons Learned for those who may be experiencing similar issues like we have:
1. First point of contact in the event of travel emergency should be to contact the Celebrity emergency travel team
2. For those who want to be cautious, best to call the airline in the event you can’t check-in to make sure you have a valid airfare. This might buy you some time to make sure the celebrity emergency travel team can get you on your way
3. If you do encounter issues on your travel, make sure to raise with guest services when you get on ship. They might be able to help you out / get it resolved before you leave the boat. Also, ask for FCC if you believe it’s warranted. Their first offer is usually low, so I would recommend asking if that is their best offer. FYI - first offers were a specialty dining meal. Also, they are likely to give you FCC before getting high speed internet.
4. Try your best with dealing with the contact center, but if you aren’t making good headway; I would recommend emailing engagementcenterseniorleadership@celebrity.com. I believe they’ll make up for the shortcomings of the phone team.
Thanks again for everyone’s support and looks like this forum helped us put closure on this nightmare.
THANK YOU.