Sorry to bump an old topic but very frustrated with P&O on this, couldn't see a more current one and wanted to correct a few people just blaming the banking system.
When a card payment is authorised, your bank will usually withhold funds from your available balance for 7 days, but increasingly popular mobile based banking apps such as Chase will withhold for upto 30 days. If the payment is released back onto your balance as the merchant did not collect it, the merchant *can still* collect that payment for up to 6 months from the original authorisation date.
Some have drawn comparisons to making a deposit on a hotel room. This isnt the same thing. When you pay this, you know what you're paying upfront and that it is a pre-authorisation incase of damages, it is not a duplicate of the booking itself. The price per night of the room itself will usually be higher than the authorisation.
What P&O is doing is charging people twice, in full, for all purchases made onboard. Yes, they may not ultimately collect the second authorisation, but making somebody wait up to 30 days to access their own funds is not acceptable, particularly in this financial climate.
There is nothing that would stop P&O simply collecting the initial authorisation on the day it is made or shortly thereafter, so their insistence on charging twice, in full, without clear communication prior to boarding is incredibly frustrating.
Another annoying factor is that P&O will ask you to contact your bank to cancel the authorisation. As somebody who works in the industry I can assure you that no bank will cancel an authorisation solely on a customer's request as they would have no assurance that, for instance, an item wasn't purchased twice and the customer wasn't trying to pull a fast one. So P&O are directing customers down a blind avenue to other organisations on a no hope quest to sort problems of their own making.
Incredibly poor and frustrating from P&O. While we won't struggle, we now have to wait 3+ weeks for £600.00+ spent onboard and would have spent differently otherwise, whereas others could really be financially reliant on the withheld payments.
Suggestions that people should take credit out just to accommodate a cruise line are nonsense - the cruise line should get their act together.