Megabear2

She's beautiful. So glad she made a full recovery and you found each other.

How about A Hard Rains Gonna Fall - Bob Dylan or Rainy Night in Georgia - Brook Benton

This boy is 14 now and has never needed a dental before. Apparently it's built up during lockdown when he never got his 6 monthly checks. Unfortunately insurance doesn't cover dental unless it's emergency or accident. You are right, they do cost a fortune but worth every penny. My OH says he's the most expensive freebie he's ever had - he found him in a cupboard in our car port and kept him hidden from me as I was looking after my 26 year old lady in her last few months. Gentle loving boy he is he kept her company and watched over her in her last few days when his existence was finally told to me.

As you love cats here's my rather imperious DFC (Distinguished Feline Companion) who's just returned from a rather expensive dentist visit - I could have had a week on Iona for the cost of his bill!

Back when I first stated I wanted to go on a cruise - on a school trip to Southampton in 1968 - I was laughed at all the way home. I was told in no uncertain terms that cruising was not for someone like me from an Essex council estate but was for the affluent and this is what I refer to not that anyone posting here is affluent or not. I do however feel that every time this topic opens up very few sympathise with the poor individual who finds themselves caught out and simply offer that's the way it is as the answer and I make no apologies for saying so. Back when I first asked for help on understanding some points in 2013 when I first signed up to CC I felt very unwelcome and intimidated albeit not on this particular forum but that of another line. I have never forgotten this and therefore try to offer sympathy and help to newer people asking what may seem questions they should know the answer to but didn't think to consider before leaping in. And no I am not suggesting they can't run a bank account or are less intelligent. I'm suggesting that in some cases they didn't understand or expect a big corporation to effectively block off chunks of their money when they have already paid their bill as in every day life very few circumstances arise where that happens. Ironically reading the few posts from those caught, they are often the most sensible who set themselves a budget for their spend. Back in 2022 when this thread opened this issue was a hot potato with quite a few people posting about it. It remains so apparently so if it's all so clear cut and obvious the message is clearly not getting through to everyone.

Whilst that is true for those of us lucky to not have to worry too much it is becoming rather more obvious from posts on these boards across all the lines that many newer cruisers do not understand the way it works. Also P&O in particular are trying to bring younger people onboard using tempting low cost deals and these people may not have access to long lines of credit but rely on the money they've saved in their current account covering their expenditure. Cruising is no longer the preserve of the more affluent of society but a mainstream holiday. A lot of these people only holiday on a pay as you go basis, running an account isn't something they do often. It remains that a lot of these people do budget, set an amount they can afford and then find despite doing all this they fall foul. The issue we have isn't people being profligate and over spending more the way the system works being unclear and making their budget worthless. I objected to being forced by Barclays many many years ago to have a Barclaycard when they issued them as support for cheques rather than debit cards.

Do Virgin offer any travel insurance? I suppose the question is do you want to travel this year as it might be easiest to bite the bullet.

You may well be better making telephone calls as (a) these are recorded and (b) you can go into more detail than just ticking the boxes to get computer says no. As I said my aunt got cover with All Clear with her recently diagnosed heart failure and I know that Nationwide also offered cover because her now partner wanted to add her on his policy but she wanted to stay independent. I have to call every year for husband - he has quite major problems including a myocardial Bridge (missing two heart valves since birth), fibromyalgia, ME, IBS and chronic depression. Yes, the cost is high but the benefits to him of his holidays are so much worth the stress to me! Perhaps call Nationwide, you can do the medical questionnaire and get a quote before you open an account. You would at least have a whole year of cover with UK Insurance if you do it before end of April and hopefully the market will get calmer by next year.

I did but got nowhere. Eventually the Canadians were threatening me with collection agencies so I paid it myself and went down the complaint route. Ironically my complaint was upheld and I was awarded compensation which came to more than the C$400 for the ambulance. They even went so far as to defend themselves by saying the Canadians had inflated the ambulance costs - they had because Canada charges tourists 4 times the normal cost for medical services including ambulances - but the Ombudsman told them you can't tell a foreign government how to charge!

The point oceanlad is making is that the cruise line will be holding your £60 or whatever daily spend and placing a pending charge. Unless you are actively looking to see you aren't going to know or bother about it because you have no need, particularly with a high limit. The amount of available credit is reduced daily and when you receive your statement you just see what you expect. In my case Princess took nearly £4,000 from my credit card to hold for my aunt's onboard medical bill which was not my liability and I was unaware of until 48 hours later I flew back to Italy and was required to start paying hospital costs to facilitate my aunt's treatment. It took a huge fight of over 18 months to sort all that so I now check every day my credit and debit card pending transactions. Unfortunately the five figure limit doesn't go far in a major health situation these days.

Cigna once refused to pay for an ambulance to hospital for me in Canada after I passed out at Montreal airport and Air Canada insisted I need to be checked before rebooking. They discussed in depth my cancer treatment from 20 years previously which had been declared and actually stated my overheating mentioned by the Canadian doctor may have been caused by that treatment!

I recall the very upset MIL who posted she had treated her son in law to a P&O cruise, that he budgeted perfectly within his preset and then found himself overdrawn at the bank for a month because P&O didn't release the hold for 30 days. She was upset because her treat had turned into a bit of a disaster for him. Yes, may not be typical but oceanlad is correct that not everyone can have their funds locked for no good reason.

Do you check your credit card account daily alongside checking your P&O account? Certainly if I check mine the daily amount is withheld from my credit limit every day and shows as a pending amount. This is Amex. I have a five figure credit limit and a zero balance at commencement of my cruise so until I had the cruise nightmare with Princess in 2022 I never even thought to look.

I notice you state you work for a bank so I assume you are fully conversant on the actual rules about holding funds on credit and debit cards. There have been countless threads on this topic over the years here and I for one have searched everywhere I can think of for a copy of the regulations and rules to no avail. I have found the Visa regulations for the US which were pretty clear that after settlement had been made any pre authorisation should by their regulations be removed in 48 hours. So my question to you is where can the customer of Visa, Mastercard etc actually find the rules applicable to merchants/banks for UK issued cards? Unless we can actually see these for ourselves we are pretty much having to accept the batch processing method the cruise lines use as gospel and this is why very few replying to you will accept your position - incidentally as a former lawyer I do!

You are underwritten by Aviva too. I believe it used to be Cigna but they left the market so your problem may have been under them. Cancer is a strange one, obviously it's a critical illness at the start of treatment but insurers are aware that proper treatment actually reduces the risk. Basically not many holidaymakers are going to have major issues or die on their holiday as a result of their cancer whereas those with other more common issues such as high cholesterol and blood pressure are. Underwriting looks at risk not causation and anyone with cancer reduces in risk quite rapidly for them. As a recovered cancer patient I find it odd that some insurers insist on a declaration of any cancer in a lifetime yet others only collate medical conditions for 5 years, 3 years, 2 years or in the case of Allianz and Nationwide policies only 12 months.

There has been a huge increase in the cost of travel insurance across the board, in fact in any insurance related product. Presently insurance underwriters are changing how they offer third party cover which is also resulting in withdrawal from the market and reducing the available pool. Three of the biggest have gone since 2021. Basically individuals will now need to weigh up how much they value their cruise/holidays and if paying for something they may not need (such as a packaged bank account) is a good use of their money or not. In our case it was a no brainer for many years via Lloyd's /Halifax and then the underwriters changed, much the same as is happening with Nationwide and the cover deteriorated. At that point moving into the open market was a massive financial shock, what had been costing a hundred pounds or so suddenly multiplied by five. In 2021/2 with all the covid requirements still in place lots of offers were going on to encourage people back. Once the pandemic became a distant memory the prices rose in 2022/3, for instance my husband's policy nearly doubled from £600 to £1,100, my own staying at around £350 so a total of around £1,450 As a result we dropped back into the Halifax packaged banking world in January 2023 where his medical add ons were a lump sum payment of £223, no extra for me and £18 a month for the bank account. Grand total £439 for the year, worldwide annual travel insurance covering winter sports and cruising, not the missed ports stuff but good solid cover for the vital stuff. This year because I'm rapidly approaching 70 and the cut off for many insurers, I've shopped the market and found that the package bank account still wins hands down both for cost and level of cover. Nationwide under UK insurance actually means a price reduction in our case for fuller cover so a bit of juggling and opening another account has been necessary but overall the £13 per month plus the £216 add ons for my husband's 5 major illnesses means its still worth the £156 a year for the bank account as we are now at a third of the cost for his policy alone, never mind me. We have cruises booked well into 2026 including trips to the US and Caribbean and a QM2 world cruise for me. We are budgeting that if we re--enter the open market we need to look at around £2,000 minimum for my OH alone on insurance, Staysure and Avanti quoting £1,500 for him alone in January this year. I guess what I'm saying is every single one of us will need to work a lot harder on finding a suitable cover, may find ourselves buying something we only want to use a part of and sadly some of us may decide it's just not worth the difficulty and extra expense.

The £100 is to cover the fuel cost because of drive offs. Certainly Morrisons and Sainsbury's release it immediately, can't say about the others but it's the merchant releasing that money not the bank. As you cannot leave the ship unless your account is at zero there's really no need for a preventative hold. I can say for certain if the cruise line doesn't want you off, you aren't going Never forget Princess improve for my aunts nill.

I hope he wasn't got white ears!

That was probably the thinking originally, however it hasn't materialised as they expected. Arvia has "lost" an MDR to a paid for food based restaurant but it is very rarely full from my experience. The food is good but far more expensive than the other paid restaurants - my meal there was almost double the Epicurean one. Many consider it to be living on borrowed time as a bit of a white element. Unfortunately the negatives of vegetarianism have been long known. I'm 68 years old and from the age of 11 to 23 I would not eat anything other than a veg based diet following a very major illness and a year in hospital. At the age of 21 my doctors were pushing me to add some meat/fish to my diet for health reasons - I was developing major vitamin and other deficiencies that supplements were not helping. After I married at 23 I wanted to take part in sports alongside my new husband and had little choice but to eat fish and other meats in small quantities. I note you are a new poster. A lot of the negative comments you mentioned implying vegans shouldn't be catered for are actually very tongue in cheek. Put simply this menu cutting since the restart is emotive!

Same procedure on the credit card, it's just a lot don't realise it's the case unless they are very near their credit limit or have a small one. I had a massive argument with Cunard when my mother paid cash to clear her onboard account and they did not release her funds for 30 days, particularly as she then got charged foreign transaction fees. It is the merchant who has to clear it as you say but the fact is like a lot of things the cruise line wants to do everything for their convenience.

Yes, that's my take on it too. It's a Nationwide policy underwritten by Aviva not an Aviva policy. Aviva are one of the biggest providers of third party underwriting, doing policies for companies like M&S amongst others and every one has different terms of cover. Unless Nationwide are deliberately trying to reduce the number having their Flexplus account for this perk they presumably have no intention to lose those customers.

Thank you. Just did a dummy and it did accept myocardial bridge, now to see if Aviva will on 1 May. Nationwide have said they negotiated the nearest contract to the one they currently offer. It will get interesting if they dump all their loyal customers if Aviva narrow who they'll cover. Incidentally All Clear cover my aunt for heart failure and she obtained that cover only 6 months after her disastrous Rome escapade. She ha a full year for all regions save US/Caribbean for £570 including companion insurance and no excess. They have been excellent.

It isn't the vegan options alone that cause the discussion though. It's the overall menu reducing to accommodate vegans, vegetarian all things in-between. Basically the discussion is that choice for everyone is actually very limited compared with when vegetarian dishes were on one menu, vegan on another, various diet for medical needs on another and so on. The vegan/vegetarian bashing as people see it isn't really directed at those who eat those options. It is a general observation everyone is now getting a very reduced choice. We have a regular poster on the boards who complains regularly about a roast being offered every day. At first look you might laugh but actually she has a valid point. It's lazy menu planning not one type of food or another that prompts the discussion.

Sorry to be thick but to check Nationwide cover not Aviva is their a portal you used to check? Nationwide and Aviva direct policies will be different as Aviva is acting as third party underwriter. Only the Nationwide medical check will say if Aviva will cover. If Avril is buying now she will get a year with UK direct. She needs to do the check/open the account before 30 April.

Thanks. So you didn't actually check with Nationwide on their own line? Currently they are still selling the old company before 1 May. It's the agreement on their behalf I was looking for.