TA canceled cruise without warning venting, an when to file compaint question

I just booked on a cruise Monday for a cruise next year with a TA that got great reviews and my sister and i chose to book with the same TA, but we had separate bookings. We went with a refundable deposit room in case there were price drops. We booked on the same day and everything was fine and we even told each other that we liked him a lot.

The next day, Tuesday, we started thinking about switching to a bigger suite so I emailed him asking him about the price for a bigger suite and whether or not he knew the balconies connected. I received several emails from him on Wednesday, but they were all ads for $1 deposit for cruises and other cruise deals and on Thursday, my sister was concerned that we had still not heard from him.

Thursday afternoon I called him because my sister said she had a price drop on her room and since she lost her voice, I called. He did not answer and I left a message, but by then my sister was upset that we could not get a hold of him after booking and decided to cancel her reservation with him since time is of the essence when doing price drops, and she booked with another agency that honored the price drop price she found. He called me about 15 minutes later with information on my price drop and he said it wouldn't save me any money for the price drop, so we didn't change anything. I asked him if he had received my email I sent on Tuesday and he said he would take a look and email me the response. I called my sister after and told her he called, but she had already cancelled. A couple hours later, I got an email from him asking if my sister cancelled and if I would still be traveling, to which I told him yes I would. (He did not answer my question that I wrote to him on Tuesday in that email, but maybe it was because he thought my sister had cancelled, so he didn't need to, so I gave up on getting my question answered). An hour later he emailed me and asked me if she had a better quote. Since she did because she saw a price drop they didn't match, I answered him yes, but that I would like to stay with them.

Friday, the next morning, I got an email from him saying essentially that even though she got a better price, it didn't match the service and quality that he provided and not everything should be looked at in monetary value, and then he recused himself from being my TA also. I was fine with that, because if he was upset my sister went with another company, I didn't want him to give me bad service. I figured that he would transfer me to another agent in their company. 3 hours after I received that email that said he wasn't my TA anymore, I got a confirmation cancel cruise email from their company. Naturally I was shocked because I had written him twice that I wanted to stay with them and I said nothing about wanting to cancel my cruise. I quickly called up the TA my sister had booked with because I didn't want to stay with that company if they treated me that way and luckily she was able to get me the same deal from the day before. I wanted the same room that I was booked in before but she said that they hadn't cancelled that room with the cruise line yet, so I had to call them.

So I called them (a different agent, I didnt want to talk to the one that recused himself as my TA) and asked to speak to a supervisor, but of course they were all busy. So I talked to the person answering the phone and said I never said I wanted to cancel and I wrote twice that I didn't want to cancel and didn't know why they cancelled my reservation, but I said I for sure wanted to cancel now because I didn't trust them and felt like they didn't treat me well as a customer. He said they could reinstate my reservation and I told him definitely not, I just wanted to cancel my reservation through the cruise line. He said he would have to talk to my original booking agent about what happened because he said usually they cancel with the cruise line first, then their accounting dept, but this time he cancelled with the accounting dept first, and hadn't cancelled with the cruise line. He asked if I wanted a supervisor to call me back and I said yes. After an hour, I saw that my cruise with still listed in my cruise planner and I called them again, but there was no answer. After another half hour, I saw that it was still not cancelled, so I called them again and asked to speak to a supervisor or the person I was just talking to. They were both on the phone, of course, so could not talk to me, so I asked if she could check my reservation was cancelled thru the cruise line and she said finally that it was. And I checked and it finally got cancelled, and luckily I got the room I wanted with my new TA.

Sorry for the long rant, but has this happened with anyone else? I don't know why he would cancel my reservation if I told him I wanted to stay with them, other then the fact that he was upset my sister cancelled, but we are 2 different people and had different reservations. I would like to write about my experience to warn people that they are good at booking but not great after, but am worried if I post a negative review or file a complaint that they will do something with my new booking. Since I don't cruise until next year, when should I write about this? Suggestions?

Just reading through your post, I'd say you're better off without your first TA. If he's so annoyed that your sister cancelled her booking with him (because he didn't get back to her in a timely manner) that he's taking it out on you, then you need to go elsewhere.

I'd have been a lot more patient than you in waiting to speak to a supervisor - I would certainly have told them what the issues were and how what happened has coloured your impression of the company. If I didn't get a decent apology from the supervisor for the TA's actions, then I'd certainly take my business elsewhere and post a negative review as a warning to others. Let us know what happens with this, please.

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

Drop the TA and move on not worth your time and effort at this point. Myself I do not use agents always book direct and can change anything up to 90 or 75 days out. The agent is not worth wasting your time.

I know some people love TAs and swear by them so they can get some OBC or something but this is one of the many reasons I would never use a TA. Much easier to handle these things on your own.

I have never read (although difficult to get thru ) about such an effort to remain with the same bad TA and/or Agency ?

Plenty of Good TA's out there who will always get back to you promptly (especially the large agencies that use Homebased Cruise Specialist TA's) ) that always offer better deals than booking Direct .

Sorry you had such hassles, but this reinforces my long-standing policy of booking direct with the cruiseline. Every time a person adds in another moving part to a situation, there's one more thing that can go wrong.

What should you do about this? Forget about it. Leave a negative review on Yelp or some other social media platform, if it will make you feel better. Don’t use this TA again. It certainly wasn’t worth writing a book about.

There are times when attorneys fire clients, cruise lines and airlines bar customers from future bookings, and virtually every other business rejects customers for their own business reasons. Essentially you were fired as a customer. Your story is very convoluted and we will never know the whole story, especially from the TA's (who had great reviews from others) point of view. Move on and deal with someone who wants your business.

Sorry about your bad experience with a TA that "had good reviews". I gather that this is a TA that you can't go to and talk to personally.

We have been fortunate that we have had a TA for over 26 years that we can go to and talk to personally besides talking to her on the phone.

You really don't need to write to a supervisor since you will not be using them anymore unless you want to. That is up to you.

Yeah, my sister said its a good thing we figured out early not to use them. Probaby will file a complaint with the consumer boards later on. I've moved on to another TA. Thanks for the advice and letting me vent

What should you do about this? Forget about it. Leave a negative review on Yelp or some other social media platform, if it will make you feel better. Don’t use this TA again. It certainly wasn’t worth writing a book about.

Excellent advice.

Keith

Yeah, my sister said its a good thing we figured out early not to use them. Probaby will file a complaint with the consumer boards later on. I've moved on to another TA. Thanks for the advice and letting me vent

I see that you're in SoCal. We do have requirements for TA registration in California (even if they are not located here) and you can file a complaint with the AG's office. https://oag.ca.gov/travel

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Sorry for your problem. Agree with others - better to move on - also so easy to book on line or over the phone with cruise line direct.

If you choose to pursue and write or email anyone suggest using paragraphs. Your post was very difficult to read.

Wow you went through a lot of trouble to make that rant. :)

I book all of our cruises direct with the cruise line, no middle person.

Wow you went through a lot of trouble to make that rant. :)

 

I book all of our cruises direct with the cruise line, no middle person.

Sometimes you need to get things out to be able to move on. I totally get the need to write a rant;). If you really want to make it official there should be some agency in your country/state/region that should handle accreditation of travel agents, usually through them you can make a complaint.

Wow you went through a lot of trouble to make that rant. :)

 

 

 

I book all of our cruises direct with the cruise line, no middle person.

You would pass up a TA's addition of gratuities and 1-2K refundable OBC on a longer "expensive" cruise?.

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Even on less expensive cruises, the amount of onboard credit adds up. We received a casino rate for the cruise we took last month and still got a little bit of OBC by booking it through a big box store.

For the OP, I say write a more concise complaint on the places where you saw rave reviews.

If the OP was communicating to the T/A in the same manner as the post, I think either confusion or frustration had a factor. While the T/A gets paid a flat fee for making the arrangements, they don't get paid extra to deal with constant questions and demands

I would not bother with that TA or hi is agency. Get on with making your plans with the new agen t and look forward to you and your sister having a wonderful cruise. Let it go....... IMO

If the OP was communicating to the T/A in the same manner as the post, I think either confusion or frustration had a factor. While the T/A gets paid a flat fee for making the arrangements, they don't get paid extra to deal with constant questions and demands

These were my thoughts as well. Very possible the T/A decided it was not worth the calls, questions, changes, etc. The T/A probably could have handled it better, but I can understand not wanting to continue handling the customer in this case.

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Suggestion.....skip the play by play, get to the point. I started dozing off after the first four lines.....As for personal TA's....nothing anyone can do for you here.....between you and them.

I was venting which is why I wrote so much. This is my first time venting on a forum, so I just went with it. If I ever need to vent again, i won't give a play by play. When I talked to the TA, I asked directed and to the point questions, so that wasn't it. It helped me move on, so it was worth it. Thanks to those that gave good advice.