Keep an Eye on Windstar/Xterra OVERCHARGES

Just came back from a Windstar cruise. Our on ship billing should have been pretty simple-- our only charges were a beverage package and gratuities. When the preliminary bill was presented it had an erroneous spa charge--I went to reception and that instituted a correction. I went back the next day and asked for a revised print out--the spa charge was reversed but we now had a erroneous bar charge. Got that corrected and the "Final Bill" left on our door looked correct. But we have now checked our credit card record and found that the amount actually charged by Windstar on our final day exceeds the amount shown on our "Final Bill". So now we are having to dispute the charges and go through all that rigamarole through our credit card company.

If I seem impatient with this it might help to know that when I booked this cruise--Windstar ran through the charges for the cruise twice!! (Overbilled for more than $9,000). Although they admitted it was their error they did not reverse the charge for 7 days because they claimed they were not required by law to do so --they categorized correction of their error as a "refund". Had we not been committed to a group travelling I would have ditched it then.

I have travelled on more than a dozen cruises (3 Windstar) and cannot recall an erroneous charge on any others.

I am checking Windstar reviews and noting complaints about reservation staff and some people saying the service levels are dropping. My feeling is that Windstar/Xterra is cutting corners on the training and experience of their staff and has really poor systems. REVIEW YOUR CHARGES CAREFULLY!!!

Sorry, I meant to write Xanterra, not Xterra as the parent co for Windstar.

Just came back from a Windstar cruise. Our on ship billing should have been pretty simple-- our only charges were a beverage package and gratuities. When the preliminary bill was presented it had an erroneous spa charge--I went to reception and that instituted a correction. I went back the next day and asked for a revised print out--the spa charge was reversed but we now had a erroneous bar charge. Got that corrected and the "Final Bill" left on our door looked correct. But we have now checked our credit card record and found that the amount actually charged by Windstar on our final day exceeds the amount shown on our "Final Bill". So now we are having to dispute the charges and go through all that rigamarole through our credit card company.

 

If I seem impatient with this it might help to know that when I booked this cruise--Windstar ran through the charges for the cruise twice!! (Overbilled for more than $9,000). Although they admitted it was their error they did not reverse the charge for 7 days because they claimed they were not required by law to do so --they categorized correction of their error as a "refund". Had we not been committed to a group travelling I would have ditched it then.

 

I have travelled on more than a dozen cruises (3 Windstar) and cannot recall an erroneous charge on any others.

 

I am checking Windstar reviews and noting complaints about reservation staff and some people saying the service levels are dropping. My feeling is that Windstar/Xterra is cutting corners on the training and experience of their staff and has really poor systems. REVIEW YOUR CHARGES CAREFULLY!!!

Just a question. Was that double billing that took 7 days to reserse an actual charge or a "hold" charge that likely showed on your account as "pending". It is common practice that those don't show as billed, they generally just sit there and just disappear. The issue, of course, is that that $9,000 was a hold against our total credit line, in a lot of cases it doesn't matter but 9K is a big call against the credit line!

I'm sorry you had repeated problems with your bill. I've always found the staff on board to be amazing, especially given the systems they have to work with. Closing out all those bills can be a mess and while unfortunate it is probably inescapable that some things fall through the cracks.

You did what we always do on a cruise, that is do a detailed check of our account daily including the first day. I always find an error on something and get it corrected immediately. The primary error type is cocktail charges where the stateroom number was in error.

The erroneous charges are always reversed with no problem, but your advice is right on point.

Not an overcharge problem but an accounting problem a few times on WS. And I love this line! But their accounting dept. has been in disarray I've found. Because of tour cancellations on our part or theirs we left the ship twice with a CREDIT. Of several hundred dollars. Both times it took months to get those credits posted to our credit card. Several phone calls and emails didn't help much except with apologies. We vowed to never leave the ship with WS owing us..even if we have to drink/spa til departure!

Just a question. Was that double billing that took 7 days to reserse an actual charge or a "hold" charge that likely showed on your account as "pending". It is common practice that those don't show as billed, they generally just sit there and just disappear. The issue, of course, is that that $9,000 was a hold against our total credit line, in a lot of cases it doesn't matter but 9K is a big call against the credit line!

 

I'm sorry you had repeated problems with your bill. I've always found the staff on board to be amazing, especially given the systems they have to work with. Closing out all those bills can be a mess and while unfortunate it is probably inescapable that some things fall through the cracks.

The overbilling was not a hold--it was confirmed to be an actual double charge by both my bank and Windstar, My travel agent is appalled that Windstar's system allows over payments to exist without throwing up red flags. I agree with her. Windstar did not discover this error --the bank and I had to contact them and then had to go through a number of levels to get someone who could issue a "refund" for an item they admitted was all their error--no contributing issues on our part.

I agree that the staff on board Windstar is excellent--but their systems not so much. On larger ships, I have noted that cards are often run for all purchases --even prepaid or items on the packages. Windstar relies on the staff to ask for and enter a room number and prides themselves on the idea that there will be no mischarges since the staff is supposed to know everyone by name. Its sort of a "Mom and Pop" approach and it has higher risks of error on ship. Keep an eye on them.

I also had multiple problems with Windstar’s accounting. They:

- overbilled us at final payment and took 10 business days to correct,

- dropped our OBC during a price adjustment without telling us (the OBC was more than the price adjustment),

- refused a price adjustment that we should have been eligible for (under the old policy in effect when we booked),

- put an erroneous charge on our bill,

- didn’t refund us for an excursion in a port they dropped until I asked multiple times, and

- had to be asked several times to refund an excursion we couldn’t take because the ship docked 7 hours late.

I enjoyed our cruise, but I will probably not cruise with Windstar again due to the high hassle factor.

I am pretty much with you. I have in fact grown concerned over that fact that Windstar has my credit card number. This has never concerned me on any other cruise line but seeing them charge me an amount after I got off the ship that did not match any bill ever presented to me makes me frightened as well as angry. How can an accounting system allow charges to be added after the fact?

I am pretty much with you. I have in fact grown concerned over that fact that Windstar has my credit card number. This has never concerned me on any other cruise line but seeing them charge me an amount after I got off the ship that did not match any bill ever presented to me makes me frightened as well as angry. How can an accounting system allow charges to be added after the fact?

This happens with hotels all the time and the amount you pay on departure will often way "this is a preliminary estimate of your final bill". Accounting finds all kinds of things, minibar use, that last breakfast that didn't yet hit your account since you left the restaurant 5 minutes before checking out. Common practice.

We had multiple errors on both our mid-cruise and final bills on our most recent trip. In fact on the final statement, the credit and debit entries didn’t even add up to the cited total credits and total debits, nor the overall total - how does an accounting system do that??? We immediately flagged the errors to reception and were told both times that the accounting system must have glitched when our statements were run and that this often happens! Sure enough when they reran the statements, the entries were correct and so was the math. As a result we watched our credit card for any erroneous charges, but luckily there were none.

This happens with hotels all the time and the amount you pay on departure will often way "this is a preliminary estimate of your final bill". Accounting finds all kinds of things, minibar use, that last breakfast that didn't yet hit your account since you left the restaurant 5 minutes before checking out. Common practice.

And if a hotel charged me for items I did not incur:D and never signed for I would blast those "common practices" too.:D:) The point of this thread is that WS appears to have a system which lacks normal quality controls.