Hidden On-Board-Booking T&C's for UK residents

Are you UK customers of Regent aware that not all is as it seems when you book on board

I booked 2 cruises last Dec when on the Explorer, 1 in Jan 2019, again on the Explorer, and another on the Navigator in Aug 2019

I now have had cause to try and change the Navigator cruise due to future insurance problems that may crop up

When we booked I received with the confirmations a letter confirming the T&C's for On-Board-Bookings and these were also printed on the booking confirmations stating that we were eligible for a "one-time Change-of-Sailing prior to the final payment date"

This is not correct for UK customers as far as Regent are concerned as as soon as you change the booking you are transferred back to the onerous UK T&C's and have to pay the full 20% deposit and you loose any advantage on booking on board

We are not new to Regent, in fact we are Platinum level and we feel badly cheated. I have e-mailed Jason O'Keefe but have received neither an acknowledgement or answer

We have cancelled the cruise as there is no way I am going to commit a 20% deposit a year and a half before the cruise and not be able to change without loosing the deposit. We have recently only booked on board as then you get US T&C's because up to recently Southampton would give us US T&C's even if we booked with a UK TA but that has stopped

Yes, this has been the case for some time. We got “caught” with this situation when we moved a cruise early last year.

If you read the “teeny, tiny” print you will find it states that, when moving a cruise, the new cruise is on normal booking conditions i.e. for us in the UK a non refundable 20% deposit etc etc

Since we are on board now, we have hopefully just overcome this problem by moving a cruise while on board that we had previously booked on board last year (to be more accurate what we have done is cancelled the previous on board booking and moved the deposit without penalty to a new on board bookin)

It is a shame the hoops that Regent UK feel they have to put UK guests through, but I suppose they have the Miami accountants on their backs to try to improve profits & cashflow. Maybe as an NCLH shareholder I should not complain too much :rolleyes:

If I remember what I've learned from U.K. posters correctly, there are a lot of hoops that cruise lines such as Regent (not U.K. based) have to jump through to meet the strict laws of the U.K. There are likely different hoops that they have to jump through due to laws in the U.S. and Canada.

You must have good eye sight flossie because I am unable to see where it mentions the change of booking T&C's

It is a shame we have had to cancel as we were starting to use Regent for cruising as we are big Silversea clients, over 700 days, and are not keen of the way the are moving these days. We could not book further with Regent this year as we still have 5 cruises to do with Silversea before we go on the Explorer in Jan 2019. We were looking to book more cruises when on the Explorer in Jan before we went on the Navigator but will certainly not be doing that now

TC as I mentioned in my OP we had 'till early last year booked with Regent UK (There is one) through a UK TA and were allowed to book under US T&C's, all we wanted was for the cancellation clause not to be so onerous

You must have good eye sight flossie because I am unable to see where it mentions the change of booking T&C's

 

 

It is a shame we have had to cancel as we were starting to use Regent for cruising as we are big Silversea clients, over 700 days, and are not keen of the way the are moving these days. We could not book further with Regent this year as we still have 5 cruises to do with Silversea before we go on the Explorer in Jan 2019. We were looking to book more cruises when on the Explorer in Jan before we went on the Navigator but will certainly not be doing that now

 

TC as I mentioned in my OP we had 'till early last year booked with Regent UK (There is one) through a UK TA and were allowed to book under US T&C's, all we wanted was for the cancellation clause not to be so onerous

I believe Regent UK are relying on the phrase under “Change-of-Sailing” on the covering letter given to you on board which states: “New voyage booking terms and additional deposit requirements may apply”. I thought there was something elsewhere as well but I cannot find it.

I had never heard of anyone resident in the UK being allowed to book under U.S. Ts&Cs. I learn something every day.

Not much point in taking the matter up with Jason O’Keefe; better would be Graham Sadler in the Southampton office with a copy to Jason Montague in Miami.

Best of luck with pursuing your grievance, as I totally agree that the way this is handled for UK guests is not clearly explained up front.

Thanks for reply flossie and I have done as you suggested although being a Bank holiday it may take a while if I'm lucky enough to get a reply

By the way Happy Birthday and enjoy this and the next cruise

You must have good eye sight flossie because I am unable to see where it mentions the change of booking T&C's

 

 

It is a shame we have had to cancel as we were starting to use Regent for cruising as we are big Silversea clients, over 700 days, and are not keen of the way the are moving these days. We could not book further with Regent this year as we still have 5 cruises to do with Silversea before we go on the Explorer in Jan 2019. We were looking to book more cruises when on the Explorer in Jan before we went on the Navigator but will certainly not be doing that now

 

TC as I mentioned in my OP we had 'till early last year booked with Regent UK (There is one) through a UK TA and were allowed to book under US T&C's, all we wanted was for the cancellation clause not to be so onerous

I personally have no experience of this, but I have a friend who regularly cruises with a US Cruise Line and never ever books through a UK based TA. She uses a US TA and says that the few phone calls she has to make, work out next to nothing compared with the difference in price/obc/better cancellation terms.

Could this option work for you?

I personally have no experience of this, but I have a friend who regularly cruises with a US Cruise Line and never ever books through a UK based TA. She uses a US TA and says that the few phone calls she has to make, work out next to nothing compared with the difference in price/obc/better cancellation terms.

 

Could this option work for you?

From the perspective of someone that lives in the lives in the U.S., I cannot see how this would work with Regent. After all, their flights are based on your city of residence. Perhaps your friend is booking a cruise without air or anything else that would let the U.S. based cruise line know that they are in the U.K. It has been our experience that the UK gets better pricing than the US on certain itineraries.

From the perspective of someone that lives in the lives in the U.S., I cannot see how this would work with Regent. After all, their flights are based on your city of residence. Perhaps your friend is booking a cruise without air or anything else that would let the U.S. based cruise line know that they are in the U.K. It has been our experience that the UK gets better pricing than the US on certain itineraries.

You are so right TC, as until recently my friend worked for an airline, so always booked flights separately.

The friend now works for a dedicated cruise TA, so not sure how they book now.

We are UK residents but also live part of the year in the US and we priced our recently booked cruise through both our US and UK travel agents. For us, the pricing was better with our UK agent, although the T&Cs would have been better through our US agent. We went with the UK agent as we had no intention of cancelling - although given that the cruise takes in St Petersburg, we may want to re-consider that. Not sure how welcome we will be there! We always book our flights independently of the cruise line.

We used to book cruises through a US based agent but a few years ago this was banned by a couple of lines. Not sure if Regent was one of them. Better terms and generally cheaper. We now use a UK agent and only once have they been able to arrange the superior US terms